The Romanization of Roman Britain Part 3

[Footnote 3: Vinogradoff, _Growth of the Manor_, p. 39. A parallel to the non-Roman burials found by General Pitt-Rivers may be found in the will of a Lingonian Gaul who died probably in the latter part of the first century. Apparently he was a Roman citizen, and his will is drawn in strict Roman fashion. But its last clause orders the burning of all his hunting apparatus, spears and nets, &c., on his funeral pyre, and thus betrays the Gaulish habit (Bruns, p. 308, ed. 1909).]

The facts which I have tried to set forth in the preceding paragraphs seem to me to possess more weight than is always allowed. Some writers, for instance M. Loth, speak as if the external environment of daily life, the furniture and decorations and architecture of our houses, or the clothes and buckles and brooches of our dress, bore no relation to the feelings and sentiments of those that used them. That is not a tenable proposition. The external fabric of life is not a negligible quant.i.ty but a real factor. On the one hand, it is hardly credible that an unromanized folk should adopt so much of Roman things as the British did, and yet remain uninfluenced. And it is equally incredible that, while it remained unromanized, it should either care or understand how to borrow all the externals of Roman life. The truth of this was clear to Tacitus in the days when the Romanization of Britain was proceeding.

It may be recognized in the east or in Africa to-day. Even among the civilized nations of the present age the recent growth of stronger national feelings has been accompanied by a preference for home-products and home-manufactures and a distaste for foreign surroundings.

CHAPTER VI

ROMANIZATION IN THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND LAND-SYSTEM

I have dealt with the language and the material civilization of the province of Britain. I pa.s.s to a third and harder question, the administrative and legal framework of local Romano-British life. Here we have to discuss the extent to which the Roman town-system of the _colonia_ and _municipium_, and the Roman land-system of the _villa_ penetrated Britain. And, first, as to the towns. Britain, we know, contained five munic.i.p.alities of the privileged Italian type. The _colonia_ of Camulodunum (Colchester) and the _municipium_ of Verulamium (St. Albans), both in the south-east of the island, were established soon after the Claudian conquest. The _colonia_ of Lindum (Lincoln) was probably founded in the early Flavian period (A.D. 70-80), when the Ninth Legion, hitherto at Lincoln, was probably pushed forward to York.

The _colonia_ at Glevum (Gloucester) arose in A.D. 96-98, as an inscription seems definitely to attest. Lastly, the _colonia_ at Eburac.u.m (York) must have grown up during the second or the early third century, under the ramparts of the legionary fortress, though separated from it by the intervening river Ouse.[1] Each of these five towns had, doubtless, its dependent _ager attributus_, which may have been as large as an average English county, and each provided the local government for its territory.[2] That implies a definitely Roman form of local government for a considerable area--a larger area, certainly, than received such organization in northern Gaul. Yet it accounts, on the most liberal estimate, for barely one-eighth of the civilized part of the province.

[Footnote 1: The fortress was situated on the left or east bank of the Ouse close to the present cathedral, which stands wholly within its area. Parts of the Roman walls can still be traced, especially at the so-called Multangular Tower. The munic.i.p.ality lay on the other (west) bank of the Ouse, near the railway station, where various mosaics indicate dwelling-houses. Its outline and plan are, however, not known.

Even its situation has not been generally recognized.]

[Footnote 2: If the evidence of milestones may be pressed, the 'territory' of Eburac.u.m extended southwards at least twenty miles to Castleford, and that of Lincoln at least fourteen miles to Littleborough (_Ephemeris Epigraphica_, vii. 1105=ix. 1253, where the last two lines are AVGG EB|MP XX (or XXII), and vii. 1097). The general size of these munic.i.p.al 'territoria' is amply proved by Continental inscriptions.]

Of the rest, some part may have been included in the Imperial Domains, which covered wide tracts in every province and were administered for local purposes by special procurators of the Emperor. The lead-mining districts--Mendip in Somerset, the neighbourhood of Matlock in Derbyshire, the Shelve Hills west of Wroxeter, the Halkyn region in Flintshire, the moors of south-west Yorkshire--must have belonged to these Domains, and for the most part are actually attested by inscriptions on lead-pigs as Imperial property. Of other domain lands we meet one early instance at Silchester in the reign of Nero[1]--perhaps the confiscated estates of some British prince or n.o.ble--and though we have no further direct evidence, the a.n.a.logy of other provinces suggests that the area increased as the years went by. Yet it is likely that in Britain, as indeed in Gaul,[2] the domain lands were comparatively small in amount. Like the munic.i.p.alities, they account only for a part of the province.

