AD43 and all that: Roman invasion was a myth
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.THE ROMAN conquest of Britain AD43 is a myth put about to disguise the fact that Rome helped to liberate the peaceful inhabitants of southern England from tribes of aggressive northerners.
Historians at Oxford University have revised one of the most dramatic periods in British history, in which ancient Britons are traditionally portrayed as the victims of a brutal and ruthless invasion.
In fact the early Britons welcomed the Romans with open arms and there was little organised resistance against the Roman military advance, according to Martin Henig, visiting lecturer in Roman art at Oxford's Archaeology Institute.
Dr Henig argues that the "Boy's Own" descriptions of the battles fought between the Romans and the British Celts were invented as part of a propaganda campaign designed to inflate the importance of Agricola, the 1st-century Roman governor of Britain.
"All the evidence suggests Britain's southern rulers were Romanised before the invasion, welcomed the invasion and profited from it," Dr Henig said.
"They had effectively been conquered by the tribes to the north, who had virtually enslaved the whole area to the south. The inhabitants of southern Britain were really refugees and the Roman `invasion' was a liberation."
Several new archaeological discoveries and interpretations of historical sources point to the Roman "conquest" being an invention. The Romans were most likely to have been invited by a dethroned Celtic king who wanted to oust an occupying northern tribe from his land, Dr Henig writes in British Archaeology.
He believes Agricola's historian Tacitus may have borne a grudge against upwardly mobile Celts and resented the role these Celtic friends of Rome played in quelling the uprising led by Boudicca (Boadicea). "An intense personal animosity may easily have coloured the historian's interpretation of events," Dr Henig said.
"Someone like Boudicca was not a British nationalist. She murdered so many Britons it is better to see her in the light of someone like Pol Pot."
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments