Britain under the Romans

The Roman invasion of Britain was the most significant event to the British Isles. It affected the language, culture, geography, architecture. The island has a Roman name, its capital is a Roman city and for centuries the language of its religion, law, education and administration was a Roman one (Latin).

For 400 years, Rome brought a unity and order to Britain that it had never had before.

In the year 70 AD, when the Romans had been nearly thirty years in Britain, many Britons could not remember a time when the country had been free and it seemed quite natural to them to be governed not by British kings or chiefs, but by Governors from Rome. There were still three legions of Roman soldiers in the country, but everything was now so quiet that the soldier spent most of their time enjoying themselves in sports or at the games in the amphitheatres.

Wherever the Romans went, they built roads. If we look at a modern map of England, we see that there are great main highways running across the country, often in long straight lines, from one town to another. Many of these roads which are still in use to­day were built by the Romans. The south of England was covered with the villas of wealthy Romans and Britons. There were large farmhouses, often with water supply and baths.

The Romans built many towns in Britain. The capital city, from which the Romans governed the island, was Colchester, but not London. We know where the Roman towns stood from the names of the English towns which were later built on their ruins. The names of modern towns ending in -ester or -caster, like Dorchester or Lancaster, come from the Latin word “castra” meaning a camp or a fortified place. Each large town had a theatre, open to the sky, with some seats in a great semi-circle. Many towns had amphitheatres like the Coliseum in Rome, but smaller. Here the soldiers did military exercises and played all sorts of games.

There were shops in all Roman-British towns. The shops were usually located on two sides of the main square. The shops were of all kinds: butcher`s, baker's and greengrocer`s; there were shoemaker's, and locksmith`s, carpenter's and jeweler`s shops. Tailor and leather workers could be seen at work behind their counters and everywhere merchants invited passers-by to their goods.

The social centre of every Roman town was the great building of the baths. This building usually occupied one side of the main square and contained in addition to the hot and cold baths, the law courts, the municipal offices, the school building and the gymnasium.

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