0:00:02 > 0:00:04No other era has captured our imagination
0:00:04 > 0:00:06quite like Roman Britain -
0:00:06 > 0:00:10you'd almost say it's become a cultural obsession.
0:00:10 > 0:00:13And driving our fascination has been the work
0:00:13 > 0:00:16of some of our greatest historians and archaeologists.
0:00:17 > 0:00:20For decades, they've been attempting to answer
0:00:20 > 0:00:22the really big questions about Roman Britain...
0:00:24 > 0:00:26Who were these Romans?
0:00:26 > 0:00:30How did they manage to rule here for nearly 400 years?
0:00:30 > 0:00:34And why in the end did it all fall apart?
0:00:35 > 0:00:40Over the last five decades, the BBC has been there as historians
0:00:40 > 0:00:43and archaeologists try to answer these key questions.
0:00:43 > 0:00:46ARCHIVE: Probably built the tower against which I'm standing...
0:00:46 > 0:00:48At the forefront of documenting
0:00:48 > 0:00:53and reporting this quest has been the history series Timewatch.
0:00:53 > 0:00:57During its three decades on our screens, Timewatch investigated
0:00:57 > 0:01:01some of the most intriguing archaeological discoveries.
0:01:01 > 0:01:05These people were executed...
0:01:05 > 0:01:09And examined cutting-edge historical interpretations.
0:01:09 > 0:01:12And this must be the earliest example of Latin handwriting
0:01:12 > 0:01:14by a woman in the Roman world.
0:01:14 > 0:01:19I'll be using Timewatch and 50 years of BBC historical archive to
0:01:19 > 0:01:23chart how our understanding, and view, of Roman Britain has
0:01:23 > 0:01:28changed over the decades, thanks to fresh archaeological discoveries,
0:01:28 > 0:01:32ground-breaking research and the latest in historical thinking.
0:01:38 > 0:01:43Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Romans landed on our shores,
0:01:43 > 0:01:46and they ruled here for some 400 years.
0:01:47 > 0:01:51Our islands became known as Britannia - just a small part
0:01:51 > 0:01:55of a vast empire stretching from Egypt to modern day Germany.
0:01:56 > 0:02:01Their legacy is all around us today, from roads to ruins,
0:02:01 > 0:02:04like these here at Caerleon in Wales.
0:02:08 > 0:02:11Over recent decades, it's been archaeology that has driven
0:02:11 > 0:02:13forward our understanding.
0:02:13 > 0:02:17But it's important to remember that the story of Roman Britain is
0:02:17 > 0:02:19always fiercely contested -
0:02:19 > 0:02:22this is a period of our history wreathed in uncertainty.
0:02:24 > 0:02:28And nowhere is this more evident than in how Roman Britain began.
0:02:28 > 0:02:34Even today, we can't be sure precisely where the Romans invaded,
0:02:34 > 0:02:37or what the political realities were at the time.
0:02:37 > 0:02:41Was this a welcomed arrival, or a hostile takeover?
0:02:43 > 0:02:47Historian Simon Thurley set out to investigate the hotly contested
0:02:47 > 0:02:52debate about where exactly the Romans landed in 43 AD.
0:02:53 > 0:02:57Two possibilities have been suggested - Richborough in Kent,
0:02:57 > 0:03:00or the Sussex coast near Fishbourne Palace.
0:03:00 > 0:03:03The first contender, Richborough,
0:03:03 > 0:03:07was originally excavated by archaeologist Joscelyn Bushe-Fox.
0:03:10 > 0:03:15In 1932, Bushe-Fox revealed the first solid evidence that
0:03:15 > 0:03:18Richborough might be linked with the Claudian invasion.
0:03:19 > 0:03:23This is actually the earliest thing that Bushe-Fox found on the site,
0:03:23 > 0:03:27a pair of ditches, the classic Roman sort of V-shaped profile
0:03:27 > 0:03:31with a square slot dug in the bottom, known as an ankle breaker -
0:03:31 > 0:03:34so if you jumped into this you'd just turn your ankle in the slot
0:03:34 > 0:03:37at the bottom - and a rampart on this side, so, you know,
0:03:37 > 0:03:41a real defensive structure, which Bushe-Fox actually interpreted as
0:03:41 > 0:03:48a hastily erected bridge head camp for the invasion army of AD 43.
0:03:48 > 0:03:50And so the sea's over there?
0:03:50 > 0:03:53Yes, the sea is over there, and this is a landward defence,
0:03:53 > 0:03:56so it's defending effectively what's on the beach at this point.
0:03:56 > 0:03:59And so that's the reason why he thought that this was
0:03:59 > 0:04:02- a landing place of the Roman Army. - That's right.
0:04:02 > 0:04:05Bushe-Fox found a number of coins of the right date,
0:04:05 > 0:04:07and pottery called samian ware.
0:04:07 > 0:04:11This is some of the samian that Bushe-Fox found
0:04:11 > 0:04:14in his Claudian conquest period ditch at Richborough.
0:04:14 > 0:04:16It's a carinated bowl -
0:04:16 > 0:04:21decorated samian bowl - absolutely typical of the mid-1st century AD.
0:04:21 > 0:04:24But the interesting thing to me here is that the bowl looks new,
0:04:24 > 0:04:26and of course it isn't new, because it's nearly 2,000 years old,
0:04:26 > 0:04:29but the bowl seems to have had very little use -
0:04:29 > 0:04:32there's no wear around the rim, and on the bottom here, on the base,
0:04:32 > 0:04:35I can see markings from the bowl underneath it in the kiln.
0:04:35 > 0:04:38It doesn't look as if the base has ever been worn away on tables
0:04:38 > 0:04:39or anything like that.
0:04:39 > 0:04:42So I suspect Bushe-Fox was quite right about thinking that this bowl
0:04:42 > 0:04:46was relatively new and Claudian in date when it was lost.
0:04:47 > 0:04:51Bushe-Fox's finds did suggest an early Roman presence
0:04:51 > 0:04:54at Richborough, but they were not conclusive proof
0:04:54 > 0:04:56of an invasion here.
0:04:56 > 0:05:00Archaeologists can't date to the nearest month - quite often
0:05:00 > 0:05:02we can't date to the nearest year.
0:05:03 > 0:05:06So although we can say that these military stations
0:05:06 > 0:05:09at Richborough belong to the Claudian period,
0:05:09 > 0:05:11roughly the time of the invasion,
0:05:11 > 0:05:14that's as far as we can go. Thereafter, it's speculation.
0:05:14 > 0:05:17There is an alternative to the theory that the Romans first
0:05:17 > 0:05:22landed here in Kent, and it stems from one of the most exciting
0:05:22 > 0:05:25archaeological discoveries of the 20th century.
0:05:27 > 0:05:33In 1960, workmen laying a water main in Sussex uncovered ancient remains.
0:05:34 > 0:05:39These exquisite classical mosaics ornament a palace at Fishbourne.
0:05:42 > 0:05:45It was probably built for Togidubnus,
0:05:45 > 0:05:48the king of the local tribe and a loyal ally of Rome.
0:05:50 > 0:05:54The very fact that the Romans encouraged the palace to be built
0:05:54 > 0:05:58here in the '70s of the 1st century suggests that there
0:05:58 > 0:06:01was something special perhaps about the site, and about the region.
0:06:03 > 0:06:06Professor Cunliffe led the Fishbourne excavations.
0:06:06 > 0:06:10Beneath the mosaics, he found evidence of an early Roman
0:06:10 > 0:06:16military presence. He now believes that Sussex, rather than Kent,
0:06:16 > 0:06:20may have been the site chosen by the Romans for their invasion.
0:06:21 > 0:06:24They had direct links to the ruling household of this area,
0:06:24 > 0:06:30so that politically would have been quite a sensible place to land -
0:06:30 > 0:06:33you don't land in enemy territory, you land in friendly territory and
0:06:33 > 0:06:35then move out into enemy territory.
0:06:36 > 0:06:39Whether the invasion was launched with the co-operation
0:06:39 > 0:06:42of a local king or was instead entirely hostile
0:06:42 > 0:06:44is still unresolved.
0:06:44 > 0:06:47But each scenario gives a very different picture
0:06:47 > 0:06:48of how it all began.
0:06:51 > 0:06:54In almost every aspect of Roman Britain, historians
0:06:54 > 0:06:57and archaeologists face the same problems time and again -
0:06:57 > 0:06:59everything is up for debate,
0:06:59 > 0:07:03and that's what makes this period of our history just so fascinating.
0:07:04 > 0:07:08But when we look back at the past, we always see it through
0:07:08 > 0:07:11the prism of our own times.
