The Romans Who Shaped Britain

This work is a biographical history of the Romans who conquered and dominated Britain, based on the latest archaeological evidence and original source material. Here are the stories of the people who built and ruled Roman Britain, from the eagle bearer who leaped off Caesar's ship into the waves at Walmer in 55 B.C. to the last cavalry units to withdraw from the island under their dragon standards in the early fifth century A.D. Through the lives of its generals, governors, and emperors and those they sought to rule, this book explores the narrative of Britannia as an integral and often troublesome part of Rome's empire, a hard won province whose mineral wealth and agricultural prosperity made it crucial to the stability of the West. But Britannia did not exist in a vacuum, and the authors set it in an international context to give an account of the pressures and events that had a profound impact on its people and its history. The authors discuss the lives and actions of the Roman occupiers against the backdrop of an evolving landscape, where Iron Age shrines were replaced by marble temples and industrial scale factories and granaries sprang up across the countryside. The cast of characters features men and women both noble and venal, courageous and craven, from Caesar, Agricola, and Boudica to Carausius, Magnentius, and Valentinus.