[Footnote 1: Tile inscribed NERCLCAEAVGGER, _Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus_ (_Eph._ ix. 1267). It differs markedly from the ordinary tiles found at Silchester, and plainly belongs to a different period in the history of the site. Possibly the estate, or whatever it was, did not remain Imperial after Nero's downfall; compare Plutarch, _Galba_, 5. The Combe Down _Principia_ (C. vii. 62), which are certainly not military, may supply another example, of about A.D. 210 (_Vict.

Hist. Somerset_, i. 311; _Eph._ ix. p. 516).]

[Footnote 2: Hirschfeld in Lehmann's _Beitrage zur alten Geschichte_, ii. 307, 308. Much of the Gaulish domain land appears to date from confiscations in A.D. 197.]

Throughout all the rest of the British province, or at least of its civilized area, the local government was probably organized on the same cantonal system as obtained in northern Gaul. According to this system the local unit was the former territory of the tribe or canton, and the local magistrates were the chiefs or n.o.bles of the tribe. That may appear at first sight to be a native system, wholly out of harmony with the Roman method of government by munic.i.p.alities. Yet such was not its actual effect. The cantonal or tribal magistrates were cla.s.sified and arranged just like the magistrates of a munic.i.p.ality. They even used the same t.i.tles. The cantonal _civitas_ had its _duoviri_ and quaestors and so forth, and its _ordo_ or senate, precisely like any munic.i.p.al _colonia_ or _municipium_. So far from wearing a native aspect, this cantonal system merely became one of the influences which aided the Romanization of the country. It did not, indeed, involve, like the munic.i.p.al system, the subst.i.tution of an Italian for a native inst.i.tution. Instead, it permitted the complete remodelling of the native inst.i.tution by the interpenetration of Italian influences.

We can discern the cantonal system at several points in Britain. But the British cantons were smaller and less wealthy than those of Gaul, and therefore they have not left their mark, either in monuments or in nomenclature, so clearly as we might desire. Many inscriptions record the working of the system in Gaul. Many modern towns--Paris, Reims, Chartres, and thirty or forty others--derive their present names from those of the ancient cantons, and not from those of the ancient towns.

In Britain we find only one such inscription (Fig. 15),[1] only one town called in antiquity by a tribal name--and that a doubtful instance[2]--and no single case of a modern town-name which is derived from the name of a tribe.[3] We have, however, some curious evidence from another source. There is a late and obscure _Geography of the Roman Empire_ which was probably written at Ravenna somewhere about A.D. 700, and which, as its author's name is lost, is generally quoted as the work of 'Ravennas'. It consists for the most part of mere lists of names, about which it adds very few details. But in the case of Britain it notes the munic.i.p.al rank of the various _coloniae_, and it further appends tribal names to nine or ten town-names, which are thus distinguished from all other British place-names. For example, we have Venta Belgarum (Winchester), not Venta simply; Corinium Dobunorum (Cirencester), not Corinium simply. The towns thus specially marked out are just those towns which are also declared by their actual remains to have been the chief country towns of Roman Britain. This coincidence can hardly be an accident. We may infer that the towns to which the Ravennas appends tribal names were the cantonal capitals of the districts of Roman Britain, and that a list of them, perhaps mutilated and imperfect, has been preserved by some chance in this late writer. In other words, the larger part of Roman Britain was divided up into districts corresponding to the territories of the Celtic tribes; each had its capital, and presumably its magistrates and senate, as the above-mentioned inscription shows that the Silures had at Venta Silurum.

We may suppose, indeed, that the district magistrates--the county council, as it would now be called--were also the magistrates of the country town. The same cantonal system, then, existed here as in northern Gaul. Only, it was weaker in Britain. It could not impose tribal names on the towns, and it went down easily when the Empire fell.

In Gaul, Lutetia Parisiorum became Parisiis and is now Paris, and Nemetac.u.m Atrebatum became Atrebatis and is now Arras. In Britain, Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester) remained Calleva, so far as we know, till it perished altogether in the fifth century.[4]

[Footnote 1: Found at Venta Silurum (Caerwent) in 1903: ... _leg.

legi[i] Aug. proconsul(i) provinc. Narbonensis, leg. Aug. pr. pr. provi.

Lugudunen(sis): ex decreto ordinis respubl(ica) civit(atis) Silurum_--a monument erected by the cantonal senate of the Silures to some general of the Second legion at Isca Silurum, twelve miles from Caerwent--perhaps to Claudius Paulinus, early in third century (_Athenaeum_, Sept. 26, 1903; _Archaeologia_, lix. 120; _Eph._ ix.

1012). Other inscriptions mention a _civis Cantius_, a _civitas Catuvellaunorum_ and the like, but their evidence is less distinct.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 20. INSCRIPTION FOUND AT CAERWENT (VENTA SILURUM) MENTIONING A DECREE OF THE SENATE OF THE CANTON OF SILURES.]