0:07:11 > 0:07:15So our view of Roman Britain over the centuries has changed,
0:07:15 > 0:07:17and evolved, with the fashion of the day.
0:07:20 > 0:07:24One of the greatest questions for historians of the period
0:07:24 > 0:07:28is how the Romans managed to dominate most of the known world,
0:07:28 > 0:07:30which of course included Britain.
0:07:31 > 0:07:35One of the earliest history series to investigate this idea was
0:07:35 > 0:07:39presented by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, the famous archaeologist.
0:07:39 > 0:07:43The opening of the first episode found Wheeler clambering
0:07:43 > 0:07:45amongst Roman ruins in northern England,
0:07:45 > 0:07:50as he explored the legacy of the great Roman Empire on our shores.
0:07:50 > 0:07:55The year was 1960, a time when Britain was starting to ask
0:07:55 > 0:07:59questions about its own imperial past too.
0:08:11 > 0:08:14In the beginning, there was a patch of hill and valley beside the sea.
0:08:14 > 0:08:18That patch grew, through confidence, through ambition,
0:08:18 > 0:08:22through a sense of adventure, but chiefly as the trees grow
0:08:22 > 0:08:26while the sun shines, through a sort of obscure inevitability.
0:08:26 > 0:08:30Ultimately, it stretched from the Atlantic to the Tigris.
0:08:30 > 0:08:34It reached the Emperor of China. It was the world.
0:08:34 > 0:08:38Then it crumbled - colony after colony fell away from it.
0:08:38 > 0:08:42It continued to win wars, but more and more often lost the peace.
0:08:42 > 0:08:45Its citizens worked less,
0:08:45 > 0:08:50and depended more and more upon welfare and having a good time.
0:08:50 > 0:08:53Its civil service grew larger and larger,
0:08:53 > 0:08:56and interfered increasingly with everyday life.
0:08:58 > 0:09:01Taxation ate out its heart. Even death was taxed.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05It vanished into history almost imperceptibly.
0:09:07 > 0:09:09I've been talking of an empire,
0:09:09 > 0:09:11but I wonder whether you and I have the same empire in mind.
0:09:11 > 0:09:12Perhaps we have.
0:09:12 > 0:09:15I've been speaking, of course, of Ancient Rome -
0:09:15 > 0:09:19the Rome which gave us London and York,
0:09:19 > 0:09:23codes of law and highways and drains
0:09:23 > 0:09:27and an alphabet and a few snatches of Virgil,
0:09:27 > 0:09:30the Rome which gave us factories and post offices
0:09:30 > 0:09:33and the changing of the guard and soap,
0:09:33 > 0:09:36the Rome which first gave us civilisation,
0:09:36 > 0:09:40and then taught us how to misuse it, the Rome which survives
0:09:40 > 0:09:45in nostalgic romance and in enduring concrete and as a compulsory subject
0:09:45 > 0:09:49in schools and universities, which is perhaps a part of that concrete.
0:09:51 > 0:09:55Interpretations of Roman Britain have always provoked lively debate
0:09:55 > 0:09:58amongst historians and archaeologists.
0:09:58 > 0:10:00When Mortimer Wheeler is sitting
0:10:00 > 0:10:04there on Hadrian's Wall, buffeted by the wind
0:10:04 > 0:10:06and this heroic landscape,
0:10:06 > 0:10:10talking about the collapse of the Roman Empire
0:10:10 > 0:10:14as if it had been collapsed by a socialist government, of course,
0:10:14 > 0:10:15um, you know,
0:10:15 > 0:10:18this idea that it was the heavy bureaucracy of the Roman Empire
0:10:18 > 0:10:21that did for it and these high taxes and so on,
0:10:21 > 0:10:23this is, you know...
0:10:23 > 0:10:26One feels, one knows, that Mortimer Wheeler wasn't a Labour voter!
0:10:26 > 0:10:30Um, he, you know, he is continuing a strong tradition
0:10:30 > 0:10:34of thinking about the British Empire with the Roman Empire.
0:10:34 > 0:10:36The end of the British Empire certainly changes
0:10:36 > 0:10:38our understanding of Roman Britain,
0:10:38 > 0:10:40or at least the academic and then the popular understanding
0:10:40 > 0:10:42of Roman Britain, in the same way
0:10:42 > 0:10:45that it changed our image of the Roman Empire as a whole.
0:10:46 > 0:10:48In 1900, if you were British,
0:10:48 > 0:10:51you would inevitably compare the modern British Empire
0:10:51 > 0:10:55to Ancient Rome, and you'd tend to feel that both were a good thing.
0:10:55 > 0:10:57Wheeler and his generation of historians
0:10:57 > 0:11:01and archaeologists had been raised on a very Victorian view
0:11:01 > 0:11:06of the Roman Empire as a civilising force for good throughout the world.
0:11:06 > 0:11:11But by 1960, with the British Empire crumbling before their eyes,
0:11:11 > 0:11:17many historians began to view the Roman Empire in a new light.
0:11:17 > 0:11:19Some now began to explore the uglier side
0:11:19 > 0:11:23of Rome's imperial ambitions, looking at how greed
0:11:23 > 0:11:27and decadence might have led to its decline and fall.
0:11:27 > 0:11:31For many of this generation, the end of Roman Britain
0:11:31 > 0:11:34served as testament not only to the incredible power
0:11:34 > 0:11:40and reach of the Roman Empire, but also as a lesson to its limits.
0:11:40 > 0:11:42For Mortimer Wheeler,
0:11:42 > 0:11:46the Roman ruins of Britain were a warning from history about
0:11:46 > 0:11:49the fate of empires, and nothing embodied that
0:11:49 > 0:11:51quite like Hadrian's Wall.
0:11:51 > 0:11:56It stood in our landscape as a ghostly skeleton of a lost empire.
0:11:58 > 0:12:01But as well as being an enduring monument to Roman authority,
0:12:01 > 0:12:04Hadrian's Wall has also provided historians
0:12:04 > 0:12:08and archaeologists with a rich vein of information about what
0:12:08 > 0:12:13life was really like in Northern England some two millennia ago.
0:12:14 > 0:12:16In the last 50 years,
0:12:16 > 0:12:20our understanding of the northern frontier has changed dramatically.
0:12:20 > 0:12:23New information is overturning hundreds of years
0:12:23 > 0:12:26of historical thought, which painted Hadrian's Wall
0:12:26 > 0:12:28as a brutal military frontier.
0:12:30 > 0:12:34This change in historical thinking is in large part thanks to new
0:12:34 > 0:12:39discoveries made at one remarkable Roman fort - Vindolanda.
0:12:41 > 0:12:45By 1973, when BBC cameras came to film the excavations,
0:12:45 > 0:12:48the archaeologists were finding evidence
0:12:48 > 0:12:52not just of the Roman military, but of soldiers' families,
0:12:52 > 0:12:55and even other civilians, all living together in peace.
0:13:00 > 0:13:02They were digging the vicus,
0:13:02 > 0:13:06the small town that had grown up around the fort.
0:13:07 > 0:13:09Leading the dig was Robin Birley,
0:13:09 > 0:13:12who has spent his life working at Vindolanda.
0:13:13 > 0:13:18Wives, children, merchants, craftsmen, priests, slaves,
0:13:18 > 0:13:21servants - you name it, they're all out here in the town.
0:13:21 > 0:13:24We weren't quite sure what to expect in the town,
0:13:24 > 0:13:28because so little has been done on civilian towns,
0:13:28 > 0:13:31not only in this country but anywhere else in the Roman Empire.
0:13:31 > 0:13:34Um, but we were surprised to find that really
0:13:34 > 0:13:38the standard of living in the town here is remarkably high -
0:13:38 > 0:13:40they're quite a sophisticated group of people.
0:13:40 > 0:13:43Admittedly, we've been examining so far
0:13:43 > 0:13:45what you might call the posh area of town, you know,
0:13:45 > 0:13:49the area near the west gate, dominated by this great mansio here,
0:13:49 > 0:13:53this inn for travellers, and across the road, the military bathhouse.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56I mean, this is a good residential area, with the big married quarter
0:13:56 > 0:14:00blocks and so on, where anything up to 16 families would live.
0:14:00 > 0:14:03And it's only now that we're beginning to move outside
0:14:03 > 0:14:07this plush area into - well, where we are now. I mean, this building here -
0:14:07 > 0:14:10it's a brewery. Now, it's when you get on to the breweries -
0:14:10 > 0:14:13you know, move out to that part of town,
0:14:13 > 0:14:16get on to your breweries, your reservoirs, your big sewers,
0:14:16 > 0:14:19and all sorts of agricultural buildings, storehouses, that
0:14:19 > 0:14:22you're really getting down to the facts of life in the Roman period,
0:14:22 > 0:14:25and the thing begins to make sense.
