The emerging tribes of LPRIA in southern and eastern Britain had a long history of contact with the Roman world and were heavily influenced by Roman attitudes and actions because Rome saw all her neighbours as within her sphere of influence. Whether or not the British tribes still paid tribute, some of them had been subject to Roman control following the invasion of Julius Caesar in 55 and 54 BC (DBG V.22). This precedent meant, for the Roman emperors, that the island lay within their legitimate sphere of interest. This interest had already been shown by both Caligula (Suetonius, Caligula 44, 46) and Augustus (Dio 49.28, 2; 53.22, 5; 53.25, 2), who had contemplated and prepared for invasion. Such direct intervention following a long period of indirect contact had precedents, for the general pattern of Rome’s expansion saw her first taking an indirect interest, then a successively more active role before assuming absolute control. In the case of Britain this process was slow, since annexation had been delayed first by the civil wars, next by Augustus’ interests in Germany and elsewhere, then by Tiberius’ static frontier policy and finally by the troubles of Caligula. Notwithstanding this, the question should not be why Claudius invaded Britain, but why it had not happened earlier.

Rome’s activities in other provinces and the way she acquired her overseas territories indicate how she worked towards circumscribed self-government in provincial administration. In the western and north-western provinces the development of the civitas system enabled Rome to fulfil her requirements by the incorporation of conquered tribes in a way analogous with the polis. Although the geographical areas covered by these civitates were larger than those of the territories of the Mediterranean city states, they could be treated like units of government with each civitas representing a unit of population, inhabiting a territory. This was administered by a council (curia), comprising landowning aristocrats (decuriones), which met at a town within the territory. This settlement was the administrative capital, and thus the focus for the population. The essence of the concept of the polis was thus also the essence of the civitas: town and country were subsumed within the same constitutional concept which, in the case of Britain, was normally equated with the tribe.

Later Roman Britain saw a series of significant changes in the pattern of settlement which indicate a transfer in the emphasis of activity from the cores of the civitates to their peripheries. Whilst these changes affected urban settlements and industrial production, a series of alterations can also be observed in the rural settlement pattern. In the Principate, we saw rural Romanization characterized by the development of villas, and this pattern was shown to be deeply rooted in the existing settlement system. In the later Roman period a series of developments can be observed which reflect a radical deviation from that established in the early Empire. We see an increase in the number of villas, together with alterations in their character, the emergence of nucleated settlements (which may be described loosely as villages) and finally a diversification of production involving innovation in agricultural methods. Taken together with the changes already described in chapters 6 and 7, we may characterize these as representing a flowering of the countryside and the culmination of Roman Britain’s achievements. To be understood, they must be examined within the context of the structural alterations we have already described.

The economy of later Roman Britain, as seen through the archaeological evidence, shows a series of differences from the earlier system. In summary, the pattern shows first an increasing regionalization of exchange at the expense of the inter-provincial trade dominant in the early Empire, and this greater emphasis on trade within Britain is accompanied by a change in industrial location, as rurally located production centres expand at the expense of those productive units near the civitas centres which had been most significant in the early Empire.

In the previous chapters I have reviewed the archaeological evidence for the Romanization of Britain within its historical context and in relation to the social organization of the population. This exercise has inevitably ranged widely and raised a series of sometimes contentious interpretations, but it has shown that there is a set of coherent strands which allows a reasonably consistent interpretation of the archaeology as a reflection of the competition between and within the societies in the province. Romanization has thus been seen not as a passive reflection of change, but rather as an active ingredient used by people to assert, project and maintain their social status. Furthermore, Romanization has been seen as largely indigenous in its motivation, with emulation of Roman ways and styles being first a means of obtaining or retaining social dominance, then being used to express and define it while its manifestations evolved.

By the end of the second century, although a backwater of the Empire, Britain had become a Romanized province. However, the whole Empire had also begun to alter in character and in the following century change accelerated and became more evident to contemporaries. As these processes intensified they were perceived as a crisis: the hitherto stable world was transformed rapidly and unpredictably, as the Golden Age of the second century was replaced by the anarchy of the third. The character of much of the archaeological evidence also develops into the pattern characteristic of the later Empire, although it is far from clear precisely how these alterations relate to those referred to in the historical sources. In this chapter the historical processes are outlined first to provide the background. The archaeological evidence is then discussed in relation to the historical changes defined.

The civitates of Roman Britain developed at varying speeds and in different ways according to the impact of the Roman presence on their social systems. Despite these variations in the pattern of development there is a series of characteristics which typifies the British civitates to the early third century - through the period often seen as the Golden Age of the Empire. These characteristics define the nature of the whole province, but are most conveniently examined by taking separately the evidence of the towns, the countryside and the flows of goods between them.

Well over half a century ago, Francis Haverfield (1912) discussed Romanization and defined it both in terms of historical process and material changes in native culture. These alterations were shown to have been brought about by the Roman presence and resulted in native culture more closely resembling that of Rome. Here, in attempting to evaluate these processes again, I intend to build on the foundations laid by Haverfield, but with the considerable advantage of the larger data-base for the understanding of changes in the material culture in the Empire provided by recent archaeological research. In summary, Haverfield stated: ’First, Romanization in general extinguished the distinction between Roman and provincial ... Secondly, it did not everywhere and at once destroy all traces of tribal or national sentiments or fashions’. This conclusion parallels the idea, developed by Brendel (1979), that ’Roman’ culture was by definition a cosmopolitan fusion of influences from diverse origins rather than purely the native culture of Rome itself.

In this chapter, my aim is to characterize settlement patterns and social organization from the end of the second century BC to the middle of the first century AD in the areas of Britain which became the Roman Province of Britannia. The aim is not to provide a detailed account of the archaeology of the period, for it is already the subject of a considerable and growing specialist literature which deserves a fuller synthesis than space here allows. Instead the salient characteristics are discussed and themes introduced which are to be taken up in the remainder of this volume. These themes are particularly related to the development of the agricultural economy and its productive capacity; regional variations in the settlement pattern, and thus perhaps social formation; and the organization of social power. These aspects will be treated in more detail than has been customary in recent studies of Roman Britain, as to understand its Romanization we must first understand what pre-Roman Britain was like.

As I sit down to write this introduction it is difficult to appreciate that writing the original text of The Romanization of Britain (henceforth RoB) was completed (in my attic in Durham) a professional lifetime ago – the manuscript being completed in July 1988. In this introduction, I want to reflect on the context within which that book was written, then discuss some of the responses to it, before offering a few thoughts on the current state of studies of Roman Britain (and the provinces more broadly). I will not, however, enter into a prolonged discussion of current thinking about cultural change under Roman hegemony. Before embarking on this, I would like to digress with two observations. First, over the ensuing thirty-five years, I have occasionally been asked why I have not written a new edition of RoB in order to bring the text up to date. My answer has always been that the original book was very much a product of its time and was conceived of, as its subtitle proclaims, as ’an essay’. As such, although aspects of the evidence presented should indeed be updated, the essence of the book was conceived of as a connected narrative, so any updating or revision would carry the danger of blunting its argument. Further, it was a product of my thinking at a particular point in time, so it should remain as such and be read in that context.