[Footnote 2: _Icinos_ in _Itin. Ant._ 474. 6 may well be Venta Icenorum (_Victoria Hist. of Norfolk_, i. 286, 300).]

[Footnote 3: Canterbury may seem an exception. But its name comes ultimately from the Early English form of Cantium, not from the Cantii.

In the south-west and in Wales, tribal names like Dumnonii (Devonshire), Demetae, Ordovices, have lingered on in one form or another, and, according to Professor Rhys, Bernicia is derivable from Brigantes. But these cases differ widely from the Gaulish instances.]

[Footnote 4: Ravennas (ed. Parthey and Pinder), pp. 425 foll. I have given a list of the towns in my Appendix to Mommsen's _Provinces of the Empire_ (English trans., 1909), ii. 352.]

Of the smaller local organizations, little can be said. Towns existed, but many of them were the tribal capitals mentioned in the last paragraph, and these, as I have said, were doubtless ruled by the magistrates of the tribes. It is idle to guess who administered the towns that were not such capitals or who controlled the various villages scattered through the country. Nor can we pretend to know much more about the size and character of the estates which corresponded to the country-houses and farms of which remains survive. The 'villa' system of demesne farms and serfs or _coloni_[1] which obtained elsewhere was doubtless familiar in Britain; indeed, the Theodosian Code definitely refers to British _coloni_.[2] But whether it was the only rural system in Britain is beyond proof, and previous attempts to work out the problem have done little more than demonstrate the fact.[3] It is quite possible that here, or indeed in any province, other forms of estates and of land tenure may have existed beside the predominant villa.[4]

The one thing needed is evidence. And in any case the net result appears fairly certain. The bulk of British local government must have been carried on through Roman munic.i.p.alities, through imperial estates, and still more through tribal _civitates_ using a Romanized const.i.tution.

The bulk of the landed estates must have conformed in their legal aspects to the 'villas' of other provinces. Whatever room there may be for survival of native customs or inst.i.tutions, we have no evidence that they survived, within the Romanized area, either in great amount or in any form which contrasted with the general Roman character of the country.

[Footnote 1: The term 'villa' is generally used to denote Romano-British country-houses and farms, irrespective of their legal cla.s.sification.

The use is so firmly established, both in England and abroad, that it would be idle to attempt to alter it. But for clearness I have thought it better in this paper to employ the term 'villa' only where I refer to the definite 'villa' system.]

[Footnote 2: Cod. Theod. xi. 7.2.]

[Footnote 3: For instance, Mr. Seebohm (_English Village Community_, pp.

254 foll.) connects the suffix 'ham' with the Roman 'villa' and apparently argues that the occurrence of the suffix indicates in general the former existence of a 'villa'. But his map showing the percentage of local names ending in 'ham' in various counties disproves his view completely. For the distribution of the suffix 'ham' and the frequency of Roman country-houses and farms do not coincide. In Norfolk, for instance, 'ham' is common, but there is hardly a trace of a Roman country-house or farm in the whole county (_Victoria Hist. of Norfolk_, i. 294-8). Somerset, on the other hand, is crowded with Roman country-houses, and has hardly any 'hams'.]

[Footnote 4: Professor Vinogradoff, _Growth of the Manor_ (chap. ii), argues strongly for the existence of Celtic land-tenures besides the Roman 'villa' system. 'There was room (he suggests) for all sorts of conditions, from almost exact copies of Roman munic.i.p.al corporations and Italian country-houses to tribal arrangements scarcely coloured by a thin sprinkling of imperial administration' (p. 83). As will be seen, this is not improbable. But I can find no definite proof of it. If northern Gaul were better known to us, it might provide a decisive a.n.a.logy. But the Gaulish evidence itself seems at present disputable.]

CHAPTER VII

CHRONOLOGY OF THE ROMANIZATION

From this consideration of the evidence available to ill.u.s.trate the Romanization of Britain, I pa.s.s to the inquiry how far history helps us to trace out the chronology of the process. A few facts and probabilities emerge as guides. Intercourse between south-eastern Britain and the Roman world had already begun before the Roman conquest in A.D. 43. Latin words, as I have said above (p. 24), had begun to appear on the native British coinage, and Arretine pottery had found its way to such places as Foxton in Cambridgeshire, Alchester in Oxfordshire, and Southwark in Surrey.[1] The establishment of a _municipium_ at Verulamium (St. Albans) sometime before A.D. 60, and probably even before A.D. 50,[2] points the same way. The peculiar status of _municipium_ was granted in the early Empire especially to native provincial towns which had become Romanized without official Roman action or settlement of Roman soldiers or citizens, and which had, as it were, merited munic.i.p.al privileges. It is quite likely that such Romanization had begun at Verulam before the Roman conquest, and formed the justification for the early grant of such privileges. Certainly the whole lowland area, as far west as Exeter and Shrewsbury, and as far north as the Humber, was conquered before Claudius died, and Romanization may have commenced in it at once.