0:14:25 > 0:14:27The buildings along the main street have all been uncovered
0:14:27 > 0:14:31in the last three years. They've already yielded up treasures of gold
0:14:31 > 0:14:36and bronze, suggesting a community that was both wealthy and cultured.
0:14:48 > 0:14:51Orgies in the bathhouse, perhaps?
0:14:51 > 0:14:54These double-sided ladies' combs were found alongside silver
0:14:54 > 0:14:58hairpins in the drains beneath the cold plunge.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02Soldiers marching about the countryside, fighting off Picts
0:15:02 > 0:15:04and Scots - it's fairy tales. They're concerned with
0:15:04 > 0:15:08more or less the same kind of things as a modern army's concerned with.
0:15:08 > 0:15:11The little time they get off duty, they want to come into the town
0:15:11 > 0:15:14here, to meet their friends, their wives, families, sweethearts,
0:15:14 > 0:15:18go to the local pubs, gamble and so on and so forth.
0:15:18 > 0:15:21And this is what we're getting down to now, and to my mind
0:15:21 > 0:15:25the whole thing at last begins to sound like something natural,
0:15:25 > 0:15:26something sensible.
0:15:28 > 0:15:32For hundreds of years, Hadrian's Wall and the northern forts
0:15:32 > 0:15:36had been seen as a brutal symbol of Roman power - a line in the sand
0:15:36 > 0:15:38against the uncivilised barbarians -
0:15:38 > 0:15:42but Vindolanda helps change all that.
0:15:45 > 0:15:49Suddenly, a whole new world was revealed to have existed in northern
0:15:49 > 0:15:54England - a world not of marauding barbarians and bloody battles, but
0:15:54 > 0:15:59of a different sort of interaction - of trade and family ties developing,
0:15:59 > 0:16:04in fact, a whole community forming around the Roman legions.
0:16:04 > 0:16:08It seems that life on Hadrian's Wall wasn't like the stereotypes
0:16:08 > 0:16:11of fiction at all. For much of the time, it would have been
0:16:11 > 0:16:14less like a Roman version of the Berlin Wall,
0:16:14 > 0:16:18and more like a bustling Wild West frontier town.
0:16:20 > 0:16:23Vindolanda didn't just shed light on a whole community,
0:16:23 > 0:16:26but on the individuals who lived there too.
0:16:26 > 0:16:30The bit of the vicus where this year's research has unearthed
0:16:30 > 0:16:32the strongest smell of the Romans.
0:16:33 > 0:16:35Site 76, the deep pit.
0:16:38 > 0:16:40Site 76 is no place for the amateur.
0:16:40 > 0:16:4512 feet below ground level, knee deep in foul-smelling mud,
0:16:45 > 0:16:48whoever digs here must know what he's doing.
0:16:52 > 0:16:54Like so many important discoveries,
0:16:54 > 0:16:57this one was stumbled upon by accident.
0:16:57 > 0:17:00Robin Birley was digging a field drain here last autumn
0:17:00 > 0:17:03when his spade unearthed a sandal.
0:17:03 > 0:17:06It belonged to a lady of the 1st century AD,
0:17:06 > 0:17:10and was almost unaffected by 2,000 years in the ground.
0:17:10 > 0:17:13On the sole was the shoemaker's stamp, as clear as
0:17:13 > 0:17:15if it had been made yesterday.
0:17:15 > 0:17:18Apparently, the sandal had been thrown away
0:17:18 > 0:17:20because the toe thong had snapped.
0:17:21 > 0:17:24The deep pit was suddenly headline news.
0:17:24 > 0:17:27They began to dig deeper into the slime,
0:17:27 > 0:17:31and they found small pieces of woven cloth, some with buttons
0:17:31 > 0:17:34still attached, and fragments of wooden writing tablets.
0:17:34 > 0:17:36There were oyster shells too,
0:17:36 > 0:17:39showing that whoever lived here had been something of a gourmet.
0:17:42 > 0:17:46For centuries, antiquarians and historians concerned themselves
0:17:46 > 0:17:49with the monumental ruins of Roman Britain
0:17:49 > 0:17:52and the high politics of empire.
0:17:52 > 0:17:56But in recent decades, the focus has shifted somewhat,
0:17:56 > 0:17:58away from that grand sweep of history,
0:17:58 > 0:18:04and on to daily life in all its wonderful mundanity.
0:18:04 > 0:18:07I think what we do see in the post-Second World War period is
0:18:07 > 0:18:11a shift, really, to an interest both in social history,
0:18:11 > 0:18:14and an interest - because archaeology is growing -
0:18:14 > 0:18:18an interest in the fabric of everyday life, of ordinary people.
0:18:18 > 0:18:22That's basically of course what archaeologists are investigating.
0:18:22 > 0:18:25And I think that's a good thing, that shift away from just
0:18:25 > 0:18:28looking at the big political and military events
0:18:28 > 0:18:29and the great men of history,
0:18:29 > 0:18:33and trying to get to grips with ordinary human experience.
0:18:33 > 0:18:36That's important, and it's a positive shift.
0:18:36 > 0:18:40Social history rose and fell in the 20th century with
0:18:40 > 0:18:44the politics of social democracy. I think if you have the idea
0:18:44 > 0:18:47that we are a society - that we're all in it together,
0:18:47 > 0:18:49we're responsible for each other,
0:18:49 > 0:18:51we get more curious about each other.
0:18:51 > 0:18:56With the rise of social history, whole new areas of study now
0:18:56 > 0:19:00opened up, including everything from industry to commerce,
0:19:00 > 0:19:02from dress to diet.
0:19:02 > 0:19:06Some historians and archaeologists began to look for innovative ways
0:19:06 > 0:19:09to explore these aspects of daily life,
0:19:09 > 0:19:11and one new school of thought that sprang up
0:19:11 > 0:19:13was experimental archaeology.
0:19:13 > 0:19:18It would help transform our understanding of the period.
0:19:18 > 0:19:21At the turn of the millennium, Adam Hart-Davis used experimental
0:19:21 > 0:19:24archaeology to explore the Roman world,
0:19:24 > 0:19:28and in one episode he investigated how the Romans in Britain
0:19:28 > 0:19:32used new tools and techniques to transform farming.
0:19:34 > 0:19:37Well, the Celts may have been doing all right on their own,
0:19:37 > 0:19:41but they were in real trouble when all these foreign troops
0:19:41 > 0:19:46moved in. It's been calculated that to feed one legion for a week
0:19:46 > 0:19:51would have taken something like 5,000 litres of grain, which
0:19:51 > 0:19:55would have corresponded to something like 7,000 loaves of bread.
0:19:55 > 0:19:59What's more, there were four legions, and at least as many auxiliaries.
0:19:59 > 0:20:04So obviously the output of grain was going to have to be increased.
0:20:10 > 0:20:15The Romans set about introducing intensive farming methods.
0:20:15 > 0:20:18They brought in new crops, like turnips and carrots,
0:20:18 > 0:20:22and they drained marshes, so more land could be put under the plough.
0:20:22 > 0:20:26They also made some significant improvements to farming tools.
0:20:27 > 0:20:31The Celts may well have used a simple plough like this one.
0:20:31 > 0:20:35It's called an ard, and you can see it's just two pieces of wood.
0:20:35 > 0:20:40There's a point here which digs into the soil and makes a furrow,
0:20:40 > 0:20:43a sort of drill into which you can sow your seed,
0:20:43 > 0:20:45and then there's the handle, which simply slots in,
0:20:45 > 0:20:49so it's very easy to make, and very easy to repair, if you break it.
0:20:49 > 0:20:53The Romans almost certainly improved this by adding
0:20:53 > 0:20:54an iron ploughshare.
0:20:54 > 0:20:58Now, this would have been much better at cutting through the soil -
0:20:58 > 0:21:01particularly the heavy northern soil.
0:21:01 > 0:21:05And later on, they improved it still further by adding wheels
0:21:05 > 0:21:09to stop the whole plough from sinking into the ground.
0:21:10 > 0:21:15Experimental archaeology in theory, and very often in practice, is
0:21:15 > 0:21:19extremely useful, we find out things that way we'd never otherwise know.
0:21:19 > 0:21:23I think it does have its limitations, and one problem is
0:21:23 > 0:21:27that it's actually very difficult to reproduce in an adult archaeologist
0:21:27 > 0:21:31the kinds of skills and training that ancient people would have
0:21:31 > 0:21:36had over years on the family farm, or in the family workshop and so on.
