Ancient and Archaeology聽 permalink
HOW DID THE ROMANS EXIST WITH NO NEW MONEY AND NO NEW POTTERY BETWEEN AD407 TO AD440?
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Message 1.聽
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Tuesday, 31st March 2009
Looking at the information from the recent Threads it would appear that there is evidence of Roman Military occupation in Britain after AD407 and up to AD440 and also new Roman building at various places within Britain up to at least AD430. It has been said that the Mint in Gaul was destroyed in AD 410 which is why there was no new money but why was there no new pottery? Has anyone any thoughts on this please?
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Message 2
Posted by Richie (U1238064) on Tuesday, 31st March 2009
Only a guess on my part as I am not an expert on this particualar period, but its a quite small timescale your looking at, 33 years or so. My understanding was that there was a continuation of pottery however
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Message 3
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Tuesday, 31st March 2009
Hi Richie
Many thanks - it throws a new light on things.
Many authorities have stated that post AD 410 there is no new pottery produced - this may be because it was the legions who were responsible for pottery production so this whole point could be important.
Could the lack of pottery signify that in fact in AD407 the last of the legions was withdrawn by Constantine but that there was still a resonably sized army of Auxillieries based in Britain but mainly around the cities and frontiers keeping the Trade and Tax gathering routes open.
There seems to be a parallel society here for some time where there is enough "Roman" military here in order that large chunks are withdrawn reguarly up until AD440 and yet there are also other war leaders like Vortigern who are also ruling in the country with their own armies.
This would imply that Rome had set up Client Kingdoms in order to protect themselves and their territory, however this would also imply that the Brythons would not have been able to throw out the Roman Administration until AD 440.
So has anybody any idea how this could work if indeed it is a correct supposition?
Kind Regards - TA -
Message 4
Posted by Sir Gar Hywel dda (U13786187) on Monday, 5th October 2009
Some people say that money gives you the freedom to do things that you could not otherwise do.
If that is so were the activities of the romans of that time severely circumscribed, and did they have to barter for their food and clothes, for other things they did have? What did they have?
Did the existing money get more and more precious?
there are certainly economic historians who will gladly explain the effect of no new money (particularly in the form of gold or silver only)
I wonder?
They use LETS notes in Stroud Gloucester today!
(Local exchange trading scheme notes!) -
Message 5
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Monday, 5th October 2009
Hi TA,
That's fighting talk! If you have time to provide a summary of this evidence it would make the subsequent discussions much easier. As you will recall threads on this era tend to be long on plausible opinions and short on the demonstrably factual.
It's also absolutely vital, if you want to discuss Roman military occupation in 'Dark Age' Britain, to define precisely what you mean by 'Roman' and 'occupation'.
I very strongly doubt if anyone south of Hadrian's Wall in AD 400 thought of themselves as anything else than Roman. The 'official' Roman arm (together with its annona) might have been thought an expensive, or sometimes an unnecessary, financial burden but I should take a lot of convincing that it was considered as an army of occupation.
The absence of low value coinage and the collapse of the British pottery industry is excellent evidence that your hypothesis, namely the presence in Britain of 'official' Roman troops loyal to (say) Honorius or Valentinian III, is erroneous. That is not to claim that in this period bishops didn't cross the Channel, nor that wine was not traded for tin in Cornwall, nor that ex-Army trained warlords didn't occupy military sites.
Best wishes,
TP -
Message 6
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Monday, 5th October 2009
Hi TP
This post was started in March and so much has been discussed on the boards since then that my ideas have moved on since and there is an awful lot to reprise however鈥..to take one bit a time 鈥 firstly my definition of the Romans in Britain around AD400 and the army of occupation鈥..
I agree that a certain part of society thought of itself as Roman or at least Roman Brython around AD400 probably the city dwellers and villa owners, people who were part of Roman society including the army and probably the auxiliaries and also the Tribal Leaders and their retinues.
These were the people who benefited from the riches produced from the country though trade and the extraction of metals and the agrarian state, the soldiers being rewarded with land.
I have come to believe that Britain was in fact an extremely rich and productive province. This was despite it being quite troublesome and expensive both to protect from invaders around the coasts and north.
In fact a number of Emperors came here to put down rebellions or restructure the country at no small expense (Hadrian鈥檚 Wall, the 鈥淪cottish鈥 Battles prior to the building of the Antonine Wall, the subsequent bloody campaigns of Severus etc.
Rome did not keep provinces that weren鈥檛 profitable and as further proof of the riches of Britain, a number of Pretenders to the Imperial crown were spawned and this would have cost money to pay the armies for the rebellions.
Yet I suspect that the people who benefited was a minority (although extremely powerful group) compared with the Brythons (probably the peasants and the vast majority) who occupied the rest of country.
At the end of the day throughout the centuries there has been a working class who rarely benefit from the wealth of the aristocracy and in this case Roman citizens. This fits in with the points:
1. The failure of a 鈥渃ity society鈥 which never really took off,( in comparison with Europe), with the majority of the people living in and off the countryside. I think this also shows that the tribal structures were not broken but basically the peasantry lived much as before outside the Roman society.
2. The fact that the peasant society remains as a base right through our history until recent times with the DNA being shown as basically Brython, not Roman, nor Viking, nor German nor Norman. These peasants however at this time were tied to their tribal leaders but their leaders were tied to Rome. When new leaders arrived later and overthrew the old leaders the peasants remained, continuing their old lives with more or less servitude鈥
It is for these reasons that I think that Roman Army was definitely a controlling influence on the whole country - not only guarding the wall. They did not need to have huge garrisons in the South of the country as economically the Leaders were already tied in and it was not in their interest to rebel.
In fact I beleive that the Romans were more than happy for people to run their own affairs as long as they were able to get their taxation in whatever way they wanted the goods.
I don鈥檛 think that provisioning the army would have been a problem for the country and in some ways the army became a protecting force.
Yet I don鈥檛 believe that for one minute we should think that the army was philanthropic. They were the support for the asset stripping of Britain for over three hundred years.
When people ask what did the Romans do for us? 鈥 it should be more to the point of what did the Romans do for themselves?
Kind Regards - TA -
Message 7
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Tuesday, 6th October 2009
Hi TA,
Thanks for your reply. I don't disagree with much you have written; although at present I can't see yet how it leads to evidence of a 'Roman occupation' in the the period AD 410-430+. Doubtless all will be revealed. I especially agree that Roman urban civilisation did not succeed in Britain and that genetically the most important contribution to our make-up comes from the first Mesolithic inhabitants.
We have a fairly good idea about the situation of the Romano-British elite. We know how they decorated their villas, what they ate, the extend to which they embraced Roman ideology and the economic system into which they fitted. People in similar positions in neighbouring provinces even left written evidence.
Now you may suspect that the British rural working class didn't take the same view but that is purely conjectural on your part. We don't really have evidence touching on this point. If you wish to take a Marxist view of history that is fine; I have no problem with sympathy for those whose labour produced the taxes!
For what it's worth my guess is that the masses had no concept of what it meant to be British, nor (after three hundred years) what it meant to be an Iceni etc. Their loyalties would have been to a person: employer, bishop, chief or commander. I've always felt that the concept of Iron Age tribal attributions surviving through the whole Imperial period is pure romanticism. Do you have evidence?
IMO you do make some errors. In the first place Britain was part of the empire for more than 300 years. The motives of emperors, or army commanders, in AD 50 and AD 350 must not be assumed to be the same. Secondly, spread over the whole imperial period Britain was not especially rebellious, nor were conditions frequently war-like. There was a tendency for ambitious soldiers on detached service, anywhere within the empire, to claim imperial power. Sometimes, with Vespasian or Constantine perhaps, this was a 'good thing', and sometimes it wasn't. Finally when we talk of 'Romans' in Britain we seldom mean Italians. We mean men from other western provinces (Spain, Gaul and so forth) in the service of the Imperial government.
I don't suppose that the Roman Army was philanthropic, few armies in history have been, but two factors made the late Roman army more closely tied to the region in which it was based. Firstly this was the necessity for local recruitment and secondly, following immense central economic problems, the need for soldiers to depend more on locally collected annona, rather than centrally derived pay chests.
Did the Roman Empire 'asset strip' Britain? Did the British Empire 'asset strip' India? Since the poor gets the blame while the rich get the pleasure perhaps it doesn't signify much what hats the elite wear?
Kind regards,
TP -
Message 8
Posted by Richie (U1238064) on Tuesday, 6th October 2009
I am curious as to what you mean exactly by "assest stripping"
To me this implies an organisation/government engaged in the systematic removal of goods etc from a region without either the consent of the local population or without paying for the goods either in coin or in kind.
At what point did the Roman Empire engage in such "stripping" within their provinces?
I'm fully aware of such practices as Tax Farming, especially in the pre-Imperial age, but by and large the Roman Empire was a trade organisation, it existed to create money. Simply stripping Britain of goods serves no long end ecomonic goal. Without payment for goods taken, how could the local nobility, city classes etc then pay for the imported wine, pottery *subsitute here for goods of choice*
I would agree with TP that I've seen little evidence in books I have read of the British population having any sense of "Britishness" or "Dementaness". The upper classes would have thought of themselves as "Roman" whilst the lower levels would have identified themselves with their local lord, much as later populations did. -
Message 9
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Tuesday, 6th October 2009
Hi TP
Thanks once again for more interesting slants....
"Did the Roman Empire 'asset strip' Britain? Did the British Empire 'asset strip' India? Since the poor gets the blame while the rich get the pleasure perhaps it doesn't signify much what hats the elite wear?"
I fully agree with the above points and yes the British Empire acted like all other empires in asset stripping its colonies.
Again I agree your point that there was no feeling of 鈥淏ritishness鈥 in the general population, certainly after 300 years of Roman occupation and I have obviously expressed myself badly in using a general explanation, although I hadn鈥檛 thought of it as Marxist - just realistic.
Yet there were tribes or kingdoms when the Romans arrived just that the whole political climate changed after this with the Roman Administration being the pinnacle of the reporting structure.
In some respects this change explains why after the Romans left that there was such fragmentation and why the Brythons took so long to reorganise themselves into some form of effective defence (but that is for later in the discussion).
I hope that I haven鈥檛 intimated anywhere that I think of the Roman Empire or at least its citizens as being purely Italian and I would also agree that the Strategy of the Roman Empire in AD50 would have changed by AD400 with regard to Britain.
The point that the Army was more reliant on the locals for supplies due to the central troubles I would agree although as I have argued on the 鈥淲heat鈥 Post I don鈥檛 think that there would have been a problem feeding the Army.
I was not of the opinion that the Army was totally reliant on locals for recruitment but it would make sense although I expect the Romans would have brought in Limitanae and Auxilliaries from other Provinces as well which is evidenced from the repairs on the Wall.