[Footnote 1: Babington, _Anc. Cambridgeshire_, p. 64; E. Kruger, _Westd.

Korr.-Blatt_, 1904, p. 181; my note, _Proc. Soc. Antiq. Lond._, xxi. 461 _Journal of Roman Studies_, i. 146. Mr. H.B. Walters has dealt with the Southwark piece in the _Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiq. Society_, xii. 107, but with some errors. The Alchester piece may be later than A.D. 43.]

[Footnote 2: The grant is very much more likely to have been made by Claudius than by Nero, and more likely to belong to the earlier than to the later years of Claudius.]

Thirty years later Agricola, who was obviously a better administrator than a general, openly encouraged the process. According to Tacitus, his efforts met with great success; Latin began to be spoken, the toga to be worn, temples, town halls, and private houses to be built in Roman fashion.[1] Agricola appears to have been merely carrying out the policy of his age. Certainly it is just at this period (about 75-85 A.D.) that towns like Silchester, Bath, Caerwent, seem to take definite shape,[2]

and civil judges (_legati iuridici_) were appointed, presumably to administer the justice more frequently required by the advancing civilization.[3] In A.D. 85 it was thought safe to reduce the garrison by a legion and some auxiliaries.[4] Progress, however, was not maintained. About 115-20, and again about 155-63 and 175-80, the northern part of the province was vexed by serious risings, and the civilian area was doubtless kept somewhat in disturbance.[5] Probably it was at some point in this period that the flourishing country town of Isurium (Aldborough), fifteen miles from York, had to shield itself by a stone wall and ditch.[6]

[Footnote 1: Tac. _Agr._ 21, quoted in note 3 to p. 13.]

[Footnote 2: Silchester was plainly laid out in Roman fashion all at once on a definite street plan, and though some few of its houses may be older, the town as a whole seems to have taken its rise from this event.

The evidence of coins implies that the development of the place began in the Flavian period (_Athenaeum_, Dec. 15, 1904). At Bath the earliest datable stones belong to the same time (_Victoria Hist. of Somerset_, vol. i, Roman Bath), the first being a fragmentary inscription of A.D.

76. At Caerwent the evidence is confined to coins and fibulae, none of which seem earlier than Vespasian or Domitian: for the coins see _Clifton Antiq. Club's Proceedings_, v. 170-82.]

[Footnote 3: A. von Domaszewski, _Rhein. Mus._, xlvi. 599; C. ix. 5533 (as completed by Domaszewski), inscription of Salvius Liberalis; C. iii.

2864=9960, inscription of Iavolenus Priscus. Both these belong to the Flavian period. Other instances are known from the second century.]

[Footnote 4: _Cla.s.sical Review_, xviii. (1904) 458; xix. (1905) 58, withdrawal of Batavian cohorts. The withdrawal of _Legio ii Adiutrix_ is well known.]

[Footnote 5: See my papers in _Archaeologia Aeliana_, xxv. (1904) 142-7, and _Proceedings of Soc. of Antiq. of Scotland_, x.x.xviii. 454.]

[Footnote 6: The town wall of Isurium, partly visible to-day in Mr. A.S.

Lawson's garden, is constructed in a fashion which suggests rather the second century than the later date when most of the town walls in Britain and Gaul were probably built, the end of the third or even the fourth century. Thus, its stones show the 'diamond broaching' which occurs on the Vallum of Pius, and which must therefore have been in use during the second century.]

Peace hardly set in till the opening of the third century. It was then, I think, that country-houses and farms first became common in all parts of the civilized area. The statistics of datable objects discovered in these buildings seem conclusive on this point. Except in Kent and the south-eastern region generally, not only coins, but also pottery of the first century are infrequent, and many sites have yielded nothing earlier than about A.D. 250. Despite the ill name that attaches to the third and fourth centuries, they were perhaps for Britain, as for parts of Gaul,[1] a period of progressive prosperity. Certainly, the number of British country-houses and farms inhabited during the years A.D. 280-350 must have been very large. Prosperity culminated, perhaps, in the Constantinian Age. Then, as Eumenius tells us, skilled artisans abounded in Britain far more than in Gaul, and were fetched from the island to build public and private edifices as far south as Autun.[2] Then also, and, indeed, as late as 360, British corn was largely exported to the Rhine Valley,[3] and British cloth earned a notice in the eastern Edict of Diocletian.[4] The province at that time was a prosperous and civilized region, where Latin speech and culture might be expected to prevail widely.

[Footnote 1: Mommsen, _Rom. Gesch._, v. 97, 106, and Ausonius, _pa.s.sim_.]