0:21:36 > 0:21:38So there's a tendency to under-perform
0:21:38 > 0:21:40in experimental archaeology.
0:21:40 > 0:21:44And at the same time, there's got to be a temptation to over-interpret.
0:21:44 > 0:21:47Just because it turns out you CAN do something,
0:21:47 > 0:21:49doesn't mean that people did it.
0:21:52 > 0:21:54While some used experimental archaeology to explore farming
0:21:54 > 0:21:56and the rural landscape,
0:21:56 > 0:22:02other archaeologists turned their attention to the urban environment.
0:22:02 > 0:22:06It might be an obvious stereotype that the Romans built towns,
0:22:06 > 0:22:10but their reasons for doing so often aren't so clear.
0:22:11 > 0:22:15Decades of study have been devoted to creating a detailed picture
0:22:15 > 0:22:19of the Roman towns that spread right across Britain,
0:22:19 > 0:22:22but also looking at the reasons why they were built.
0:22:25 > 0:22:29In the 1960s, with the construction of new towns like Milton Keynes
0:22:29 > 0:22:33top of the political agenda, Barry Cunliffe examined how
0:22:33 > 0:22:38the Romans also undertook a policy of deliberate urban planning.
0:22:39 > 0:22:42Today, we're going to talk about towns.
0:22:42 > 0:22:47Now, towns were far more than just convenient economic units,
0:22:47 > 0:22:51they were in the hands of the Roman administrators essentially
0:22:51 > 0:22:54a political weapon. Tacitus makes no bones about it.
0:22:54 > 0:22:59He tells us how towns were put up to encourage these Britons -
0:22:59 > 0:23:03well, he says "uncivilised, barbarous, scattered people" -
0:23:03 > 0:23:06to live together, so that they could enjoy the pleasures
0:23:06 > 0:23:07and ease of town life.
0:23:12 > 0:23:16In southern England, there are a large number of towns,
0:23:16 > 0:23:19these grew up during the Roman period.
0:23:19 > 0:23:22England - that is, excluding Scotland, and Wales.
0:23:22 > 0:23:27They grew up for a whole variety of reasons.
0:23:27 > 0:23:31Some of them, such as Canterbury and Silchester here, simply grew
0:23:31 > 0:23:36out of old native capitals, which were already in existence.
0:23:36 > 0:23:38Others were deliberate plants.
0:23:38 > 0:23:45Colchester, Gloucester, Lincoln and York -
0:23:45 > 0:23:47these places were coloniae,
0:23:47 > 0:23:51that is, they were built by the army for retired veterans
0:23:51 > 0:23:55and the veterans lived here and farmed the land around.
0:23:55 > 0:23:59There were of course other economic reasons why most of our other
0:23:59 > 0:24:03towns came into existence. Most of them grew up for reasons
0:24:03 > 0:24:05such as they were on good fords,
0:24:05 > 0:24:08crossing places for rivers, or good harbours.
0:24:08 > 0:24:15Some of them, such as Cirencester here and many others now in the
0:24:15 > 0:24:18south, grew up out of the groups of settlers
0:24:18 > 0:24:20who had squatted down outside the forts.
0:24:20 > 0:24:23When the army moved off, the settlers,
0:24:23 > 0:24:25with their good communications and trade contacts
0:24:25 > 0:24:27with the neighbouring natives,
0:24:27 > 0:24:30simply went on to form the nucleus of the town.
0:24:39 > 0:24:42Towns were at the heart of what you might call
0:24:42 > 0:24:44"Operation Roman Britain" -
0:24:44 > 0:24:48the Romans deliberately used towns as a way of drawing the local
0:24:48 > 0:24:52people into a Roman way of life, and so cemented their rule.
0:24:55 > 0:25:00This idea has been built up over the past century through archaeology
0:25:00 > 0:25:03carried out in urban areas right across the British Isles.
0:25:05 > 0:25:09A generation of archaeologists have spent their careers
0:25:09 > 0:25:12excavating our towns and cities, but it's been a challenging
0:25:12 > 0:25:15and often frustrating process.
0:25:15 > 0:25:19In Britain, we don't really have a Pompeii - a place that's
0:25:19 > 0:25:22frozen in time, and ready to be studied at leisure.
0:25:22 > 0:25:27Our Romano-British towns are often buried beneath modern streets,
0:25:27 > 0:25:31so archaeologists rarely get an opportunity to explore these
0:25:31 > 0:25:34crucial sites and make new discoveries.
0:25:34 > 0:25:36It's a painstaking process,
0:25:36 > 0:25:38but little by little they've been able to
0:25:38 > 0:25:43build a picture of life in urban Roman Britain.
0:25:44 > 0:25:47While Britain may lack a Pompeii,
0:25:47 > 0:25:51that doesn't mean some discoveries aren't revolutionary.
0:25:51 > 0:25:55Some of the most significant finds of the last century were
0:25:55 > 0:25:59fragile wooden writing tablets found at Vindolanda Fort.
0:26:01 > 0:26:03The first of them were found in the 1970s,
0:26:03 > 0:26:07and since then over 400 have been recovered from the mud.
0:26:11 > 0:26:14In the ancient classical texts, Britain was a rather
0:26:14 > 0:26:18neglected place. It seems that our distant province was of little
0:26:18 > 0:26:22interest to the powers in Rome, which means there's not
0:26:22 > 0:26:25much in the way of written history to rely on.
0:26:25 > 0:26:28But the Vindolanda tablets changed that.
0:26:28 > 0:26:31For the first time, we have a written source
0:26:31 > 0:26:36providing us with real detail of life in Roman Britain.
0:26:37 > 0:26:42When discovered, the writing tablets showed faint ink handwriting,
0:26:42 > 0:26:45but in the dry air, it began to disappear.
0:26:45 > 0:26:49New techniques had to be hastily developed to recover
0:26:49 > 0:26:51the Roman script.
0:26:51 > 0:26:55The tablets were soaked in alcohol and then ether to preserve them.
0:26:56 > 0:27:00It was discovered that the writing reappeared on infrared photographs.
0:27:05 > 0:27:09In 2007, Timewatch explored what had been learned
0:27:09 > 0:27:13after 30 years of work on the Vindolanda tablets.
0:27:14 > 0:27:17Sometimes when you have letters or words
0:27:17 > 0:27:20that are broken across different fragments, it can really be
0:27:20 > 0:27:24quite crucial on the photograph. I think that's somewhat better.
0:27:25 > 0:27:28The research has been led by Alan Bowman,
0:27:28 > 0:27:30an expert in ancient writing.
0:27:30 > 0:27:33He established that although the texts were in Latin,
0:27:33 > 0:27:36they were written in cursive script,
0:27:36 > 0:27:39using an early form of lower-case handwriting.
0:27:40 > 0:27:43They're very difficult to read. Latin cursive handwriting
0:27:43 > 0:27:46of this period is not an easy script.
0:27:46 > 0:27:50One of the problems is that the letter forms themselves,
0:27:50 > 0:27:52particularly some very common letters,
0:27:52 > 0:27:55are really quite hard to distinguish one from another.
0:27:55 > 0:28:00So, for example, in a particular hand you might find S and T
0:28:00 > 0:28:02and P and even I -
0:28:02 > 0:28:05those four letters really can look quite similar.
0:28:05 > 0:28:09And if you think of the combinations in which those letters might
0:28:09 > 0:28:12occur, actually figuring out what a particular word might be is not
0:28:12 > 0:28:14in itself a trivial exercise.
0:28:18 > 0:28:21Professor Bowman has been deciphering the Vindolanda
0:28:21 > 0:28:26writing tablets for over 30 years, and new ones are still being dug up.
0:28:27 > 0:28:31This letter has only recently been discovered.
0:28:31 > 0:28:33Professor Bowman's eyes were the first
0:28:33 > 0:28:36in almost 2,000 years to read it.
0:28:42 > 0:28:47The clue lies here, I think, where you can read the word "linceas",
0:28:47 > 0:28:51L-I-N-C-E-A-S. These are lances, pieces of military equipment.
0:28:51 > 0:28:56It's one example of the incredibly detailed recording of cash,
0:28:56 > 0:29:01commodities, the tracking of the way in which equipment
0:29:01 > 0:29:06was dispensed and paid for, in this extraordinarily detailed way.
0:29:06 > 0:29:10One of the most revealing tablets was a letter written to the wife of
0:29:10 > 0:29:15the commanding officer at Vindolanda by a woman called Claudia Severa.
