THE ROMAN PERIOD IN
BRITISH HISTORY
1ROMAN OCCUPATION
2ROMAN LIFE IN BRITAIN
3REASONS FOR DISAPPEARING OF
ROMAN BRITAIN
ROMAN OCCUPATION
- the Roman period in British history:
AD 43 - AD 410
- “Britain” comes from the word
“Pretani”, which is the Greco-Roman
word for the inhabitants of Britain;
- the word was mispronounced;
- the island was called “Britannia”
ROMAN OCCUPATION
1 . Julius Caesar came to Britain in 55BC
2. A Roman army occupied Britain in AD 43 (40.000
soldiers)
REASONS:
1Celtic Britain was an important food producer;
2 the Romans could make use of British food for their
enormous armies;
3 the Celts of Britain were supporting the Celts of
Gaul who were the Roman’s enemy
ROMAN OCCUPATION
The Romans were determined to conquer the
whole island, BUT…..
a) The Romans settled only in the present day
England and Wales “Cambria”
b) The Romans never went to Ireland
“Hibernia”
c) The Romans could not conquer “Caledonia”
(Scotland) and built a Hadrian’s WALL
HADRIAN’S WALL
THE DIVISION OF THE CELTS:
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1) those who experienced the Roman
rule ( the Britons in England and
Wales),( the ROMANISED CELTS)
2) those who did not experience the
Roman rule (the Gaels, the Picts, the
Scots, the Irish in Ireland and Scotland)
THE END OF ROMAN BRITAIN
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1) In AD 367 the Celts of Caledonia
started attacking the Roman armies;
2) In AD 409 Rome pulled its last
soldiers out of Britain as the Empire
began to collapse;
3) In AD 410 Rome itself fell to raiders.
ROMAN LIFE IN BRITAIN:
!!! LANGUAGE
brought the skills of reading and
writing to Britain (LATIN), BUT….
a) the Celtic peasantry remained
illiterate and only Celtic –speaking;
b) town-dwellers spoke Latin and Greek;
c) rich landowners used Latin

ROMAN TOWNS
-
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There were three different kinds of town in
Roman Britain,
Two kinds were established by Roman charter
1)colonia (sing) (peopled by Roman settlers)
2)municupium (sing)(the whole population was
given Roman citizenship)
3) civitas (sing) (were the old Celtic tribal capitals
through which the Romans administered Celtic
population in the countryside)
ROMAN TOWNS
The Romans left:
 about twenty large towns ( 5000 inhabitants)
 one hundred smaller ones
Many of these towns were at first army camps.
The Latin word for camp, castra, has remained
part of many town names to this day:
Winchester Lancaster
Leicester
Reconstruction of Roman Sichester
Roman Roads
- All the Roman towns were connected by
roads.
- They were so well-built that even survived
through out the long British history and
became the main roads of modern Britain.
- Six of these Roman roads met in London
(Londinium – 20.000 people)
Roman road
Roman road
Roman countryside
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The face of the countryside has
changed completely
There appeared a number of large
farms
Roman farms were called “VILLAS”.
Roman Villas

A Roman villa was originally a Roman
country house built for the upper class
during the Roman Empire. There were
two kinds of villas: the villa urbana,
which was a country seat that could
easily be reached for a night or two, and
the villa rustica, the farm-house estate
permanently occupied by the servants
who were in charge of the estate.
Roman Villa Rustica Model
REASONS FOR DISAPPEARING OF
ROMAN BRITAIN:
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1 The influence was largely confined to the
towns.
2 In the countryside, where most people
lived, farming methods had remained
unchanged.
3 Celtic speech continued to be dominant in
the countryside.
4 The Roman occupation had been a matter
of colonial control rather than large –scale
settlement.