With regards to your comments that Britain was not necessarily troublesome you may be right but perhaps you would agree that the Roman Administration had to put in many measures to keep Britain pacified including many campaigns 鈥 some against Pretenders, some against foreign invaders, perhaps the loss of the Ninth Hispanic, two Walls (at least) settling the Irish on the West Coast, breaking Britain itself up into two then four and then maybe five separate Provinces. Not exactly settled by todays standards (but then again nor was the War of the Roses or the King versus Parliament I suppose ) but I digress.
To demonstrate some of the above in AD367 / AD 368, probably a decisive time in Britain, according to the records the Picts, Scots, Saxons, Franks overran Britain.
There are Attacks in the South and North of the country, breaking through Hadrians Wall (with help from the treacherous Arcani who were manning the Wall) defeating the Roman armies and killing the Count of the Saxon Shore and the Duke of Britain in the process
You would have thought that if Britain was not economically viable that this would be the low point and the time to abandon the Province. Of course there may have been a thought that Britain could be an ongoing threat if it wasn't held.
Theodosius was sent to Britain with a large force and after recapturing London recovered the whole of Britain, rebuilt Hadrian鈥檚 Wall (although not as heavily fortified as before) and harried the invaders like Constantius and Severus before him, back in their own territories.
Further to this Severus extended the protection of the North East with the erection of the signal towers as a defence against the North Sea invaders with perhaps a fleet based in the Humber or signalling links to York where the high command was based.
Britain was once again under control and obviously a Province to be cherished. (Did I mention that I thought that Britain was not always peaceful?)
But only 15 years or so after Maximus (one of the many Pretenders from Britain) ups and goes off to Gaul and is Emperor of part of the Western Empire for a few years before being beaten.
Possibly this is when Hadrian鈥檚 Wall is finally abandoned and the forces left regroup to defend the Vale of York
There is no record of the Legions being brought back so already Britain is down to a smaller force.
Further troops are taken by Stilicho to help in his fight against Alaric in AD401 and finally in AD407 Constantine III takes another army off to Gaul becoming yet another Pretender.
He set up his Administrators for Britain 鈥 he was perhaps expecting to return but failed to survive past AD411.
In AD410 the Brythons write to Honorius asking for help but unfortunately not much help is available and the Brythons are left to continue on their own鈥︹
Kind Regards - TA -
Message 10
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Tuesday, 6th October 2009
Hi Richie
I don鈥檛 think that we are fundamentally disagreeing here.
I think that you would agree that the Roman army triumphed over two thirds of Britain which implies they had the upper hand.
So somehow I cannot believe that they would be going to the local leaders and saying that they would like to buy some gold (if that was alright with them at the price that the locals would set) but if they didn鈥檛 want to sell it 鈥 don鈥檛 worry.
I believe that the Romans knew what they wanted and where appropriate set the price for the goods. This is no different from asset stripping a firm 鈥 where you know which bits you want, pay a price and sell the rest on as trade.
At the very least you would have to agree that they would and did exploit their provinces for profit but this is no different than the British Empire so why should it be difficult to imagine of other Empires?
I would agree with you that trade was the priority as well so it would make sense to re-invest some of the profit back into the local economy by employing people through their tribal leaders, buying surplus etc. It was an excellent way to keep the leaders Romanised and up to their gills in wine and hypocausts!!!
Interestingly there is a marked difference between the Army and the Trade Administration for example Tax gathering not being an Army function at all but a separate civilian role.
The city was a great way to keep the inhabitants in control and Roman Society thrived here and in the early days there must have been a huge influx of Roman citizens in Colchester, London and at St Albans for Boudicca to have slaughtered so many (70,000 to 80,000) so they must have been led to believe that this was the place to be.
Talking of Boudicca I suspect that the putting down of this rebellion is what led to the pacification of Southern Britain. It wasn鈥檛 just the slaughter at the battle where the Iceni were beaten but the ongoing brutality and reprisals by the Roman military long after 鈥 until the Administration grew dismayed that there would be so few Iceni and others left that the profit from the island would be badly affected. It was then that the killing was stopped.
So I think that the threat of reprisals was there for everyone to see and realise it could be visited upon them at any time.
With your final point that there was no feeling of 鈥淏ritishness鈥 I would totally agree and have obviously expressed myself badly in using a general explanation.
Yet I think that when the Romans arrived there were kings of tribes, this is documented when Claudius met with them at Colchester and obviously there is also the rising of the Iceni (with friends) under their Royal Leader, then there was Caratacus defeated then went to the Silures and fought the Romans again鈥︹︹︹︹︹︹
This was a country with various tribes (or groups of people who had leaders) 鈥 in some respects this is why the Romans were so successful by picking off each one, one by one.
I cannot put it any better than you 鈥淭he upper classes would have thought of themselves as "Roman" whilst the lower levels would have identified themselves with their local lord, much as later populations did.鈥
This is the first time however that Britain had another level of Administration over all of the population whatever the tribe, paying taxes to the State and food to the Army.
Kind Regards - TA -
Message 11
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Tuesday, 6th October 2009
Hi TA
As always your enthusiasm for this period is most stimulating. But I do feel that you are perhaps over-ready to adopt one explanation of a contentious point when alternatives exist. For example the 'constant rebellion and warfare' view of Roman Britain is an exaggeration. For a moment, compare 3rd century Britain with 20th century Britain or 19th century France. Or compare the 2nd -3rd century with the 15th and 16th; Roman Britain was simply not that troublesome; in fact rather peaceful when compared with Gaul and Germania.
鈥... according to the records the Picts, Scots, Saxons, Franks overran Britain.鈥 聽
I think 'record' rather than 'records' would be correct for an account of the 'Barbarian conspiracy' of 367. The activities of General Theodosius, who expels raiders and reorganises defences, may have been overstated by Ammianus Marcellinus since he lived in the reign of the general's son. It is surely right to stress that there is not the slightest archaeological evidence that any Roman villas were ever sacked or looted by anyone. The archaeology suggests rather that they were progressively abandoned in the late 4th and early 5th centuries.
鈥..Further to this Severus extended the protection of the North East with the erection of the signal towers as a defence against the North Sea invaders with perhaps a fleet based in the Humber or signalling links to York.鈥 聽
I don't think Severus constructed the East Coast towers at Filey, Scarborough and elsewhere. Pottery evidence suggests a late 4th century date. The signalling links, if such there were, were more probably to the large fort at Malton, about halfway between York and Scarborough.
鈥 Possibly this is when Hadrian鈥檚 Wall is finally abandoned and the forces left regroup to defend the Vale of York.鈥 聽
Several Hadrian's Wall forts show evidence of occupation into the 5th century. I find it really hard to believe that the Wall was abandoned at the time of Magnus Maximus.
鈥..In AD410 the Brythons write to Honorius asking for help but unfortunately not much help is available.鈥 聽
You must have the so-called Rescript of Honorius in mind. The 'rescript' is controversial since it accompanies a portion of text involved in the discussion of the situation in N. Italy at the time of Alaric's invasion. It probably isn't describing the situation in Britain.
But anyway how does all this point to the reoccupation of Britain by the Roman Army in the period AD 410-430?
Best wishes,
TP -
Message 12
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Wednesday, 7th October 2009
Hi TA
I need to peruse this properly and unfortunately am tied up for a day or so but will return to post ASAP - sorry for the delay.
Best Wishes - TP -
Message 13
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Wednesday, 7th October 2009
Hi TA,
Time is no problem since the Romans have already waited 1500 years. I'm a little worried that we seem to have switched identities!
TP (the real; accept no substitute) -
Message 14
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Friday, 9th October 2009
Hi TP
Good Grief!!! What a Freudian slip!!
Well as Charles Caleb Colton stated "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"
There IS only ONE TP.
My apologies - TA -
Message 15
Posted by Sir Gar Hywel dda (U13786187) on Friday, 9th October 2009
I've just had a program note from the newly formed CPR (Confraternity of Pilgrims to Rome)on their November meeting in Piccadilly London,Saturday nov 8th.
Constantine, Sigeric, and Thomas de Hassall (1402 journey) are on the agenda, the latter to be discussed by Mark Hassall.
No other thread to put it on; seems ok!
CPR is a Euro culture initiative. -
Message 16
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Saturday, 10th October 2009
Hi TP
Many thanks for the interesting reply and for some new thoughts鈥..
Regarding the Signalling Towers of course you are correct 鈥 I should have said that Count Theodosius was responsible for extending the defensive system of the Saxon Shore Forts and effectively linking it up to York as you said.
I don鈥檛 think I actually stated from the original post that I suspected the Roman Army to have actually re-occupied Britain in AD410 and every indication infers the armies that left never returned once they left in AD407.
It would seem however that Britain was not totally denuded of troops after the departures of Maximus, or the removal of troops by Stilicho or indeed after Constantine III took yet another Army (including possibly the Second Augusta)
So did all the Legions go? Probably, yet according to Notitia Dignitatum , if we take it at face value, around this period there may have been 18,000 troops left in Britain but of course I realise that the Notia is not completely accurate.
You may well be right again regarding the occupation of the Wall, indeed I believe that there were coins from the time of Gratian and even Maximus found at the Wall and I have read that a purse of coins was found at Halton Chesters in 2007, the latest being a Gloria Romanorum type dating to A.D. 406-408. Perhaps the manning of the Wall continued for many more years.
Perhaps then there was a stable Province left by Constantine with Auxilliaries and Limitanae guarding the Borders governed by their Commanders..
In AD407 the Roman Administration at this time 鈥 the Civil Service, was still in place and was continuing to collect taxes, to trade, and keeping the army fed 鈥 whatever was left. Presumably it reported and collected taxes for Constantine III until his death.
Regarding the Rescript of Honorius, I will be led by you on this.
Yet if this is irrelevant what proof do we have that the Administration did not just struggle on maintaining the status quo?
I seem to remember from an earlier post that you thought it would have been unlikely that an Emperor (even a Usurper) would leave part of his Power Base undefended and a potential thorn in his side.
To kick off this discussion I suppose what I find difficult to accept about the 鈥渄oom and gloom鈥 scenario of the Cities and the Villas collapsing so early is why up to Count Theodosius was Rome prepared to expend so much effort and expense in money and man power to regain Britain and to rebuild the wall.
If there was no wealth in the country how was the Roman Army garrisoned here in the latter part of the 4th Century and two Emperors raised and prepared their armies for invasion of Western Europe and who left within forty years of AD367 when Count Theodosius re structured the country.
As you have said Britain was possibly a peaceful and I believe prosperous province still feeding its own people and I would have thought that around AD410 was in better shape not having to feed the Armies leaving more food to be traded and sold.
To me it doesn鈥檛 feel like a diocese approaching disaster but an opportunity for the local Romano Brythons to take control of their destiny.
Kind Regards - TA -
Message 17
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Saturday, 10th October 2009
Hi TA.
Nice to be back in my own personality again!
鈥 every indication infers the armies that left never returned once they left in AD407鈥澛
Now that I do agree with!