0:29:16 > 0:29:19You can see here that this main part of the letter is
0:29:19 > 0:29:21written in a very good hand, which is probably the hand
0:29:21 > 0:29:26of a scribe, who Severa got to write the main body of the letter for her.
0:29:26 > 0:29:29But what's really interesting is that at the end of the letter,
0:29:29 > 0:29:32Claudia Severa has added the closing greeting, you can
0:29:32 > 0:29:35see four lines of rather crabby looking writing -
0:29:35 > 0:29:38she's added this closure in her own hand.
0:29:38 > 0:29:42"I shall expect you, sister. Farewell, sister, my dearest soul,
0:29:42 > 0:29:45"as I hope to prosper - and hail."
0:29:45 > 0:29:50It is extremely rare to find a text in which you can be sure
0:29:50 > 0:29:55that the handwriting is that of the author of the letter herself,
0:29:55 > 0:29:57and the fact that it is a woman writing
0:29:57 > 0:29:59is very unusual, indeed, as well.
0:29:59 > 0:30:02This must be the earliest example, certainly from Roman Britain,
0:30:02 > 0:30:05the earliest example of handwriting by a woman
0:30:05 > 0:30:08and probably the earliest known example of Latin handwriting
0:30:08 > 0:30:10by a woman in the Roman world.
0:30:10 > 0:30:13The Vindolanda tablets are remarkably useful.
0:30:13 > 0:30:16They are incredible documents that tell us a lot about life in this
0:30:16 > 0:30:19particular military community.
0:30:19 > 0:30:22This garrison, out on the frontiers, in the area where later on,
0:30:22 > 0:30:24a generation later, Hadrian's Wall will be built.
0:30:24 > 0:30:27And it tells us about the day-to-day life and it tells us
0:30:27 > 0:30:29all sorts of things that we didn't necessarily expect,
0:30:29 > 0:30:33like the famous birthday invitation from the wife of one commander
0:30:33 > 0:30:34to the wife of another commander
0:30:34 > 0:30:37and it gives you this whole impression of a military community
0:30:37 > 0:30:39with its strict social hierarchy
0:30:39 > 0:30:42and these sort of fairly aristocratic women there,
0:30:42 > 0:30:44with their families out on the frontiers,
0:30:44 > 0:30:47indulging in this little sort of social world of their own.
0:30:47 > 0:30:50The Vindolanda tablets have this extraordinary
0:30:50 > 0:30:51importance in ancient history.
0:30:51 > 0:30:55Not just for what they tell us about Vindolanda,
0:30:55 > 0:30:57or the history of Roman Britain,
0:30:57 > 0:31:00but for the techniques that were developed to read them
0:31:00 > 0:31:03and are still being developed today.
0:31:03 > 0:31:06They really form the basis for a whole new world of reading
0:31:06 > 0:31:10ancient documents from all over the world
0:31:10 > 0:31:14and it means that nowadays we're still,
0:31:14 > 0:31:17every day, reading words from the ancient world
0:31:17 > 0:31:21for the first time and that's what keeps the ancient world alive.
0:31:22 > 0:31:26The discovery of the Vindolanda tablets was a milestone
0:31:26 > 0:31:28in the archaeology of Roman Britain.
0:31:28 > 0:31:31But it was the harnessing of new scientific techniques that
0:31:31 > 0:31:34allowed academics to decipher them.
0:31:35 > 0:31:38Some of the biggest advances in recent decades
0:31:38 > 0:31:39have been thanks to science.
0:31:39 > 0:31:43Over the last 50 years, there's been a quiet revolution in archaeology,
0:31:43 > 0:31:46both out in the field and in the lab.
0:31:46 > 0:31:51From geophysical survey to DNA analysis, new technologies,
0:31:51 > 0:31:54techniques and scientific breakthroughs have generated
0:31:54 > 0:31:59fresh insights and even opened up whole new avenues of research.
0:32:01 > 0:32:05Each new archaeological discovery can now draw on
0:32:05 > 0:32:07these crucial technical developments.
0:32:11 > 0:32:14In 2006, Timewatch investigated the mystery surrounding
0:32:14 > 0:32:20over 40 headless skeletons found in one of York's Roman cemeteries.
0:32:21 > 0:32:24The team working on the project would bring to bear
0:32:24 > 0:32:27the latest scientific and archaeological techniques
0:32:27 > 0:32:31to try to understand this grisly discovery.
0:32:34 > 0:32:38Well, I'm looking here at what seems to be a very unusual burial,
0:32:38 > 0:32:42with a skull sitting on its own there and then in this area
0:32:42 > 0:32:46we've had the cremated remains of the rest of the body.
0:32:47 > 0:32:51In this grave we've got a decapitated skeleton.
0:32:51 > 0:32:54It looks as though the skull's been put down there,
0:32:54 > 0:32:57between the right arm and the left leg.
0:32:57 > 0:33:00It's a very curious body position.
0:33:00 > 0:33:04So we've got a burial here which has been really badly treated
0:33:04 > 0:33:08and the body treated with very little of the sort of conventional
0:33:08 > 0:33:10respect that one expects.
0:33:10 > 0:33:12It really is quite extraordinary.
0:33:12 > 0:33:15Headless burials are often associated with punishments
0:33:15 > 0:33:18meted out to slaves or prisoners.
0:33:18 > 0:33:21They came as a surprise in a high status cemetery
0:33:21 > 0:33:25where you'd expect to find the Romano-British elite.
0:33:25 > 0:33:28Human bone specialists, Katy Tucker and Charlotte Roberts,
0:33:28 > 0:33:30are investigating the remains.
0:33:32 > 0:33:34So what have you found on this one?
0:33:34 > 0:33:36Well, this one has got one very,
0:33:36 > 0:33:40very sharp clean cut through the third cervical vertebrae.
0:33:40 > 0:33:44- It's an absolutely wonderful cut, isn't it?- It is, it's very nice.
0:33:44 > 0:33:46A cut mark right across the vertebra there
0:33:46 > 0:33:48and across here.
0:33:48 > 0:33:50To help with the examination,
0:33:50 > 0:33:53the very latest microscope technology is being used.
0:33:53 > 0:33:56Its stunning 3D images
0:33:56 > 0:34:00give new insights into how these men were decapitated.
0:34:00 > 0:34:03So we're looking here at one of the neck vertebrae
0:34:03 > 0:34:06which has been cut through from the back.
0:34:06 > 0:34:10So you've got the cut mark going all the way down here
0:34:10 > 0:34:12and you can see, even here, the detail...
0:34:14 > 0:34:18..of the weapon that caused the injury.
0:34:21 > 0:34:25I think that the injuries that I've seen on the neck vertebrae,
0:34:25 > 0:34:27and elsewhere on the body,
0:34:27 > 0:34:30suggest that they are perimortem injuries -
0:34:30 > 0:34:34around the time of death these injuries occurred.
0:34:35 > 0:34:38So could these men have been decapitated in battle?
0:34:40 > 0:34:45There are no defence injuries on the hands or the forearms.
0:34:45 > 0:34:50There are no perimortem injuries to the ribcage there.
0:34:50 > 0:34:56There are no perimortem injuries to the facial area of the skulls.
0:34:56 > 0:34:59I would think for many of the individuals it was a pretty
0:34:59 > 0:35:01traumatic event for them
0:35:01 > 0:35:05and some of the individuals have got multiple cut marks
0:35:05 > 0:35:08on the neck vertebrae and elsewhere around the skull area,
0:35:08 > 0:35:12suggesting these people were rather hacked around
0:35:12 > 0:35:14to get the head off.
0:35:16 > 0:35:19In my professional opinion,
0:35:19 > 0:35:23these people were executed
0:35:23 > 0:35:25by decapitation.
0:35:25 > 0:35:30Such archaeological finds have the power to radically change our view
0:35:30 > 0:35:33of what life could be like in Roman Britain.
0:35:33 > 0:35:37Sometimes, it seems, it could be a brutally violent place,
0:35:37 > 0:35:40even for the wealthy, pampered elite.
0:35:43 > 0:35:46Despite some compelling evidence to the contrary,
0:35:46 > 0:35:50we still have an inherited notion from classical historians that it
0:35:50 > 0:35:55was the urbanite Romans who were the civilised inhabitants of our islands
0:35:55 > 0:35:57and the Celts, especially those in Scotland,
0:35:57 > 0:36:00were the barbarians.
0:36:00 > 0:36:02But by the 1970s some historians,
0:36:02 > 0:36:04influenced by Marxist historiography,
0:36:04 > 0:36:07began to challenge this idea.
