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ROMANO-BRITISH LONDON The reduction of the south of Britain proved an easy matter. In A.D. 44 Vespasian, the future emperor, encountered the Celtic tribesmen south of the Thames, possibly in the neighbourhood of London ; ^ and pushing on to the south-west made great conquests, including the Isle of Wight ; while Plautius was able to carve a province out of Britain. From that date the extension of the conquered territory was gradual but inevitable ; and from 47 onwards we have the narrative of Tacitus, which is wanting for the earlier campaigns. The Midlands as well as the south and east were conquered by the following year, but it required 30 years' more fighting to reduce the hill-tribes of Wales. Legions were posted at Caerleon (2nd), Wroxeter (14th), Chester (20th), and Lincoln (9th), to guard the frontier, and practically all the Roman forces in Britain were drawn to the front. This gave an opening for revolt in 61, when the Iceni of the eastern counties marched under their queen to wreak vengeance on the nearest towns that had become Romanized. By the year 62 London had attained to importance and was inhabited by allies of Rome. The revolt of Boudicca (Boadicea) reduced it to ruins, but called forth some interesting remarks on the part of the historian Tacitus that may here be quoted at length. Suetonius, the Roman com- mander, was in Anglesey when the trouble began, and on hearing the news marched with wonderful resolution amidst a hostile population to Londinium, which, though not distinguished by the name of Colony, was much frequented by a number of merchants and trading vessels. Uncertain whether he should choose it as a seat of war, as he looked round on his scanty force of soldiers, he resolved to save the province at the cost of a single town. Nor did the tears and weeping of the people, as they implored his aid, deter him from giving the signal of departure and receiving into his army all who would go with him. Those who were chained to the spot by the weakness of their sex, or the infirmity of age, or the attractions of the place, were cut off by the enemy. Similar ruin fell upon the town of Verulamium, for the barbarians, who delighted in plunder and were indifferent to all else, passed the fortresses with military garrisons, and attacked whatever offered most wealth to the spoiler, and was unsafe for defence. About 70,000 citizens and allies, it appeared, fell in the places which I have mentioned (Colchester, Verulam, and London).' It is a fair deduction not only that London was as yet without walls, but also that its inhabitants did not sympathize with the revolted Britons ; and the fact that the epitomist of Dio Cassius speaks of ' two Roman towns ' in this connexion " helps to explain the havoc wrought in this settlement on the Thames, that had evidently sprung up under Roman patronage. Some have professed to see, in the wood-ashes excavated from a low level at various points in the City, tangible evidence of a conflagration following on the revolting cruelties perpetrated on the inhabitants ; " but the effects of this outbreak were transitory and did not retard the advance northwards. The Emperor Hadrian, who himself came to Britain, had the frontier defended in 1 24 by a stupendous wall studded with forts, and still to be seen extending for more than 70 miles between Wallsend and Bowness on Solway Firth, Some twenty years later, under the Emperor Antoninus Pius, the further growth of 'The passage of Dio Cassius is discussed below (p. 31). ' Annals, xiv, 3 3 (Church and Brodribb's translation). Saetonius mentions Camulodunum and Londinium (duo praecipua oppida). '" Xiphilinus, Hist. Rom. Ixii, 7. " Knight, London, i, 151 ; Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, x, 195 ; xxxvii, 84 ; Arch, xxiv, 192, 194 ; viii, I 32* ; Gough, Add. to Camden, ii, 92 ; Lond. and Midd. Arch. Soc. Trans, i, 195. 3