鈥淚t would seem however that Britain was not totally denuded of troops after the departures of Maximus, or the removal of troops by Stilicho or indeed after Constantine III鈥 聽
We don't know that for certain but it is likely. When the calls came some would have reported sick, some would be AWOL, and some would have refused to leave their families or remained to guard vital centres of government etc
鈥渁ccording to Notitia Dignitatum , if we take it at face value, around this period there may have been 18,000 troops left in Britain鈥 聽
Sorry to sound like a maths teacher but could you show your working? How did you arrive at the figure of 18,000?
鈥淧erhaps the manning of the Wall continued for many more years.鈥澛
There is archaeological evidence for 5th C occupation at Carlisle, Binchester, Birdoswald and South Shields for certain.
鈥淧erhaps then there was a stable Province left by Constantine with Auxilliaries and Limitanae guarding the Borders governed by their Commanders..鈥 聽
But then again perhaps there wasn't...
鈥渨hat proof do we have that the Administration did not just struggle on maintaining the status quo?鈥 聽
Coinage and pottery collapse suggest economic catastrophe. Whatever the administration maintained in could hardly have been the status quo.
鈥渋t would have been unlikely that an Emperor (even a Usurper) would leave part of his Power Base undefended and a potential thorn in his side.鈥 聽
It's all a matter of date. With Irish pirates in the Channel and German tribes in Gaul there were no good choices left to Constantine III. I doubt if, on the basis of 'better the devil you know' he had to worry about rebellion at home, but even so he had plenty to concern him!
鈥渁round AD410 was in better shape not having to feed the Armies leaving more food to be traded and sold鈥 聽
Maybe not. There could easily be a parallel with modern Zimbabwe. The majority of the food was being raised on efficient villa estates using slaves to raise cash crops for sale to the army. Take away the slaves and the army with the villas rapidly decaying you're soon back with Iron Age subsistence agriculture.
Best wishes,
TP -
Message 18
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Sunday, 11th October 2009
I don鈥檛 think I actually stated from the original post that I suspected the Roman Army to have actually re-occupied Britain in AD410 聽
What you actually said was: 鈥渋t would appear that there is evidence of Roman Military occupation in Britain after AD407 and up to AD440 and also new Roman building at various places within Britain up to at least AD430.鈥
Now, what did you actually mean by the expression 'Roman military occupation'? To me that implies the presence of Roman troops loyal to the central government of the Empire, namely the legitimate Roman emperor. Roman troops left behind in Britain by Constantine III, and now loyal to local warlords, or just possibly the Romano-British authorities in smaller post-Imperial successor states, can't accurately be described as 'Roman military occupation'.
Do you see what I mean?
Best wishes,
TP -
Message 19
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Sunday, 11th October 2009
Hi TP
Thanks for replying and setting me some questions......
Regarding coinage and pottery collapse, I believe that the established thinking is under siege.
More recent coinage seems to be being found in many places due to metal dectectorists and many hoards (certainly in the South of the country) seem to be yielding later coins than AD400 for example:
Bishops Cannings AD 402
Stanchester AD406
Hoxne AD408
Butterfield Down AD 423
According to the British Museum of all Roman silver coin hoards from the Empire for the period AD 388-410, 80 per cent are from Britain.
Strangely there is a huge find at Richborough of 56,000 coins, 45% which were from AD395 to AD402.
No one seems to be able to understand this but if the Saxon Forts had been abandoned in the previous century what are they doing there?
Military bases seem to reflect Regional coin groupings rather than Military Payments so could this be linked to a withholding of coin from the centre of the Empire rather than economic change.
Some authorities believe that recycled coinage continued to be used over a considerable period of time after AD 410.
You maintain that the production of pottery finished around AD410 but what pottery finished and where wasn鈥檛 it found? I ask this as I cannot find references to enquire on.
With regards to the 18,000 troops based in Britain, I have tried to base this on the only piece of information that is official 鈥 the Notitia Dignitatum. I do appreciate that this could be wrong but in the absence of any other reference this is at least a starting point.
The Wall and Coastal Defences were manned by 23 Cohorts, the forts under the Count of The Saxon Shore comprised of 9 forts and the forts under the Duke of Britain comprised of some 14 forts. If we take a low level of manning as 350 per fort or cohort this would be 18,000 鈥 not an unreasonable number.
I am surprised that you feel that Constantine III would not have left troops behind 鈥 he seems to have been a more than competent soldier with excellent organisational skills. Britain was a valuable diocese and I expect he would not have wanted to return to defend it against the invaders.
The statement that if you 鈥渢ake away the slaves and the army with the villas rapidly decaying you're soon back with Iron Age subsistence agriculture鈥 is perfectly true but where is the proof that the slaves left?
This whole discussion here is about the timeline.
When did the loyalty of Roman troops move from the central government of the Empire to local war leaders 鈥 or more to the point when did perhaps the local Roman leaders become British Warlords?
Rome is sacked in AD410 and Constantine is defeated in AD411 but Honorius lingers on until AD423.
Is it around this time that Britain abandons Rome or that Rome abandons Britain?
Is this when Vortigern starts?
A leader who acts like a Roman with links to the Northern Command.
Best Wishes - TA -
Message 20
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Monday, 12th October 2009
Hi TA,
Thanks for the interesting reply. If established thinking is under siege I'd really like to know who you feel the besiegers are!
Determining the nature of the end of Roman Britain is not easy. There are two excellent books on the subject, written by Neil Faulkener and Ken Dark, which reach totally different conclusions. It is important to keep date, place and evidence constantly in mind. A conclusion that is valid for AD 420 may be incorrect in 460. A conclusion that is correct in 'Cornwall' may be hopelessly inadequate for 'Essex'. Many models will have a degree of predictive power which may be tested by archaeology, and indeed must be tested by archaeology.
To demonstrate the continuity of centrally paid Roman soldiers in, and after, the reign of Constantine III it would be best to find base metal coinage in Britain with a date after AD 402; there is none believe me, even the issue of 404 is not found in Britain. Gold and silver is less useful as evidence since the precious metals have an intrinsic value. Even if they are not used as money they may be traded for this intrinsic value. Even so there are very few late examples. Famously the Patching Hoard contains some. The Hoxne Treasure that you mention has 15,000 gold or silver coins but the last date from AD 407/408. Several Wiltshire hoards come from the Butterfield Down area eg Stanchester & Bishops Canning but none have a terminal date after AD 407 so far as I am aware. I don't know of a 'Butterfield Down Hoard' with a terminal date of AD 423; can you give me a reference for this?
The Richborough coins are certainly a puzzle and constitute more from the period AD 395-402 than are known from all other sites put together. But clearly this Shore Fort was not abandoned in the 4th century. It is mentioned in the Notitia Dignitatum as the base of Legio II Augusta. Those authorities who believe (as you claim) that base metal small change continued to circulated for decades have to explain to me what value it would have if it was not convertible into gold or silver as part of the Roman tax cycle. If it did circulate it was surely only among the gullible! The clinching argument against 5th century circulation is that no one bothered to counterfeit small value coins when the official supply dried up.
Roman fineware pottery really deserves a thread to itself. As you will appreciate if you find a production kiln then this can be dated. Alternatively the number and type of pottery sherds in a dated context can be estimated. The last Roman levels produce, for example, Alice Holt ware and Black-burnished ware in the south, and Crambeck wares in the north and on Hadrian's Wall. What we are really interested in are levels that are higher than (and thus post-date) the last coin finds; a famous example is the temple precinct at Bath. Small amounts of Roman pottery are found in these levels, and in the earliest levels of Saxon sites. This has been reasonably attributed to the reuse of much older vessels. When Saxon-made pottery starts to appear it is quite different in form. The general view is that industrial scale Roman pottery collapsed by about AD 420. The problem may have been that without the army there was no effective distribution network. As you will realise what we see as a trade in pottery may really have been a trade in the contents of the pots, whatever that was.
The calculation of the troop numbers is difficult since we can only guess at the number of troops actually present in each fort, and in any case the Notitia Dignitatum omits Wales altogether. But I won't argue with your total of 18,000. The real problem for you is determining the date that the ND is intending to describe. This is unknown of course, but to me it seems inconceivable that it could be describing the actual situation after, say, AD 410. The reason for this, as you will have surmised, is that I cannot by any stretch of the imagination envisage Constantine III leaving the equivalent of three old style legions behind in Britain when he crossed to Gaul. If he had been interested in a safe life he would have stayed in Britain. But evidently he felt his responsibility as Emperor very seriously and intervened in the Western Provinces at a moment of great crisis. He would have taken every man he could lay his hands on. It would have been safe to leave Britain undefended if, at the time, it was not being threatened.
As far as the villas are concerned the only facts are from the mid-4th century onwards no new villas are built, few are repaired, and there is progressive abandonment. There are no signs of violent overthrow. You're perfectly correct; the slaves could have stayed, but not as slaves; squatter occupants perhaps. There may be better evidence for the continuity of agriculture and the estates than for the villa buildings themselves. The point is that villa society disappeared and economic collapse fits the facts better than battle, murder and sudden death.
Anyone who proposes a 'long chronology' for Roman Britain has to explain the severe late 4th century recession in activity which involves towns, villas and pottery. I doubt if the contemporary Romans or Romano-British envisage this recession as permanent. Perhaps as late as AD 450 re-adoption of the British provinces might have been discussed; but it never happened.
Lets leave Vortigern out of it for the moment since this post is already very long. In you first post you said "it would appear that there is evidence of Roman Military occupation in Britain after AD407 and up to AD440". Do you still believe this? If so what was the nature of the 'Roman military occupation'?
Best wishes,
TP -
Message 21
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Monday, 12th October 2009
Hi TP
Thanks for the informative and detailed reply.
The particular reference for the hoards I have used is this link:
which you may find interesting - I would welcome your comments.
I am indeed incorrect, having mis interpreted the text, about the final date of the coins on the Butterfield Site as the coins are in fact dated to AD405 - still late for the period but they are gold.
Another reference is below:
(Please don't think I am trying to bombard you with web sites)
I certainly agree that the situation was different in various parts of the country, so what might be true in parts of Wiltshire is not necessarily so on the Wall.
I think that we may have to "agree to disagree" regarding Constanine III leaving troops behind to guard his Northern flank. I think your argument about him that - "he felt his responsibility as Emperor very seriously" applies both ways.
AD423 seems to me an interesting juncture of the change of the loyalty of the Standing Forces in Britain as the rest of the Western Empire really is in serious trouble after Honorius and the dislocation is probably complete miltarily if not socially.
I am going to reflect more on your post as I am limited by time but will return shortly.
Best wishes - TA. -
Message 22
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Friday, 16th October 2009
Hi TP
What I would like to examine is the concept that by AD360 the cities and villa societies were starting to collapse.
I am taking this in sections as it is too large a period to discuss meaningfully in one post.
There appears to be a dichotomy between the interpretation of the archaeology and what the people who wrote the history of Roman Britain state.
Up to AD 337 Britain as you say appears to be a comparatively stable diocese with its Forts and the Wall and the Saxon Shore Forts manned 鈥 possibly there may have been up to 55,000 troops stationed in Britain at this time but I cannot say for certain.