0:36:08 > 0:36:13In 1976, Magnus Magnuson, an adopted Scot,
0:36:13 > 0:36:16came to the defence of the ancient peoples of Scotland.
0:36:16 > 0:36:20He examined a passage from the great English historian, Edward Gibbon,
0:36:20 > 0:36:23with which he took particular issue.
0:36:24 > 0:36:27'The Romans, the masters of the fairest
0:36:27 > 0:36:29'and most wealthy climates of the globe
0:36:29 > 0:36:34'turned with contempt from gloomy hills assailed by the winter tempest,
0:36:34 > 0:36:37'from lakes concealed in a blue mist
0:36:37 > 0:36:42'and from cold and lonely heaths over which the deer of the forest
0:36:42 > 0:36:45'were chased by a troupe of naked barbarians.'
0:36:47 > 0:36:50Well, I don't know so much about the naked barbarians
0:36:50 > 0:36:53but Gibbon was certainly wrong about the weather here in Scotland
0:36:53 > 0:36:56because, as you can see, it never rains in Scotland
0:36:56 > 0:36:59except when it's wet, of course.
0:36:59 > 0:37:01But Gibbon seems to me to represent
0:37:01 > 0:37:06everything that's most objectionable in both the English and the Romans,
0:37:06 > 0:37:11patronising, condescending about the inhabitants of other countries,
0:37:11 > 0:37:15ineffably complacent about their own civilised values.
0:37:15 > 0:37:18And, anyway, these savages up to the north
0:37:18 > 0:37:20weren't all that savage, either.
0:37:20 > 0:37:23Remember that this was the period of the building of the brochs,
0:37:23 > 0:37:27these great stone towers from the 1st century BC onwards.
0:37:27 > 0:37:31You can still see their ruins on our northern coastlines
0:37:31 > 0:37:34and that alone argues a degree of social skill
0:37:34 > 0:37:39and organisation which belies Gibbon's manifest contempt.
0:37:39 > 0:37:42No, I'm not trying to belittle the Roman achievement,
0:37:42 > 0:37:46especially since the Caledonians are once again part of a European
0:37:46 > 0:37:48confederacy under a treaty of Rome.
0:37:48 > 0:37:51I just don't want you to get the impression that the chaps out
0:37:51 > 0:37:55there were all baddies and uncivilised baddies at that.
0:37:55 > 0:37:58Anyway, the Romans themselves weren't so hot some of the time,
0:37:58 > 0:38:00as even Gibbon would admit.
0:38:01 > 0:38:03The popular image of the Picts and Scots
0:38:03 > 0:38:06as barbarians, though, is an enduring one...
0:38:06 > 0:38:11But this idea of wild savages didn't necessarily
0:38:11 > 0:38:14come from the Romans themselves.
0:38:14 > 0:38:17The Romans may have referred to the Ancient Britons as "wretched"
0:38:17 > 0:38:19and tried to crush them,
0:38:19 > 0:38:21but it's also clear from the literary sources
0:38:21 > 0:38:24that they had a grudging respect for the Britons
0:38:24 > 0:38:28and even admired their independent spirit.
0:38:28 > 0:38:31In fact, our often negative image of the native Britons
0:38:31 > 0:38:35has come to us from English historians like Edward Gibbon,
0:38:35 > 0:38:39writing in the 18th century, who was reflecting less
0:38:39 > 0:38:44the attitude of the Romans and more the prejudices of his own time.
0:38:45 > 0:38:49It's very easy, when you come to the past, to look at earlier
0:38:49 > 0:38:51historians, earlier archaeologists
0:38:51 > 0:38:53and see the prejudices that are so - they're blatant to you.
0:38:53 > 0:38:56So we look back and we see that when Britain had an empire,
0:38:56 > 0:38:58scholars tended to look at the Romans,
0:38:58 > 0:39:01equate themselves with the Romans, and they saw the Roman Empire
0:39:01 > 0:39:03as bringing the light of civilisation
0:39:03 > 0:39:07to the darkness of Barbarian Britain and Barbarian Europe.
0:39:07 > 0:39:11And we can see that that's far too simple,
0:39:11 > 0:39:15it's far too crude and it does downplay the sophistication
0:39:15 > 0:39:17of the indigenous population.
0:39:17 > 0:39:21We do have to be careful, though, empires are no longer fashionable,
0:39:21 > 0:39:24they're now very much the bad guys, you know Imperialist, Colonial
0:39:24 > 0:39:27oppression, all this sort of thing is not what should be happening.
0:39:27 > 0:39:31The danger is that you then assume that the people that they defeated,
0:39:31 > 0:39:35the people who are conquered, are somehow inherently virtuous because
0:39:35 > 0:39:38they've been conquered. They have proved militarily weaker than
0:39:38 > 0:39:41the Romans but they must be better people, they must somehow be nicer.
0:39:41 > 0:39:43There's one ancient Briton
0:39:43 > 0:39:46whose image has continually changed over time.
0:39:46 > 0:39:50She was a British queen who led a bloody revolt
0:39:50 > 0:39:53in southern England against Roman rule.
0:39:53 > 0:39:57Boudicca, or Boadicea as she's often been called,
0:39:57 > 0:40:00thanks to a Renaissance spelling mistake,
0:40:00 > 0:40:03has undergone a revolution in image over the centuries,
0:40:03 > 0:40:07from cruel tyrant to feminist freedom fighter.
0:40:09 > 0:40:12In the early 1980s, with Margaret Thatcher in Number Ten,
0:40:12 > 0:40:15and women's history very much in vogue,
0:40:15 > 0:40:20Michael Wood made a programme In Search Of Boadicea.
0:40:20 > 0:40:24He examined how new archaeological discoveries in London
0:40:24 > 0:40:27showed just what this vengeful queen would do
0:40:27 > 0:40:29if you got on the wrong side of her.
0:40:37 > 0:40:40The financial heart of the Roman town under Cornhill,
0:40:40 > 0:40:44the Royal Exchange here and the Bank of England,
0:40:44 > 0:40:46was laid to ashes
0:40:46 > 0:40:49and it's here that we get our first hard evidence
0:40:49 > 0:40:50of the kind of atrocities
0:40:50 > 0:40:53that were committed by both sides during this war.
0:40:55 > 0:40:57Tacitus passes over the detail,
0:40:57 > 0:41:00but the later writer, Dio Cassius, tells us that the
0:41:00 > 0:41:03Britons hung up the Roman women that they captured,
0:41:03 > 0:41:07cut off their breasts and sewed them to their mouths
0:41:07 > 0:41:10and impaled them on sharpened stakes.
0:41:10 > 0:41:13One's first reaction to that story is that whoever made it up
0:41:13 > 0:41:15got it from some lurid Roman anthropology book.
0:41:15 > 0:41:18It's got all the trappings of modern atrocity propaganda -
0:41:18 > 0:41:23Huns bayoneting babies, Vietnamese Russian roulette, and so on.
0:41:23 > 0:41:27But it may be as Tacitus implies that these atrocities were
0:41:27 > 0:41:31committed in fulfilment of some religious ritual demanded
0:41:31 > 0:41:35by the druids, which brings us to these...
0:41:37 > 0:41:41A large number of these skulls have been found in the Roman silt
0:41:41 > 0:41:44of the Walbrook stream to the west of the bank.
0:41:44 > 0:41:47There are about 25 of them in the London Museum alone
0:41:47 > 0:41:50and they're always found with no other skeletal remains.
0:41:50 > 0:41:53Now we know that these Celtic rituals included
0:41:53 > 0:41:56the use of the severed heads of the vanquished
0:41:56 > 0:42:00and it does seems that these skulls are the heads of Londoners who
0:42:00 > 0:42:04suffered at the hands of Boudicca's vengeful army of liberation.
0:42:04 > 0:42:07Boudicca's story has everything -
0:42:07 > 0:42:11a warrior queen, an underdog standing up to the might of Rome,
0:42:11 > 0:42:13triumph and ultimately tragedy.
0:42:13 > 0:42:18Over the centuries the persona of Boudicca has changed dramatically.
0:42:18 > 0:42:23In the age of Shakespeare, she was imagined as a bloodthirsty savage.
0:42:23 > 0:42:28The Victorians rehabilitated her as a symbol of British Imperial power
0:42:28 > 0:42:32and, in recent times, she's become a bit of a feminist icon.
0:42:32 > 0:42:36But despite numerous books and television documentaries,
0:42:36 > 0:42:40there's actually very little evidence to go on,
0:42:40 > 0:42:44to the extent that some people doubt she ever actually existed.
