The Towns of Roman Britain

by J. O. Bevan

To a certain extent the conqueror enters into the entail of the conquered. Nevertheless he must obey the conditions of life which the natural features, or the climate of the country of which he has possessed himself, have compelled the aborigines to adopt. Occasionally, as in the case of Greece and Rome, the conquered enslave their masters in regard, at all events, to literature and art; but this did not obtain in the case before us, for the Roman occupation of Britain was largely military, and the Britons had little enough to impart either in literature or art. It is observable, however, that the Romans either did not seek to impose, or were unable to impose, their religious ideas on the Britons. In this connection it must be remembered that the composition of the Roman legions was largely cosmopolitan.

The moral and religious influence brought to bear upon the native Britons by reason of the Roman occupation of close on four centuries can easily be overestimated. A section of the people in the vicinity of Roman towns were humanized and civilized, but the sequel proved that (to a certain extent) the fibre of the hardy and courageous Briton deteriorated and his faculty of resource and fighting diminished; so that when he was deserted by his Roman masters and deprived of his leading strings, he fell a prey—though not until after a protracted and sanguinary struggle—to the Pict and Scot and Saxon, who were able to combine for the attack, and who were regardless of ease and privation and love of life. Although the days of this old time are far away, and the face of the land has changed, this lesson is not without warning to the ignorant, indifferent, pleasure-loving sections of our England of the twentieth century, and this lesson is even now being brought home to us in no uncertain way in our death-grip with a cruel and relentless foe.

LIST OF TOWNS

Here follows an alphabetical list of the Roman towns described in the following pages:

Aldborough (Yorkshire), Aldborough (Suffolk), Bath, Caerleon, Caerwent, Caistor, Canterbury, Cardiff, Chester, Chesterford, Chichester, Cirencester, Corstopitum, Dorchester, Dover, Exeter, Gloucester, Isle of Wight, Kenchester, Lancaster, Leicester, Lincoln, London, Lympne, Maldon, Manchester, Portsmouth, Reculver, Richborough, Rochester, Silchester, St. Albans, Winchester, Wroxeter, York.

LIST OF TOWNS

ALDBOROUGH—(A.S. burh, buruh, byrig—an earthwork) is situated in the West Riding of Yorkshire, 16 miles W.N.W. of York. It is now remarkable only for its numerous ancient remains.

It was the Isurium Brigantum (the capital of the Brigantes) of the Romans, and here and there in the neighbourhood the remains of aqueducts, spacious buildings, and tesselated pavements have been found, as well as numerous implements, coins and urns. The Museum Isurianum is in the grounds of the Manor House.