From AD 337 to AD349 there appears to be no major upheavals until in AD 350 Magnentius is elevated by his troops against Constans. He quickly attracts British support amongst other areas and after the death of Constans ends up fighting Constantius 2nd at the battle of Mursa in AD351.
This battle kills some 55,000 Roman troops, Constantius 2nd wins and then after a following battle in AD353 Magnentius is beaten and commits suicide.
This leaves the Roman Armies depleted including according to the histories the armies of Britain.
Constantius 2nd sends a notary to Britain, Paulus Catena, to root out the rebellious troops, ex supporters of Magnentius. He was a cruel and unjust man and caused mayhem within the army with his actions and much bad feeling.
He was so unjust that the Vicarius of Britain loyal to Constantius 2nd complains and is in turn implicated by Catena.
Enraged, the Vicarius tries to kill Catena and subsequently commits suicide when he fails.
Catena is withdrawn by Constantius 2nd in AD354 shortly after this episode to sort out further trouble spots with similar cruelty. (He is eventually executed by being burnt alive some time later).
So allegedly Britain is depleted of troops due to the slaughter from the Battles between Magnentius and Constantius 2nd however life continues.
Was this depletion of troops enough to change the Pottery production at this time around AD 350?
In AD360 it is reported that Britain starts to export wheat to the Rhine as a Roman supported project.
If this was the case you would have thought that the Villa Society would be in the ascendant not in a state of collapse unless the State had taken over the production of wheat.
This surely would have been counter productive as by removing the Villa Society and the Cities, tax gathering would have stopped all together.
So up to AD360 there appears to be no reason for the decline of the Roman based and instigated Society unless the depletion of the troops was indeed to such a degree that there was no market for the villas or trade for the towns and cities.
Could this be what archaeology shows us?
The mid 4th Century in Britain actually has a recession due to the Civil Wars of the Roman Emperors?
Is this be a viable scenario?
Kind Regards - TA -
Message 23
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Hi TA,
I'm not sure that the late 4th century is much easier that the early 5th for those wanting uncomplicated answers. It may be better to keep in mind several explanations of the available data and not assume that a 'correct' solution is even possible.
It's not altogether surprising that the historical and archaeological evidence tell a different story about Roman Britain. Archaeology can, often, answer the questions 'what' and 'when', but almost never 'why'. Archaeologists also tend to slip easily into environmental determinism. A fort is built close to a river crossing or a road junction, whereas in reality the commanding officer 'obeyed orders' or liked the view or his wife saw the site in a dream. Materials from the past do not all survive equally well. Societies that build in stone and use pottery are well represented; wooden buildings and iron tools do not remain except under special circumstances.
On the other hand historical documents (including coin legends) may certainly give you information about motivation but I doubt if a single Roman writer ever even attempted an impartial account of British affairs. Authors were writing for a Roman audience and were ever conscious of 'imperial attention'. There were political reputations they wished to 'puff up' and other political reputations it was rather dangerous to endorse.
When writing about this period it is very easy to reach foregone conclusions. For example you use the term 'Saxon Shore forts'. This expression occurs only once in Roman literature (in the Notitia Dignitatum) and much ink has been employed discussing the exact meaning of 'Saxon Shore'. The more neutral term 'shore fort' is now preferred and can be extended to include works like the fort at Cardiff which could never have been on any definition of Saxon shore.
The fact that some villas in Britain decay in the 4th century need not indicate the decay of villa society as a whole. It could be interpreted as more successful villa estates (the Tescos of their day) simple buying up the land of the less successful. But I think that it probably was easy for an affluent civilian to find himself on the wrong 'side' in a civil war and lose his estate as a result. I have no idea if the Paul 'the Chain' episode is true, but similar events followed the Wars of the Roses and the French Revolution. Constantius's morbid suspicions seem rather reminiscent of Stalin's.
It's hard to imagine that the slaughter in periodic Roman civil wars left the North West Provinces untouched but the fact remains that the similar catastrophes of the 3rd century were survived. The slaughter in the Great War trenches was infinitely worse but by, say, 1935 how much of the damage persisted?
Which I think means that your theories are as good as anyone's. But not a bit better...
Kind regards,
TP -
Message 24
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Tuesday, 20th October 2009
Hi TP
Sorry for the delay but I am trying to cross reference as much as I can to try to form a platform for the ongoing discussion 鈥 and as usual I find that this is not as easy as you might think鈥 also appreciate that my interpretation of events is just that, an interpretation but I am trying to show that Britannia was deemed a valuable province by the Roman hierarchy past the implied decline of AD350 onwards.
Many thanks for the interesting reply 鈥 as usual you think outside the box 鈥..I have to say that I haven鈥檛 taken the vagaries of human nature into account but of course you are right 鈥 but I suspect that perhaps there were some strategic considerations in the siting of some of the forts over and above a whim.
I like the references to confiscated villas, farms etc. especially considering what happened after the Magnentius episode and as you infer the farms could well have been absorbed by other landowners or indeed the State.
If this was the case then 鈥渢aken over鈥 villas did not necessarily need to be maintained at their level of opulence. The land however could still be worked by the slaves or 鈥渟erfs鈥 and could therefore still be profitable.
The Army in Britain is probably under strength in the mid 4th century and therefore there may well have been a drop in the pottery market.
AD359 sees the opening of the Britain to the production of grain, under Julian, for the Western Armies and according to reports 600 ships are built to transport the grain.
AD360 sees more problems in Britain with crack troops under Lupicinus despatched to Britain to deal with further unknown problems, which are presumably dealt with.
So in AD367 Britain was possibly under defended, producing a lot of wheat and appears to be peaceful.
The time is ripe for an invasion and the Picts and Scots happily oblige as what appears to be a concerted effort, for the second time, in collusion with some of the military auxilliaries manning the Wall.
The reports that are available seem to show that this is a major incursion in the West, the North and the South East.
Although I appreciate that the sources (Ammianus Marcellinus and Claudian) may have 鈥渙ver egged鈥 the severity of the uprising, the facts that British Roman Commanders over seeing the diocese were killed (Nectaridus) or cut off or perhaps captured (Fullofaudes) tends to make me think that this was a serious blow to the Roman control of Britain.
It is stated that not only was Hadrian鈥檚 Wall breached but that rebellious soldiers and slaves were wandering the countryside with raiding barbarians rampant with reports that Londinium was sacked.
Valentian decides not abandon Britain and two commanders are sent to Britain to restore order but each in turn fails or at the very least are withdrawn.
It is not until AD 368 that Count Theodosius arrives to quell the uprising bringing troops with him. He succeeds and as we have discussed rebuilds parts of Hadrian鈥檚 Wall, adds stone walls to cities and towns and creates the Signal Towers in Yorkshire.
As a matter of passing reference 鈥 if towns and cities and presumably villas had been attacked and ransacked 鈥 if they were refurbished and strengthened the damage would have been removed and all evidence of pillage for that period would not be available archeologically speaking.
In AD 369 Theodosius also deals with a Roman exile, Valentinus, who tries to start further troubles with dissenters in the Roman Army but gives amnesty to other Rebels who in the main return to their garrison duties.
It is alleged that he then pursues the invaders of the North to their homelands, possibly with support from the navy, (remember the signalling towers) and extracts terms from them after which he returns to Rome.
He also re-organises the diocese with an additional Province 鈥 Valentia (perhaps the land between Hadrian鈥檚 Wall and the Antonine Wall, possibly manned by the Twentieth Legion) and a new Governor for Britain is appointed.
So by AD370 Britain is back on the 鈥渟traight and narrow鈥 as it were. The army had probably been strengthened, troops still had to be fed, taxes needed to be collected and the local population were living much as before.
The Administration is therefore likely to have been established and fully functional as is the Army.
At this point Britain is peaceful and presumably profitable until around AD381 when Magnus Maximus returns to Britain defeats the Picts and Scots (again!) and then in AD383 usurps the Emperorship and takes an Army to the Rhine and Gaul and confronts and then kills Gratian.
Potttery production probably takes a dive again as more men are withdrawn from Britain but as I have said previously I believe that whenever troops are withdrawn from Britain enough are left to maintain the borders and keep civil order.
The civilian population at this time is thought to be around 3 million.
Another 5 years passes with Magnus Maximus being the effective Emperor of Western Europe until he is defeated and killed by the Eastern Emperor Theodosius 1st.
So up to this point (AD388) although I can see that the villas may be being subsumed into larger estates and that the pottery production may well have reduced, I cannot see why the towns or cities would be abandoned as they were the controls for tax gathering and the proliferation of trade recently rebuilt and strengthened and apparently secure and peaceful with a ready market in grain making the country prosperous.
Where would the people go and why?
Best Wishes - TA -
Message 25
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Tuesday, 20th October 2009
Hi TA,
Thanks for your kind reply. I think the decline of towns is explicable by the fact that the majority of the facilities were presented free to the citizens by the emperor or by wealthy citizens. Once stone public buildings were constructed it was very rare (in Britain) to find them demolished and rebuilt in stone. It is one thing to plan and build towns, and quite another to persuade citizens to set up shops and shop in them. It is difficult to establish if towns ever really 鈥榳orked鈥. At no period were large high status residencies common in British towns. High quality living was done in villas.
The Roman Empire is thought of as a place of cities, although most of its inhabitants lived in rural communities. In any case urbanisation in Roman Britain was through the medium of smaller developments 鈥 unplanned towns - which, in most cases, would have looked unimpressive (although familiar) to the Italian Roman. Even allowing a population of 5000 in the average town this doesn鈥檛 give an urban population in Roman Britain much above 100,000. The overall population has in turn been estimated as 2 million plus. The people didn't have to 'go' anywhere. The majority must have always lived on the land.
As you will have appreciated I have been trying to make several general points about the interpretation of the evidence we have for late Roman and early post-Imperial British history. Firstly historical sources and archaeological findings are quite often at variance. Historians of this period have their own agendas and seldom set out to tell the plain unvarnished truth about events in Britain, assuming they know it.
Secondly it is probably unwise to base ones interpretation purely on environmental determinism. Events are not always logical or predictable.
Thirdly the same set of facts are almost always susceptible to more than one interpretation. The decline of villas in the 4th century is a fact; there several possible causes of this fact which may have acted in isolation or together. That there is no evidence of destruction at villa sites is also a fact; was the evidence of damage removed or did it never occur? Both are possible.
Fourthly it is important to avoid anachronism. The army, administration and other institutions of 2nd century Roman Britain are quite different from those operating in the 4th century.
Fifthly it is important to avoid circular arguments. For example: we read, and thus 'know', that General Theodosius was active in Britain in AD 368. Therefore late 4th century repairs of fortifications, even if not precisely dated, are considered likely to form part of Theodosius's reconstruction. The finding of additional late but undated reconstructions in Roman fortifications indicate that Theodosius was active in Britain as the sources claim.
