Conquering the Ocean

Abstract Why did Julius Caesar come to Britain? His own account suggests that he invaded to quell a resistance of Gallic sympathizers in the region of modern-day Kent—but there must have been personal and divine aspirations behind the expeditions in 55 and 54 bce. To the ancients, the Ocean was a body of water that circumscribed the known world, separating places like Britain from terra cognita, and no one, not even Alexander the Great, had crossed it. While Caesar came and saw, he did not conquer. In the words of the historian Tacitus, ‘he revealed, rather than bequeathed, Britain to Rome’. For the next 500 years, Caesar’s revelation was Rome’s remotest imperial bequest. This book provides a new narrative of the Roman conquest of Britain, from the two campaigns of Caesar up until the construction of Hadrian’s Wall across the Tyne-Solway isthmus during the 120s ce. Much of the ancient literary record portrays this period as a long march of Roman progress, but recent archaeological discoveries reveal that a strong resistance existed in Britain, Boudica’s short-lived revolt being the most celebrated of them, and that Roman success was by no means inevitable. The book here draws upon an impressive array of new information from archaeological research and recent scholarship on the classical texts to provide a balanced picture of the military activities and strategies that led to the conquest and subjugation of Britain. This book is the fullest picture to date of a chapter in Roman military history that continues to captivate the public.