0:42:44 > 0:42:46With so little to go on,
0:42:46 > 0:42:49it's perhaps not surprising that over the years,
0:42:49 > 0:42:53it's been possible to cast Boudicca in whatever mould suited
0:42:53 > 0:42:56the prevailing attitude and politics of the time.
0:42:56 > 0:43:01The lack of any tangible evidence means Boudicca remains an enigma,
0:43:01 > 0:43:03leaving her persona and actions
0:43:03 > 0:43:06open to constant interpretation and debate.
0:43:06 > 0:43:08Some have even used her story
0:43:08 > 0:43:11to imagine an alternate history of Roman Britain.
0:43:13 > 0:43:16In the 1990s, a new breed of historian emerged.
0:43:16 > 0:43:19They were interested in creating thought experiments,
0:43:19 > 0:43:23coming up with alternative versions of events in the past,
0:43:23 > 0:43:27and imagining how those might have changed the course of history.
0:43:27 > 0:43:31Their work became known as counterfactual history
0:43:31 > 0:43:34and Roman Britain provided fertile ground for study.
0:43:36 > 0:43:39In an episode of the series What If?
0:43:39 > 0:43:41Carenza Lewis explored what might have happened
0:43:41 > 0:43:46if Boudicca's army had fought their campaign using different tactics
0:43:46 > 0:43:50and how this might have forced the Roman governor, Paulinus,
0:43:50 > 0:43:53to relinquish control of Britain.
0:43:56 > 0:43:59If Boudicca had continued to use ambush tactics and avoid
0:43:59 > 0:44:03direct contact with the Romans' well-honed military machine,
0:44:03 > 0:44:07she could have forced Paulinus to retreat to the continent.
0:44:07 > 0:44:10The Roman civilian settlers would have been left
0:44:10 > 0:44:13at the mercy of British reprisals.
0:44:13 > 0:44:17The Britons would have continued with the sorts of, um,
0:44:17 > 0:44:20really purging and ransacking,
0:44:20 > 0:44:24which Tacitus tells us about is happening at St Albans, for example,
0:44:24 > 0:44:29and would have effectively driven anybody Roman out of the island.
0:44:36 > 0:44:40If the Roman occupation had been cut short in its infancy,
0:44:40 > 0:44:43a chain of events would have been set in motion that would take
0:44:43 > 0:44:47Britain on a very different course through history.
0:44:47 > 0:44:48Gone would be the towns, roads
0:44:48 > 0:44:51and centralised government of Roman Britain.
0:44:51 > 0:44:54In their place, the country could develop as a society
0:44:54 > 0:44:58of warrior farmers earning allegiance to their tribal king,
0:44:58 > 0:45:00rather than the Roman Emperor.
0:45:00 > 0:45:03Speaking a form of Celtic, but still trading with the continent,
0:45:03 > 0:45:06they could have gradually formed larger political units
0:45:06 > 0:45:08under more powerful rulers.
0:45:10 > 0:45:14The removal of four centuries of Roman occupation
0:45:14 > 0:45:16from British history would have had other effects.
0:45:16 > 0:45:19Britain could have been strong enough to repel
0:45:19 > 0:45:21the Anglo-Saxon immigrants in the 5th century.
0:45:21 > 0:45:25Without the Angles and the Saxons, English itself,
0:45:25 > 0:45:28the language of Chaucer and Shakespeare would never have evolved.
0:45:30 > 0:45:32I think the question of whether counterfactual history
0:45:32 > 0:45:34is a useful exercise really depends
0:45:34 > 0:45:37on what you think history is for.
0:45:37 > 0:45:40If you think it's just about compiling a list of things
0:45:40 > 0:45:42that happened in the past,
0:45:42 > 0:45:45then writing about what didn't happen isn't much use.
0:45:45 > 0:45:48But if you think it's about trying to work out why those things
0:45:48 > 0:45:51happened, then it certainly is useful to think
0:45:51 > 0:45:53seriously about what the alternatives could have been.
0:45:53 > 0:45:57I think counterfactual history, um, is very recent.
0:45:57 > 0:46:00I mean, I don't think people would have regarded it
0:46:00 > 0:46:03as a serious endeavour 20, 30 years ago, to be honest.
0:46:03 > 0:46:08I'm very dubious about it and the problem is this.
0:46:08 > 0:46:13It misunderstands that everything is connected with everything else.
0:46:13 > 0:46:19So if you change one piece of the mosaic of social reality,
0:46:19 > 0:46:23if you like, everything else begins to change at the same time.
0:46:23 > 0:46:26In ways that are completely unpredictable.
0:46:26 > 0:46:29History is not like science.
0:46:29 > 0:46:32It's not the case that if you alter one variable,
0:46:32 > 0:46:35all of the other variables stay the same.
0:46:35 > 0:46:38They don't. All of the other variables then change
0:46:38 > 0:46:41because you've changed one element in the situation.
0:46:41 > 0:46:43I think counterfactual history simply doesn't work.
0:46:43 > 0:46:47As soon as one thing is different, there is such a cascade of
0:46:47 > 0:46:51changes that it becomes impossible, actually, to make sense of how
0:46:51 > 0:46:54society might have, might have developed differently.
0:46:56 > 0:47:00Before the 20th century, there was a widely held idea
0:47:00 > 0:47:03that the relationship between the Romans and native Britons
0:47:03 > 0:47:08was often antagonistic - that it was very much rulers and subjects
0:47:08 > 0:47:12and Boudicca's revolt seemed to reinforce this belief.
0:47:12 > 0:47:16In recent decades, some historians have argued that the Romans didn't
0:47:16 > 0:47:20always impose themselves so forcibly on the Britons.
0:47:20 > 0:47:24The old notion of a clash of cultures,
0:47:24 > 0:47:27with the Romans sweeping away everything that had gone before,
0:47:27 > 0:47:31has been replaced with a much more subtle interpretation.
0:47:31 > 0:47:35In some key aspects of life, including religion
0:47:35 > 0:47:39and commerce, there's a real sense of continuity,
0:47:39 > 0:47:42coupled with the fact the Romans seemed prepared to
0:47:42 > 0:47:47adapt their own institutions in order to ease the transition.
0:47:47 > 0:47:51In his landmark series, A History Of Britain,
0:47:51 > 0:47:56historian Simon Schama explored this idea of a melding of cultures.
0:47:56 > 0:47:59He visited the city of Bath, where there is one of the most
0:47:59 > 0:48:02obvious examples of this integration.
0:48:04 > 0:48:08For it was here that the British goddess Sulis was combined
0:48:08 > 0:48:12with the Roman goddess Minerva to create a hybrid acceptable
0:48:12 > 0:48:14to both Romans and Britons.
0:48:16 > 0:48:21Bath became a symbol of this new unified culture in Roman Britain.
0:48:23 > 0:48:25A world of garrisons and barracks
0:48:25 > 0:48:28had now become a society in its own right.
0:48:28 > 0:48:31And, from the middle of the second century, it makes sense to
0:48:31 > 0:48:34talk about a Romano-British culture
0:48:34 > 0:48:38and not just as a colonial veneer imposed on the resentful natives,
0:48:38 > 0:48:40but as a genuine fusion.
0:48:41 > 0:48:45And nowhere was this clearer than here in Bath.
0:48:47 > 0:48:51Bath was the quintessential Romano-British place.
0:48:51 > 0:48:55At once mod-con and mysterious cult,
0:48:55 > 0:48:59therapy and luxury, a marvel of hydraulic engineering
0:48:59 > 0:49:02and a showy theatre of the waters of healing.
0:49:03 > 0:49:07The spa was an extravaganza of buildings constructed over
0:49:07 > 0:49:10a spring that gushed a third of a million gallons
0:49:10 > 0:49:14of piping hot water into the baths every day.
0:49:23 > 0:49:27When you soaked yourself at Bath, you were washing your body
0:49:27 > 0:49:31and your soul - ablution and devotion at the same time.
0:49:31 > 0:49:34Much of the bathing, as well as the flirting, the gossip
0:49:34 > 0:49:40and deal-making, went on in this austerely grandiose Great Bath.
0:49:44 > 0:49:48But the spiritual heart of the place was the sacred spring,
0:49:48 > 0:49:51a ferny grotto where water collected
0:49:51 > 0:49:56and where the devotees of the presiding goddess, Sulis Minerva,
0:49:56 > 0:49:59could look through an especially constructed window
0:49:59 > 0:50:02at the altar erected in her honour
0:50:02 > 0:50:06and occasionally could throw gift offerings in her way.