Sixthly, avoid trying to explain small insoluble problems which don't really add to the general argument. No one knows where Valentia was, or even if it was reclaimed territory or simply renamed territory (as Londonium became Augusta). Policing the unknown province with a legion last attested more than a century earlier in Chester would seem an unnecessary complexity.
Seventh, we should always ask if the interpretations we select have any predictive capacity. If we believe, for example, that in AD 367 鈥渞aiding barbarians (were) rampant鈥 and that there were 鈥渞eports that Londinium was sacked鈥 we should expect to find archaeological evidence of destruction levels in late-Roman London. Is this what we do find? If we do are there other possible explanations? Alternatively your theory would predict that any defensive city walls in Britain that can be dated would have a late 4th century date and be erected quickly. Is that really the case? Even in Gaul, where a defensive function seems more plausible, the walls were not apparently a 鈥榬ush job鈥 but took a century to complete. In Gaul walled enclaves are markedly smaller than the towns they replaced; in Britain the initial scale is maintained. The purpose of town walls in Britain is not completely understood, like so much else about Roman Britain!
Best wishes,
TP -
Message 26
Posted by John (U13353178) on Wednesday, 21st October 2009
maybe, just maybe, that's when they started making plastic bottles!
-
Message 27
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Sunday, 1st November 2009
Hi TP
Many thanks for your obsesrvations.
My apologies for the tardiness of my reply but as usual your excellent information has made me delve further.
I am going to have to break down my replies to the various parts from your last post as it is too vast to try and answer all at once.
Regarding towns / cities in Britain 鈥 certainly during the revolt of the Iceni under Boudicca it would seem that there were some reasonably sized cities as between St Albans, London and Chichester - 70,000 to 80,000 people are alleged to have been killed.
Other towns such as Cirencester, allegedly had a population of 15,000, Wroxeter 6,000 but there does not appear to be much information on populations in Roman cities like Gloucester (a colonia) or York for instance which is surprising as it was an Imperial Court at one time and also housed up to 6,000 troops let alone the supporting administrative infrastructure.
You would therefore expect the towns / cities to have been larger than an average of 5,000, although it is becoming apparent that there were a lot of small towns linked to the road network with a probable population at the end of the 4th Century of 3.5 million.
The small towns were perhaps then the real market centres for the local farmers as Agriculture really was the major Industry of Britain.
Farmsteads in the Roman period were often based on the pre - Roman farms as were possibly some of the smaller towns.
Perhaps then we can say that cities were mainly run by the Roman establishment as Administrative, Tax Gathering and Support and Logistics Infrastructures for the Roman Army, retired soldiers and the State but not really for the indigenous population.
The Villa Society and its collapse is deemed to have started around AD350 - was this destroyed by Constantius as revenge for British support of Magnentius with the villas going to the State 鈥 the very time that Britain starts to feed the troops on the Rhine and Gaul.
So the collapse of the cities and the collapse of the villa society may well not be connected at all and as you have postulated the 鈥淩oman city society鈥 never worked for the majority of the 鈥淏ritish鈥.
Of course this brings up other points of discussion - did the local population merely adopt Roman customs as a veneer with the aristocracy adopting the Roman politics....
Kind Regards - TA -
Message 28
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Monday, 2nd November 2009
Hi TA,
Don't worry about the delay; your replies are always worth waiting for. It's a pity we are talking to ourselves on this thread. We must make up for it by the quality of our reasoning!
My basic view is certainly that the ordinary members of Romano-British rural society were hardly affected by Roman provincial politics, no more than their descendants were affected when Henry VII replaced Richard III.
In extrapolating from the populations of the towns destroyed in the Boudiccan revolt you have to be careful to avoid anachronism. Even if the population figures were accurate it is my contention that the situation in a 1st century colonia tells you nothing about that in a 4th century unplanned town. I find it hard to imagine that Roman Britain was less populous than Norman Britain, but getting archaeological support for the figures is really difficult.
How does one estimate the population of a town when you can't get census figures or tax returns? Three ways have been employed: applying a multiplier to the known number of contemporary houses, looking at 鈥榣ikely鈥 population densities derived from later and better known societies, and attempting a quantitative approach to community burials. Chichester, W. Sussex is a good example of the use of this last approach. Some 300 burials were excavated along roads leading into the town. By law burials were not permitted within towns. From the knowledge available of the total areas of the cemeteries it is reasonable to assume that 10,000 people were buried. It is assumed for a pre-industrial society that the death rate is 25/1000 per year. This in turn suggests a population for Chichester of 2,000 people.
Even allowing for a population of 5000 in the average town this doesn鈥檛 give an urban population in Roman Britain much above 100,000. The overall population has in turn been estimated (from the Norman parallel) as 1-2M people thus the majority must therefore have lived on the land. You may be correct in supposing that Circencester and York were bigger but allowing them an extra 10,000 each (for example) makes no difference to my overall argument.
If the historical accounts of the aftermath of Magnentius's reign are correct there may well have been land seizure and villa destruction as you suppose. But I imagine that there were quislings and converts to Consantius who benefited. Could there be a parallel with the Dissolution of the Monasteries?
Incidentally there is an amusing consequence to high Romano-British population figures. Having inflated them to 1,2 or even 3 million you have to quickly get rid of them again to permit the success of the subsequent 'Saxon invasions', since a population of 3 million should have produced some mighty British armies. But then we know that 'Saxon invasions' were simply a historical fiction; don't we?
Kind regards,
TP -
Message 29
Posted by Frank Parker (U7843825) on Monday, 2nd November 2009
It's a pity we are talking to ourselves on this thread.聽 Indeed not! You have an interested audience. I for one am enjoying the discussion and learning a great deal from it. Having stuck my oar in, I have a question and a comment. The question relates to TA's reference in M27 to "aristocracy" in the context of the indiginous population. Would there have been such an elite group in pre-Roman Britain? And, if so, what form did it take and how do we know? (OK, 2 questions!)
My comment is a response to this: But then we know that 'Saxon invasions' were simply a historical fiction; don't we?聽 Said tongue in cheek, no doubt, but my comment is "not if you read the Vikings and Saxons thread started by Taz on the Hostory Hub!" -
Message 30
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Monday, 2nd November 2009
Hi Plotinlaois,
Thanks; how kind to tell us we have an informed audience, but I'll wager you are the only one.
I think that many enthusiasts for this period find Britain in the late pre-Roman Iron Age, and the immediate post-Imperial period, slightly more interesting than the time when Britain was a Roman province. Well I do anyway.
In answer to your question I don't think there can be much doubt that there were elites in the late pre-Roman Iron Age in Britain. We have Roman historical evidence for a tribal structure and the fact that some tribal leaders (Cartimandua for example) were at least initially favourable to Roman intervention. Clearly IA artists produced articles of great beauty eg Norfolk gold torcs or the Birdlip mirror. The presence of craft specialists strongly suggests a segmented society with an elite. There are archaeological finds of an impressive IA coinage, the minting of which must surely have been controlled by tribal leaders; some even take the title 'rex' on the coins. There are Roman imports eg wine, oil, glass and other manufactured products which entered the south-east during this period. These may represent trade or diplomatic gifts; either way there were local bosses in control I am sure. Finally there are some elite burials; famously the cart or chariot burials of East Yorkshire and it is even possible that 'Roman' towns like Silchester have IA precursors underneath.
Actually we don't know much about are the non-elite populations 鈥 for example did slavery exist in IA British society, or only as an export to Rome? It is reasonable to assume that a Celtic tongue ancestral to Welsh and Cornish was spoken, but this is an assumption 鈥 there are no written words- so is it true? Did some sectors of society resist cultural Romanization?
I'm really sorry to shock you but the Saxon Migrations, as they were understood until recently, are indeed a pleasant fiction. This is not an opinion that has ever found much favour on these boards. When I last looked at the Vikings & Saxons thread it was quietly discussing Harald Hardrada but I see it has now moved back 600 years. Thanks for the tip. Later this evening I'll post my views and you can enjoy the edifying spectacle of my being shot down in flames!
Kind regards,
TP -
Message 31
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Tuesday, 3rd November 2009
What do you mean by the Saxon Migrations, as they were understood until recently, are indeed a pleasant fiction聽 ? Do you mean that the Saxons never migrated to England?
-
Message 32
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Tuesday, 3rd November 2009
Hi fascinating,
Ah! You were reading this thread after all; excellent. As you can see the problem with TA & me is that, left alone, we are always verging on complete agreement. But I rather imagine you can anticipate my answer to your question.
The accounts of this interesting period, which were believed until quite recently, contain a number of elements that lack credibility. For example: that there was a central post-Imperial British government, that following the rebellion of its 'Anglo-Saxon' military advisers a substantial portion of NW Europe was depopulated as its inhabitants moved to Britain, and that on arrival these new comers massacred most of the indigenous British while pushing the remainder into Wales & Brittany.
It is possible to see how these individual elements were proposed but there are now ample grounds for considering alternative explanations which may be more interesting as well as more secure.
Best wishes,
TP -
Message 33
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Thursday, 5th November 2009
Hi TP
It is quite interesting that many historians do state that there is a swift decline in the population after the Romans leave but is this really the case?
As you are aware I have been convinced by the available evidence that there were no large scale army invasions by the 鈥淎nglo Saxons鈥 but I do believe in immigration over a long period 鈥 oh! 鈥 and war bands but not huge armies of invading hordes landing on the beaches of the South coast cutting huge swathes through the Brythons or driving them before them into Wales, Cornwall and Cumbria.
I think it was a more insidious take over and much of the underlying social structure was already in place to accommodate 鈥渋n comers鈥 as part of the Roman Empire.
Indeed acceptance of settling and peaceful foreigners had been a natural part of Roman Britain for 250 years before Constantine III went to Gaul.
We have seen that there was a high level of Germans already garrisoned in Roman Britain but there were already people from other countries living in the towns, Africans (revealed in York), Eastern Europeans, Gauls etc. so it was quite natural to have a cosmopolitan society in the Cities and in the Forts and the Colonia.
I am becoming more and more of the opinion that there was in fact a dislocation of the native Brythons from the Roman Polity.
Perhaps there were two streams of living which evolved into a symbiotic arrangement for mutual benefit.
On one side the Roman Administration (Cities, Tax Gathering, Logistics, the Military) and the Brython Aristocracy who were now only kept in power by the support of the Roman Administration and their abilities to maintain continuity between the two societies.
On the flip side of the coin you have the Brythons who either worked on the land or became members of one of the parts of the Roman Administration.
These Brythons had been dissuaded for centuries from defending themselves and were used to being defended by the Roman Military from Invaders but also paying taxes (probably in food) to the Roman Administration.
Is it not also possible that these two societies actually ran their economies differently?
The Brythons working on the land were not necessarily trading 鈥 the Roman Administration was (including the Brython aristocracy). So in this case was coinage even used below the aristocracy level in Brython daily life?
