The Romano-British were the native people living under Rome’s rule in the province of Britannia. But just how Roman were they? Jacquie Rogers looks at the evidence.
We all think we know what is meant by Roman Britain — the four centuries, give or take, when our islands were part of the Roman empire. But were the British people of that time really Roman?
The answer, as so often in history, is: it depends. For a start, the island was never fully conquered. The peoples of the north, Caledonians as they were known, were always seen as enemy barbarians. Even after the mighty Hadrian’s Wall was built, and the early third century campaigning of Septimius Severus had decimated “every man, woman and child” north of the Wall, they took the chance to attack when British legions were pulled away to fight civil wars, as in 197.
If we rule out Caledonians, what about the rest of the British? How Roman were they?
Time changes all things, and we can reasonably expect that between the time of the conquest, from the fierce resistance of Boudica and Caratacus through the several generations to the height of empire in early third century (my period of interest), the attitudes of the colonised would have changed.
How did these Romano-British, now apparently pacified and fully integrated into the empire, feel about themselves then?
A big question, with many aspects. How people dress, what they eat, how they worship, trade, celebrate, bury their dead — all these are part of what makes a cultural identity. Even the roads they build. I’m going to pick a few examples only of what the Romano-British themselves tell us.
We have no written records from the prior Brythonic culture. Fortunately, along with the invading legions came two innovations: literacy and epigraphy.
Roman Britannia was a highly militarised province throughout its history, and the Roman army marched on records in triplicate. At the invasion Roman bureaucracy took over, and written records began. Most have been lost, but recent archaeology has uncovered some fascinating glimpses of our Romano-British forebears.
That’s the good news. The less-good news, if we want to hear authentic British voices of the period, is that we have to rule out some superb early sources because they cannot be thought of as Romano-British.
That includes the wonderful Vindolanda tablets, deposited at the end of the first century when the garrison at Vindolanda was manned by the First Cohort of Tungrians (modern Belgium), not by Britons. We all know about the commander’s wife, Sulpicia Lepidina, famously invited to her friend Claudia Severa’s birthday party. Neither woman was native British, of course; they were of the ruling foreign elite.
Other writing tablets have come to light in London, including mention of Fortunata, a Gaulish slave; and Tiberinius Celerianus, possibly a seafarer from northern Gaul. Again, the early deposition of such tablets in the nascent commercial city makes it difficult to identify any native Britons.
By the mid-second century, we are getting snatches of people whose heritage might reflect a century of Britain being Roman, and thus intermarriage between natives and incomers. Epitaphs on tombstones are one of our main sources.
A woman named Tullia Tacita was buried near the Antonine Wall, built north of Hadrian’s Wall by Emperor Antoninus Pius in the 140s. Tullia was apparently a businesswoman, perhaps trading in bread or wine. Her names sound Roman, but the cognomen Tacita means ‘the silent’ and was often given to freed slaves. So there is a chance that Tullia had native forebears somewhere along the line.
From this time on, we see an increasing reference on tombstones and in epitaphs to Romanised Britons: Nectovelius the Brigantian, from the north of England, who served and died near Falkirk with the Second Cohort of Thracians. Another soldier, Saturninus, came from the colony of Gloucester and retired in 150. This would probably make him the son of a Gloucester veteran, who had settled with a British wife.
Temples and shrines are also sources of written material. At Nettleton in Wiltshire is a strange octagonal Romano-British temple, dedicated to the conflated Roman-British god Apollo Cunomaglos. A native woman called Corotica, perhaps on her way to Bath, raised an altar in thanks for an unknown favour. Her name is British, and she was wealthy enough both to travel and to pay for an altar. Here is a Romano-British woman prospering during the empire.
Along the road in Bath another native pilgrim, Sulinus, son of Brucetus, built an offering statue. He also turns up on an altar in Cirencester. On a pewter plate in the sacred spring at Bath, we find Severianus “son of Brogomalla”, a merger of a Latin name with a Brythonic one.
To the extent that these Roman Britons were willing to share their hybridised names with posterity, we have evidence of integration. More curse tablets have been found at a spring at Uley, and in general the language of communication with the gods is Latin. Virtually none have been found written in Brythonic using Latin letters. Some at least of these people were both literate and comfortable with Latin, even if they still spoke Brythonic at home.
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The Romano-British living in the late second and early third centuries seem therefore to have arrived at a state of hybrid identity that worked, at least for some. The province (split by Emperor Caracalla into two) was stable, at peace, and growing in prosperity. People who feel secure and with aspirations for themselves and their children tend to buy into the status quo.
Of course, the voices of those whose position was less fortunate remain mostly unrecorded: the vast majority of the rural population, who likely continued to live in roundhouses, farm the land, and pay taxes to a remote imperial centre they knew nothing of; the free Caledonians and Irish; most slaves and the very poor; any who had no access to Latin writing.
All we can conclude, until the Roman equivalent of a Briton’s diary is uncovered, is that during the Roman occupation some, and possibly increasingly more, Britons thought of themselves as at least partially Roman.
And after the legions left? That might bring us to some sort of Artorius with his Romanised knights, perhaps.
Further reading:
The Real Lives of Roman Britain by Guy de la Bédoyère
The Romanization of Britain by Martin Millett
An Imperial Possession by David Mattingly
The Carnelian Phoenix by Jacquie Rogers was published on 14 August, 2022.
It’s the second of her Quintus Valerius mystery novels set in 3rd-century Roman Britain.
She lives in the Malvern Hills of England, and loves walking, motorcycling, and sitting in cafés gossiping with her husband.
jacquierogers.substack.com
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Images:
- Prima Europe tabula, 1486 copy of Ptolemy’s 2nd-century map: National Library of Wales/Lyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru via Wikimedia (public domain)
- Model of London under Roman rule in AD 85-90, Museum of London: Steven G. Johnson for Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)
- Inscription on stela mentioning Tiberinius Celerianus, Museum of London: Udimu for Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Tombstone of Nectovelius: © National Museums Scotland
- Reconstruction drawing of Pagans Hill Roman Temple in Somerset by Gary Malkin: Wikimedia (public domain)