As long as the average Brython had all his base needs met was there a requirement for anything else 鈥 money wasn鈥檛 going to make him or her feel better and in small communities every one would have had a role to play, a value to be used.
The people who needed coins were the soldiers, merchants, city dwellers and the aristos.
The young men if they wanted some action would join the Roman Army not a Brython Militia 鈥 there was no such thing. There is no Brython Army 鈥 there is only a Roman Army based in Britain - however it was made up.
Again this sets the scene for what eventually happens when the Roman Administration starts to collapse.
So if, and I am by means convinced, the Roman Tax Gatherers were overthrown in AD410 it has to have been done with the support or under the instigation of the only military in Britain 鈥 the Roman Army.
This does not show a rebellion so much as perhaps a re-alignment of power still supporting the Romano British state 鈥 with its own Army no longer supporting the wars in Europe but basking in continued prosperity鈥︹︹ith only the Picts, the Scotti and marauding Germans to concern themselves with.
Kind Regards - TA -
Message 34
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Friday, 6th November 2009
Hi TA,
It's hard enough to estimate the population of Roman Britain; performing the same feat for the post-Imperial era is impossibly difficult.
I think it is quite clear why some historians have espoused a decline in the British population during this period. If you believe in the 'Saxons came here, killed everyone, and took over' theory (which of course you don't) then this is really hard to understand this working in the presence of 2-3M British people. The answer, of course, is to reduce the population first with mass emigration, or the plague of Justinian, or whatever. If one believes in elite dominance and the adoption, by the Romano-British, of a Saxon (sorry 'Anglo-Saxon') cultural and technological package then this difficulty disappears; no mass extinction events are required.
The insidious takeover theory I can certainly live with, although I think that there may well have been a more active process of invitation on the part of some elements of Romano-British society in some of the successor states.
Clearly your studies on Romano-British society have reached quite an advanced level. Although none of your theories are intrinsically impossible I think you should be asking yourself what archaeological evidence there might be to support them. How rapidly were Roman town walls constructed? Is there really evidence for the settling of peaceful foreigners in Britain over a period of 250 years? Does tombstone evidence for individual 'foreigners' enable one to infer a multi-cultural society? One possible means of progress would be to pick a site close to you for really detailed study.
The 'two societies' model of Roman Britain has been suggested in the past, with one society accepting, and the other rejecting, Romanisation. Proving it will be mighty difficult. In the absence of really accurate dating (except that conferred by the presence of Roman artefacts) the determination of whether a Roman artefact free Iron Age roundhouse is from the LPRIA, or inhabited by 'rejecting' people of the Roman period, or even post-Imperial, is very, very hard.
Coins are highly visible on archaeological sites whereas barter is more or less invisible, so I can easily believe that we underestimate the role of barter in society. But personally I think that Romanisation went further into the population than just merchants, soldiers and aristos. Some 'villa sites' are by no means the equivalent of Blenheim Place. Roman coins are really very widely distributed indeed, as are mortaria which can be used as a marker for some type of Roman culinary practice unknown in Iron Age Britain. Some grave markers and religious objects are not of the quality likely to have been produced by those from the upper echelons of society.
I don't imagine we shall ever arrive at definitive wholly correct answers for any of these questions but I think it is important that we go through the process of re-examining the evidence on a regular basis.
Kind regards,
TP -
Message 35
Posted by Frank Parker (U7843825) on Friday, 6th November 2009
Hi TP,
I am struck by Some grave markers and religious objects are not of the quality likely to have been produced by those from the upper echelons of society.聽
Do you perhaps mean "accorded to" rather than "produced by" or is your underlying assumption that only "the upper echelons" would be capable of producing work recognisable by late 20thC/early 21stC observers as of high quality? -
Message 36
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Friday, 6th November 2009
Hi TP
Many thanks for the reply and for the analysis and advice.
I realise that I need to look at the archaeological evidence but I have to say that the Colinia must be an example of foreign settlement but also there are examples of earlier 鈥淕erman鈥 burials in parts of the country but I will need to investigate further.
I would also concur with the 鈥渋nvitation鈥 of foreigners for protection but in the way that was not unusual for society to cope with after the Roman occupation.
Thanks for the lead on the coins and with the wide distributions you are right but it could be possible that down to certain levels there was a dual link to both societies 鈥 truly Romano Brython.
To continue with the discussion鈥︹︹
I still maintain that Britain was an extremely valuable diocese for the Romans and I believe the effort to continually support it by whichever Emperor was in charge confirms this.
So what happens to the Army?
It seems to me that there is a lot of restructuring going on changing the face of the old Army to a more flexible and mobile force (much as has been the case of the current British Army of the last 100 years and even more so in the last 25 years).
Sections that 鈥減olice 鈥 the country and guard the frontiers and central pools of highly skilled fighters based at strategic points and ready to be deployed where necessary.
It also appears that the Legions are often distributed across Provinces and are not all held in the same place.
I am of the opinion that the 鈥淯surpers鈥 when they left Britain although they took vast numbers of troops with them always left the infrastructure of the Legions in place pared down to its bones no doubt but a force that could be added to and built on from local recruitment if necessary.
This is possibly how Stilicho reinforced Britain around AD397 bringing troops with him to 鈥渢op up鈥 the Legions already here.
Britain was not a Diocese that these Emperors wanted to lose. We have established that it was rich in minerals and perhaps more importantly wheat -the backbone for any Army.
So although when Magnus and Constantine III left they took a huge bulk of troops with them the infrastructure was left intact to not only to guard the borders but also to ensure that the Roman Administration remained 鈥 effectively the engine of any Province to gather taxes for them and to enable them to have a regular supply of food.
Possibly it was this Administration who continued post AD410 surviving on the monetary system that was left but this gradually stalled, slowly evolving into the Council and individual Army Groups under the leaders from the Roman Army 鈥 the future Kings.
Kind Regards - TA -
Message 37
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Saturday, 7th November 2009
Hi Plotinlaois,
Sorry, yes, I have to admit that I'm guilty of sloppy expression, and sloppy thinking as well.
In a formal sense burial rituals are what the living do for the dead so 'accorded to' is certainly a better expression than 'produced by'. Generally the more time and resources devoted to a burial the higher the status the individual concerned is presumed to have had. I think that this is generally correct although there may be high status individuals who for religious reasons, I'm thinking of 18th century Quakers here, opt for an extremely simple memorial. However you are correct again to point out that we examine memorials with 21st century eyes and cannot really know the effects they would have had on the friends and relatives of those commemorated.
In the context of Roman Britain the use of a sarcophagus, an attended burial with valuable grave goods, a well cut monumental sculpture, reference to the imperial cult, or a good Latin inscription would all suggest higher status to me. Naturally in many, indeed in most, cases we cannot be sure of the ethnic origin of the individual buried. But occasionally there are very definite features that would suggest that native British identified with Roman practice, such as a local personal name or a known British tribal affiliation. If there were a portion of the British population that wholly 'rejected' Romanisation and Roman cultural practice then they would have retained, presumably, native Iron Age burial rituals. Since, to a very large extent, we are ignorant of what those were such people would be invisible to archaeology.
My main point, however, was to suggest that Roman style burials which are unattended, unmarked, or possess only a very simple memorial, may represent evidence against TA's hypothesis that Romanisation affected only the Provincial elite. I am thinking of a Roman Britain at Corbridge who had carved on his daughter's tombstone: 'Sudrenus (set this up) to Ertola properly called Vellibia (who) lived most happily 4 years & 60 days' (RIB 1181). The Latin is ambiguous and the sculpture of a little girl holding a ball is amateurish, but it speaks most eloquently and movingly of a parent's sense of loss. It always reminds me that archaeology properly deals with the people who used artefacts and participated in processes, and that these people inhabited a real world, and a world that we can sometimes enter if never fully understand.
Kind regards,
TP -
Message 38
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Saturday, 7th November 2009
Hi TA,
Well yes, I imagine that Britain was valuable to the Romans: 鈥渁 land so rich in harvests, with such abundant pasture, shot through with so many seams of ore, a lucrative source of so much tribute, girded round with so many ports, so vast in its extent...鈥 Was that true? Well, it was certainly what Constantius wanted to hear.
There is surely no doubt that the Roman army was being restructured in the late 3rd and 4th centuries. Since there had been the creation of so many new units I'm not sure that where the legions were posted has much significance. But there are several posters with far more knowledge of the Roman army than myself. As to the infrastructure that Imperial pretenders left behind, can you think of any pieces of historical or archaeological evidence that might reinforce that view? There are some, including myself, who might feel that: 鈥渢hey took a huge bulk of troops with them (but) the infrastructure was left intact.......to guard the borders鈥 describes two mutually incompatible objectives.
The one thing that you have almost certainly got wrong is your feeling that 鈥渢he monetary system that was left..... gradually stalled鈥. In the Roman IA the economy was 鈥榚mbedded鈥, in other words was integrated into other forms of social contact, particularly into the relationships of the elites. The introduction of money as a medium of exchange must have indicated a change in the way society operated. There must have been a shift in power from those who commanded swords to those who amassed wealth in terms of cash and rents. The Roman provincial economic cycle was powered by the arrival of precious metal to pay the troops and the collection of precious metal as taxation. But this system was already precarious by the end of the 4th century and in AD 410 it stopped totally and suddenly. Without precious metal backing the low value coinage would have been worthless. It would need very strong archaeological evidence indeed to convince me that the process of 'gradual stalling' lasted more than a week!
Kind regards,
TP -
Message 39
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Saturday, 7th November 2009
Hi TP
Many thanks for your thoughts and robust stance on the coin issue (sorry for the pun)
Like you I wish we could attract some Roman Army experts to this post to get their views.
The reason I believe that the 鈥淯surpers鈥 left the country in the first place was to strengthen the Empire not to weaken it. Many of these leaders were extremely effective.
An effective military presence must have been necessary for the Administration to be able to function. I feel that the Army and the other parts of the Administration fed off each other.
When Stilicho re-inforces the Army he brings troops with him to perhaps 鈥渢op up鈥 the Legions still here, which had been reduced in size by Magnus Maximus. This would imply that there were still troops here supporting the whole Administration.
Although Stilicho removes troops again, I find it hard to believe that he would leave unprotected a Diocese he has just spent a fortune re-capturing 鈥 it just doesn鈥檛 make political or military sense.
It is during Stilicho鈥檚 generalship that the coin supply for the Army dries up 鈥 no Imperial coffers for the payment of the Army is available post AD402 yet the Administration survives for at least 7 years.
In the same way I believe that Constantine III would also have realised that his 鈥減ower base鈥 a safe area of food and mineral production, especially silver, lead and iron, had to be protected.
Constantine minted his own coins whilst in Europe 鈥 Nummus, Siliqua, Miliarensis, Solidus, Solidus, Half-siliqua 鈥 minted at Trier, Arles and Lyon and some of these coins, silver siliquae, got back to Britain 鈥 turning up in the Hoxne Hoard.
Nowhere does it mention that the Administration collapses prior to AD410 and I am not convinced that there is any more than conjecture that the Administration fails post AD410.
A lot of the assumptions around this period (AD410) appears to be around what is not said 鈥 for example there is no mention of a Vicarius in Britain during Constantine鈥檚 rule but this doesn鈥檛 mean there wasn鈥檛 one.
What is said is contentious and often related not necessarily to Britain but to Italy or to Armorica.
Also the 鈥淕roans of the Britains鈥 was not from this period but almost certainly around AD445.
Yet in AD 409 there is allegedly a major Saxon assault on Britain which is beaten off 鈥 but who by?
Constantine III was in Europe as was Honorius, there was no Brython Army and had not been for over 250 years there was however the Roman Army
left in Britain with the Administration.
The only organisation left to resist at all was this force, the one that had been left here for that very purpose 鈥 the Administration that took its own decisions in the defence of Britain outside the direct control from warring Emperors who did not have the resources to support them.
Was this the time that the Administration started to change into the Council or was this a more gradual movement and the old order was still in control and the Council evolved past this date.
We have to assume that there was no payment for the troops - but was this any different from the previous few years? Surely the last delivery of coinage into Britain was AD 402 not AD 410.
If this was the case was barter already in place 鈥 obviously the armies could survive without new coinage.
Could there have been enough coinage in the system to maintain the status quo without fresh coinage being necessary for a number of more years.
Britain still had its silver mines and there is no reason to suspect that mining had stopped for this precious metal 鈥 enough to act as a support to the monetary system perhaps.
But as you are aware TP I am not a coin expert but I know that you are 鈥 so the question is 鈥渋f there was no gradual stalling why didn鈥檛 the whole economy collapse?" 鈥 which isn鈥檛 the impression you get from the writings of a time of prosperity.
Best Wishes - TA -
Message 40
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Sunday, 8th November 2009
Hi TA,
Thanks for the very robust re-statement of your views. As far as 'the big picture' is concerned I think that we have taken things about as far as we can. To progress further we should have to examine smaller elements in great detail and with regard for the small amounts of evidence available. Without this it is more a case of 'what seems reasonable to you' versus 'what seems reasonable to me'.
For example you believe that Constantine III would also have needed a power base with safe food and mineral production, especially silver, lead and iron. I see Constantine III staking everything on an attempt to recapture Gaul from the barbarians. If his desperate throw succeeded then he could deal with Britain, lead and iron at leisure; if it failed then nothing would matter.
There are one or two points that are not clear. To talk about British silver mines is an exaggeration I think. There were mines producing lead from which silver could be extracted after a long process of cupellation. All emperors minted their own coins as a propaganda exercise; Constantine was no exception. It is quite possible that he wasn't using new supplies of silver but simply melting down and re-striking old coinage.
When writing about the Roman administration during this period it is vital that you make it clear where you feel that their loyalties lay. For example one might say:' in 409 Roman administrators (Honorius) were allowed to leave and there posts taken by new officials loyal to Constantine III. On his death these administrators (Constantine) were expelled in turn and never replaced'.
What is your source for the Saxon attack of 409 (or 408)? Is it the Gallic Chronicle? Zosimus is the source for internal British politics during this period but he was removed from the events by a century of time and hundreds of miles and was forced to depend on his appreciation of the accounts of others. During the Imperial period 'private' armies were discouraged naturally. But we really don't know what the situation was in, say, the last 5 years of Roman rule. If you regard the population of Roman Britain as 3M then a militia army of thousands armed with hunting weapons, or even ex-Army surplus, seems perfectly plausible. A tough nut for Saxon pirates anyway.
I understand that you are not convinced that the Administration fails post AD410, but there is more to the opposite view than conjecture. There is not one particle of archaeological or historical evidence that the Roman administration, Roman Army, or Roman financial system were re-instated after the death of Constantine III. This event is usually dated as AD 411 (rather than 410) and marks in every real sense the end of Roman Britain and the start of the post-Imperial period.
Kind regards,
TP -
Message 41
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Tuesday, 10th November 2009
Hi TP
Many thanks for your comments, I have tried to show some more detail.....
I think there are some points that we will have to differ鈥
Britain in my opinion was a rich Diocese otherwise the Roman hierarchy would not have bothered to continually defend it 鈥 at quite an expense it must be said. This was a diocese that had between 10% and 20% of the whole of the Roman Army stationed here at various times.
There has to be a reason that it was so heavily garrisoned and in my opinion it was because it was rich in food and minerals.
The lead mines here (and consequently silver production through the process you mention) rivalled those of Spain to such an extent that there was supposed to be a limit on the amount produced in Britain by Rome to protect the Spanish market.
Even up to the AD390s Stilicho is sent to Britain to ensure that it does not fall, become overrun or is lost to the Empire.
However if someone else can come up with a reason for it to have been so critical to Rome I would welcome the comment.
I understand that there were two Vicarii in residence as it were, from AD 395 to AD 406 Victorinus and Chrysanthus.
Victorinus is mentioned by the Gaul Rutilius Claudius Namtianus in his De reditu i, who had met him later in Gaul around 417.
Chrysanthus later became a sectarian bishop in Constantinople. His high rank indicates that Britain was still considered an important imperial possession even in the later fourth century AD.
As both of these Vicarii survived and left Britain to continue their careers it would appear that up to AD406 the Roman Administration in Britain was in control and thriving and continued to operate as normal with people being moved on to new posts.
It would seem to me that these Vicarii may have been the last link to Honorius and were allowed to leave perhaps as a change occurs with the first Usurper Marcus being voted as Emperror by the Army in AD406.
Sadly there doesn鈥檛 appear to be a record of any of the Administrative officers after this date.
You may well be correct in that Constantine III just up and went in a 鈥淒o or Die鈥 campaign but to take an Army into an area that was being overrun he must have ensured (like any commander) that he had a supply line because he could not rely on getting his supplies 鈥渙n the march鈥.
To have not have protected his supply lines would have been suicide and completely pointless 鈥 he was after all looking at a major campaign 鈥 and he was successful where others had failed and regained the Rhine 鈥 he is acknowledged as a competent and decisive soldier.
I have come across a reference that states that Constantine III possibly left a colleague behind him to run the country 鈥 the supposed evidence is on a coin.
The reference is as follows but as I do not have the expertise in coins the following applies: See A. J. Evans, Numismatic Chronicle, 3rd series, VII.191 sqq.
You would expect the Vicarii and the Dux, Comes and Count of the Saxon Shore etc. to be chosen by the Emperor but underlying these offices I would expect that there was a 鈥渃ivil service鈥 much like the current British one who actually interacted with the people and made things happen, regardless of the political masters.
If this was the case (and as usual I am ready to be proved incorrect) are we assuming that the civil service itself was expelled in AD411 and if so what replaced it?
I have relied on the Gallic Chronicle of AD452 for the reports of Saxon incursions in AD 409 / AD 410.
Your argument that a local Militia was formed to beat off the pirates may well be correct but who organised it?
Where did the organisation come from to beat off these attacks, to bring the forces together?
My belief is that there was someone in control as you would expect if the Emperor (Constantine III)was to control his power base.
Zosimus also mentions the attacks of foreigners on Britain, but on reflection I am sceptical of the accuracy of Zozimus. His reliance on both Sozomen and Olympiodorus and the interpretations he makes from them seem to be questionable.
Honorius seems to have issued an edict in AD406 telling all provinces to defend themselves.
The reference that Zosimus makes regarding letters in AD409 / AD410 to Britain could easily be to an Italian province and his statement that Britain expels the Roman Administration could also relate to Armorica and not Britain.
The Roman Administration expulsion is not reflected by his sources, neither of these contemporary historians mentions that Britain is lost to Rome and Olympiodorus states that Britain returns to Roman control after AD 411, after Constantine III is executed.
(Of course Olympiodorus was writing in the employ of Theodosius II so it was perhaps politic to state that Britain was returned to Roman rule).
So is there other anecdotal evidence to show that the Roman Administration was expelled?
As you say there is no evidence that the remnants of the Roman Army were reinforced, that the Legions returned or that there was any new coinage for the Army.
Yet there is no mention of an internal uprising, or internal fighting (apart from Gildas) or collapse of society which you might have thought would happen if there had been a loss of control.
To me this points to a ruling continuity - a peaceful change - so what might have happened?
Perhaps as you said, the Constantine III Administration stepped down or decided to link more with the Leaders of the Brythons to start a joint Council to fill the power vacuum that was Roman Rule?
Kind Regards - TA -
Message 42
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Saturday, 14th November 2009
Hi TA,
Sorry for the delay in replying to you last letter. I have been away at a fascinating archaeo-metallurgy course. It seems that I was inadvertently misleading in my description of cupellation. This technique exists of course and was used in the Roman and Medieval period for analysis. But the whole industrial process of separating silver from oxidisable metals was 'scaled up', using special hearths, in the Roman period. Not all lead ores are silver bearing of course but a similar method could be used for extracting the sliver from largely base metal coins.
By AD 83 the number of legions had increased to 30 of which 3 (10%) were in Britain. Debates about auxiliary regiments, vexillations on overseas service, and manning levels make deriving a 'percentage of the Roman Army' figure difficult; 20% is too high I should have thought. But the proportion of the Roman Army stationed in Britain was substantial and, IMO, no completely convincing explanation for this fact exists. Certainly scholars of the last generation would have accepted the requirements of internal control and external defence that you propose; it's a pity that the archaeological evidence of insurrections and attacks is so slight. The fleet must also have had a major role, one would have thought, but the evidence for fleet operations is virtually non-existent.
It looks as though exploitation of minerals began early, with food production continuing late, being especially important when the productive capacity of Gaul was damaged by barbarian incursions. What you have to consider is whether Britain was of genuine strategic significance to the late Empire, or whether its significance to Stilicho and Honorius was political, religious, or symbolic. Ask yourself why the British 'Empire' and now NATO are involved in Afghanistan and then examine the Roman Britain question again.
I don't have your intimate knowledge of late Roman administrative figures but your first general point must be substantially correct; the Roman 'state and civilisation' in the opening years of the 5th century did seem much as it did in the 4th. The extraordinary events of 406 with the 'elections' of Marcus, Gratian and Constantine are unexpected. The truth is, however, that we know very little about the Roman economy in this period; perhaps the provision of minerals, taxes and food benefited only a few whilst overtaxing the actual resources of the state. As you say there are no records of administrative officers after this date. This dearth of knowledge may be 'sad' but it is also telling us something I would suggest.
I think we are both guilty of pushing our assessment of Constantine III well beyond the actual evidence. Was he 'competent and decisive' as you suggest? Orosius claims that he was elevated from the lowest ranks 'solely on account of his name and..... not because of valour'. Zosimus states that Constantine sent eunuchs to Honorius saying effectively that 'he didn't want to be emperor but the soldiers forced him'. Your account of Constantine's protection of his supply lines says more about your own excellent appreciation of generalship than Constantine's I would say.
I'm glad we now agree that 鈥渢here is no evidence that the remnants of the Roman Army were reinforced, that the Legions returned or that there was any new coinage for the Army鈥. It was my suspicion that you views were quite otherwise that triggered the start of this correspondence. I will follow up your reference to Constantinian coinage about which I know virtually nothing, not that such as state of ignorance ever stops me pontificating of course!
Kind regards,
TP -
Message 43
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Sunday, 15th November 2009
I thought that I should mention two points of interests for those who share my enthusiasm for late-Roman and early post-Imperial British history.
The present issue of the journal 'Current Archaeology' (Dec 2009) contains an interesting re-evaluation of the date of building XXVII.2 excavated by Sheppard Frere at Verulamium in the late 1950s. On the basis of the building's phases Prof. Frere considered that the structure was evidence that urban life at Verulamium continued into the 5th century. The dating evidence now seems less certain and the overall picture more consistent with 4th century decay.
In March 2010 an 'End of Roman Britain Conference' is being organised at the British Museum by the Roman Society & the Museum's Department of Portable Antiquities and Treasure. All the big names are speakers: Birley, Faulkner, Hunter, Neal, Dark(s), Swift, Breeze, Cool, Henig etc. Be there; or be square!
TP -
Message 44
Posted by AmericanLindaT (U14218175) on Sunday, 15th November 2009
Well, I have not been reading in between posts, but have read all of them today, so there are at least two of us reading the erudite missives. I have nothing to add, being dismally ignorant of anything occurring in this time period, but endlessly fascinated by the postings. I would like to hope that now I am not quite as uninformed as I was yesterday. And if I cannot find a job in the next few months, I shall return to England, the land of my youth, and perhaps indulge my interest in British history more than is practical or feasible over here.
Regards
LT -
Message 45
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Sunday, 15th November 2009
Hi Linda,
It's really encouraging to know that someone else is enjoying this thread. Don't hesitate to ask any questions that occur to you. Although the format of the postings makes it appear that TA and I are in a constant state of disagreement I'm sure that this is not really the case. I know that we both would wish to encourage new Romanists.
We both find this period of great interest. Although it is much easier for those based in the UK to visit the great collections of material and the Roman sites (not just England, some of those in modern Wales and Scotland are fabulous. Nut there's lots you can do from the USA as well. It is amazing what you can see from Google Earth for example: forts, villas and roads show brilliantly.
Roman Britain was a bit of a back-water compared to the provinces of Gaul and Germania but it is now a fairly well understood backwater. In the post-Imperial period the trajectories followed by Britain and Gaul were quite different; also how did Ireland and Atlantic Scotland, which were never part of the Empire, fit in. It's all fascinating stuff.
Best wishes,
TP -
Message 46
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Sunday, 15th November 2009
How can you make that number of mistakes in a single paragraph? I meant:
Although it is much easier for those based in the UK to visit the great collections of material, and the Roman sites (not just England, some of those in modern Wales and Scotland are fabulous). But there's lots you can do from the USA as well.
TP -
Message 47
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Sunday, 15th November 2009
Hi TP
Thanks for the "heads up" on the AD410 season about to happen...
If anyone is interested this appears to have some interesting information for the whole 2010 season as a celebration of the 1600 year anniversary....
Kind regards - TA -
Message 48
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Tuesday, 17th November 2009
Hi Linda
I can only agree with TP.
It is a pleasure to see that other people are interested in the subject that we enjoy and although some people may think that it is a dusty subject, you only have to look at Afghanistan to see direct parallels to 1800 years ago in Roman Britain......
To see an ampitheatre on Google Earth type in "Caerleon" and look around the the river and there is one there.....
Kind Regards - TA -
Message 49
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Tuesday, 17th November 2009
Hi TP
As you have swiftly realised I have come to the conclusion that you always believed I would that there was no new coinage for the Army and therefore basic trade (shopkeeper level) post AD402 / AD404 must have eventually ceased.
Yet the society didn鈥檛 fall apart which you might have thought would happen in a present day economy 鈥 however is there a parallel in the recent Zimbabwe conflict where inflation went through the roof?
Money was worth nothing and the only thing left of any value was bullion鈥︹r American Dollars 鈥 so if the currency was Global (as was the Roman Coinage) why would the value of coinage in circulation cease to have value 鈥 it probably didn鈥檛.
In fact why would people bury their money if it had no value 鈥 you might as well have scattered it on the ground鈥
If we can agree that at least 2 provinces in Britain were under direct control of Rome (Honorius) from AD395 until AD406 and that there was little new coin for the army past AD402 (perhaps AD404) can we also agree that up to AD406 there was in fact continuity of Roman Rule as there had been for centuries? After AD406 Honorius started to lose control in Italy and of the Western Empire.
One would have to assume that the Army wasn鈥檛 paid post AD404 and perhaps this was one of the reasons that the Army itself decided that it needed to change Administration in AD406 as they had lost faith in Honorius?
Also if there was indeed an edict in AD406 from Honorius to all Provinces to look to their own defence this would have been a deciding factor for the Army to review its position.
Of course this would indicate that there wasn鈥檛 a rebellion but more of a solution to a problem that wasn鈥檛 being solved by the Western Emperor.
This may also explain the acceptance of Constantine III by Honorius after letters from Constantine III to him almost apologising for having to take action but perhaps I can鈥檛 really use Zosimus as a reference if I have dismissed his accuracy previously.
In my opinion AD407 to AD411 is under the Administrative control of Constantine III.
Many people seem to think that there is no shortage of Gold or Silver at this time 鈥 just small coinage for the Army but there may well have been small coinage still in circulation.
AD408 / AD410 sees a defence of Britannia when Constantine certainly did not have a presence in Britain apart from his Administration. We know that he had capable Commanders under his banner such as Gerontius (to his cost) so why should we think that he would leave Britain in less capable hands.
This would leave the defence with people who had the organisational ability and the power to repulse an invasion by pirates.
I think that your comments regarding the agrarian wealth of Britain is very important and I feel that this point alone may have triggered later invasions by the Germanic peoples 鈥 鈥淔ood Wars鈥 鈥 which I think could be starting in our own times鈥..
Regarding Afghanistan 鈥 it has always been about wealth 鈥 in this case it is based on drugs. Drugs have always been the base for the corrupting of civilisations yet in a clever way 鈥 you sell the drugs to your enemies 鈥 they give you money for them which you then use to buy weapons to fight the armies or supply more drugs.
If the Taliban control the poppy fields they have a ready supply of wealth to confuse their enemies with 鈥 year in, year out鈥︹..ironic that our flower of Remembrance is the Poppy.
It is the poppy fields that have supported the Afghan warlords for centuries 鈥 it is part of their culture 鈥 beating the Taliban won鈥檛 stop it 鈥 you would have to beat the whole population 鈥 it just can鈥檛 be done.
If you want to make a lasting impact in Afghanistan buy the opium crop with money 鈥 not lives 鈥 and you have the Taliban and the Warlords by the poppy seeds.
I believe that the Roman protection of Britain was to do with wealth 鈥 food or minerals 鈥 but the Romans were clever - they controlled the food and the minerals.
I have a problem with the 鈥渙verthrow of the Administration鈥. There is no proof that the Administration set up by Constantine III was overthrown and who indeed would have the power to do so?
There is no evidence for a collapse or an overthrow, purely a cessation of Central Roman Government of Central Control, which is remarked upon but there is no definitive date.
I am prepared to believe that there was an evolution of Government in Britain from Direct Roman Rule by Honorius, through Local Roman Rule of Constantine III or his Deputies, to completely local rule by the Council, Cities and the Army.
If we take the 鈥淕roans of the Brythons鈥 to have been to Aetius it would support an underlying Romanisation for some of the Towns / Cities and Elite that continued until around AD450.
Kind Regards - TA -
Message 50
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Tuesday, 17th November 2009
Hi TA,
I certainly have no evidence that Britain was not 'officially Roman' in the very early years of the 5th century. When the end came it evidently came suddenly, but several decades may have had to pass before the situation in AD 406 was considered to be final. The appeal to Aetius (if it was Aetius) in 445 must have had some prospect of an affirmative answer. Personally I'm not sure that the 'magistrates' of post-Imperial Britain still lived in anything we should recognise as towns, but I'll defer a final decision until after the study days in March next year!
I have a little difficulty with calling Constantine III's actions 'rebellion'. Willing or not, capable general or not, his actions could be interpreted as being in the NW Provinces best interest. After all Constantine the Great took very similar actions and no one called him rebellious, if they knew what was good for them!
鈥淭reason never prospers, what's the reason; why, if treason prospers then it is not treason鈥.
I don't think that the economic situation in post-Imperial Britain need have resembled Zimbabwe's, but I'd be very happy to be corrected by someone who really knows. As I understand it Zimbabwe has to buy some things: oil, pharmaceuticals, armaments, and other manufactured products, abroad with hard currency. Simultaneous large estates have been seized from effective large farmers, and the land re-distributed to small and rather ineffective farmers, so that food is now in short supply. The currency is effectively worthless but those few earning are still being taxed.
In post-Imperial Britain the successor states were essentially self-supporting; although wine, and olive would have been in short supply they were presumably replaced by beer and butter, or beef dripping. Again the large land owners vanished but I doubt if the Romano-British elite had ever done much actual farming. Perhaps the tenant farmers simply woke up one day to find themselves owners. The biological evidence suggests that there was no re-forestation at this time so perhaps arable and pasture continued much as before. Not having to pay central tax and the annona militarium was probably a relief; doubtless local kings and war-lords tried to collect tax but my guess is that they weren't as efficient as their Imperial equivalents.
The motivation behind coin hoarding is obscure. If this is true of precious metals it is doubly true of non-precious coins. There may be political factors here. Precious metal is valuable as bullion even if melted down. But if no-one will accept copper coins as money, or if the latest emperor has imposed a death sentence on anyone using coins with his predecessors head on them, you might well bury them hoping that one day 'something would turn up'. But the fact is that thousands upon thousands of Roman copper coins were just simply scattered on the ground. Tens of thousands in Richborough fort alone. I find it hard to believe that they had any value in late-4th or early 5th century Britain; if they had value surely copies would have been minted locally as supplies of official brass and bronze began to run low?
Another interesting point is the extent to which a soldier's regular salary had any significant purchasing power in the late 4th century. I don't know enough to provide figures but one gets the impression that donatives (made by the Emperor in bullion), and payment in kind, were far more significant.
You would agree, I am sure, that there is more to the military situation in AD 406-411 than the capacity, or otherwise, of Constantine III and his generals. What was the degree of the threats posed by Irish, Pictish and Saxon pirates? Did they prey on shipping and disrupt trade, or were they capable of armed interventions on land? Is the truth basically that any strong preyed upon any weak as time and opportunity offered? I've always felt that the lack of massive quantities of late 4th century Roman loot in Ireland and Scotland means that the threats posed by their inhabitants must have been exaggerated.
Kind regards,
TP
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