0:50:11 > 0:50:13Through years of work piecing together
0:50:13 > 0:50:15small fragments of evidence,
0:50:15 > 0:50:17historians and archaeologists have established that
0:50:17 > 0:50:20the fusion of a native goddess like Sulis
0:50:20 > 0:50:23with her Roman equivalent, Minerva,
0:50:23 > 0:50:26was a pattern that was repeated across Roman Britain.
0:50:26 > 0:50:28But this notion of an integration
0:50:28 > 0:50:32has been a source of real debate and contention.
0:50:32 > 0:50:35There's a danger when you start talking about cultural fusion,
0:50:35 > 0:50:39in Roman Britain, that you're really imposing modern ideas
0:50:39 > 0:50:43of sort of multicultural society on the ancient past.
0:50:43 > 0:50:45On the other hand, when you do look at the evidence,
0:50:45 > 0:50:48Roman Britain clearly had a far more mixed population than Britain
0:50:48 > 0:50:51had before or would have again for a very long time.
0:50:51 > 0:50:54You know, you can find people from modern-day Syria
0:50:54 > 0:50:55up on Hadrian's Wall.
0:50:55 > 0:50:59People are travelling from one end of the Empire to the other
0:50:59 > 0:51:02and there are all sorts of ideas imported with the Romans.
0:51:02 > 0:51:05And the Romans were very good at respecting local traditions.
0:51:05 > 0:51:09You find indigenous cults are taken on by the Romans.
0:51:09 > 0:51:11They're sometimes changed slightly,
0:51:11 > 0:51:14they're put in a stone temple context, whereas before
0:51:14 > 0:51:18they've just been at a sacred spring or a grove, or something like that.
0:51:18 > 0:51:21And elements like human sacrifice are suppressed
0:51:21 > 0:51:23but other aspects remain the same.
0:51:23 > 0:51:27And there's been a great historical debate,
0:51:27 > 0:51:30that certainly became more vivid in the 20th century
0:51:30 > 0:51:34about the extent to which Britain was Romanised,
0:51:34 > 0:51:40as the word was employed by the great historian, Francis Haverfield.
0:51:41 > 0:51:43You know, were the Romans
0:51:43 > 0:51:47just casting a kind of faint veneer over Britain
0:51:47 > 0:51:49that came and went, you know.
0:51:49 > 0:51:52400 years is quite a long period in history
0:51:52 > 0:51:56but some would argue that the Romans only left
0:51:56 > 0:51:59a very thin veneer of effect.
0:51:59 > 0:52:03If the Romans' legacy is still in question,
0:52:03 > 0:52:07then there's another subject which has provoked even more debate.
0:52:07 > 0:52:12And that's how, when and why Roman Britain ended.
0:52:12 > 0:52:15It's a subject that has fascinated
0:52:15 > 0:52:17and divided historians for centuries.
0:52:19 > 0:52:22In the popular imagination there's a fixed date
0:52:22 > 0:52:26when the foreign legionaries finally have enough and retreat back to
0:52:26 > 0:52:31Italy to fend off the barbarians who were gathering at the gates of Rome.
0:52:31 > 0:52:35But even if there was some sort of official withdrawal by the
0:52:35 > 0:52:39Roman authorities, it's likely that actually only a few people left.
0:52:39 > 0:52:43And amongst those remaining were probably many who still
0:52:43 > 0:52:46thought of themselves as citizens of Rome.
0:52:48 > 0:52:50In a 1970s documentary
0:52:50 > 0:52:53exploring the decline and fall of the Roman Empire,
0:52:53 > 0:52:57Barry Cunliffe and Magnus Magnuson interrogated
0:52:57 > 0:53:01two different perspectives on the collapse of Roman rule in Britain.
0:53:04 > 0:53:06The sea, which for so long
0:53:06 > 0:53:09had offered Britain a degree of isolation and protection,
0:53:09 > 0:53:13began in the 3rd century to take on a more menacing aspect.
0:53:13 > 0:53:16Great fortresses, like Portchester Castle,
0:53:16 > 0:53:21were now built to protect the south east from pirates and marauders.
0:53:21 > 0:53:25For a while, throughout the first part of the 4th century,
0:53:25 > 0:53:27the problem was contained.
0:53:27 > 0:53:33In land, in the countryside, life continued often on a luxurious level
0:53:33 > 0:53:36but the threat was always there.
0:53:36 > 0:53:40Uncertainty and instability and impending danger
0:53:40 > 0:53:44became a normal part of everyday life.
0:53:44 > 0:53:46Well, here in Scotland, everything seemed to be going rather
0:53:46 > 0:53:48quietly as far as we can tell.
0:53:48 > 0:53:51The Antonine Wall had been abandoned 200 years earlier,
0:53:51 > 0:53:52it was a dead letter.
0:53:52 > 0:53:55There seems to have been a lot of trade between north and south
0:53:55 > 0:53:57and presumably a bit of raiding on the side as well.
0:53:57 > 0:54:01But one mustn't think that when the collapse started, that the Romans
0:54:01 > 0:54:05had to give up the Antonine Wall and fight their way grimly,
0:54:05 > 0:54:10step by step back to Hadrian's Wall in a series of rearguard actions.
0:54:10 > 0:54:14No, when the first signs of collapse began to appear,
0:54:14 > 0:54:17well, people just have an instinct for that sort of thing,
0:54:17 > 0:54:20a smell for disaster and they're not idiots up here, you know?
0:54:20 > 0:54:23They knew that there was booty and victory to be gained
0:54:23 > 0:54:26and they moved south towards Hadrian's Wall,
0:54:26 > 0:54:27not just the Caledonians,
0:54:27 > 0:54:30or the Picts as the Romans would call them now,
0:54:30 > 0:54:32but tribes from all over and from Ireland as well.
0:54:32 > 0:54:37They overran the Wall by the simple expedient of sailing round it.
0:54:37 > 0:54:40I wonder why these clever Romans never thought of that?
0:54:40 > 0:54:42Right, Barry?
0:54:42 > 0:54:45Well, Magnus, the simple fact was that the Romans never really
0:54:45 > 0:54:49seemed to have got used to fighting in the northern seas.
0:54:49 > 0:54:52And this, this Barbarian conspiracy,
0:54:52 > 0:54:55it was a dreadful disaster for Britain.
0:54:55 > 0:54:58There was chaos south as far as the Thames
0:54:58 > 0:55:02and, for many people, it must have seemed like the end
0:55:02 > 0:55:05but central government was still strong enough
0:55:05 > 0:55:06and, within a few years,
0:55:06 > 0:55:10it managed to re-establish order within the province.
0:55:10 > 0:55:11A new force was sent
0:55:11 > 0:55:14and they landed at Richborough in Kent and marched on London
0:55:14 > 0:55:18and there started buying off the dissident soldiers,
0:55:18 > 0:55:21building new forts. They built, for example,
0:55:21 > 0:55:24a number of signal stations along the Yorkshire coast,
0:55:24 > 0:55:28so that the wall couldn't be outflanked by sea again,
0:55:28 > 0:55:30and so order was re-established.
0:55:30 > 0:55:33But it was short-lived.
0:55:33 > 0:55:37Roman Britain had only another 40 years or so to go.
0:55:37 > 0:55:41I think the end of Roman Britain is actually quite sharp,
0:55:41 > 0:55:43in the sense, not in the sense
0:55:43 > 0:55:46that the legions packed their bags,
0:55:46 > 0:55:49marched down to the White Cliffs of Dover
0:55:49 > 0:55:50and sailed back to the continent.
0:55:50 > 0:55:52Not in that sense, of course.
0:55:52 > 0:55:55But fairly sharp in an archaeological sense,
0:55:55 > 0:55:58in that if you look at a period of a few decades, really,
0:55:58 > 0:56:01from the late 4th into the early 5th century,
0:56:01 > 0:56:04you see dramatic changes in the record.
0:56:04 > 0:56:07You see the forts abandoned, you see the villas abandoned.
0:56:07 > 0:56:09You see the towns abandoned,
0:56:09 > 0:56:14you see the end of a mass production, wheel-thrown pottery.
0:56:14 > 0:56:18You see the end of coinage, nobody's laying mosaics,
0:56:18 > 0:56:22nobody's painting frescos - that whole kind of infrastructure,
0:56:22 > 0:56:25if you like, of civilisation of empire,
0:56:25 > 0:56:28of Romanitas, of Roman culture,
0:56:28 > 0:56:32disappears completely in a few decades.
0:56:32 > 0:56:34This speaks to us in all kinds of ways.
0:56:34 > 0:56:37It speaks to preoccupations that we see in fiction and film
0:56:37 > 0:56:39and popular culture about, you know, what would happen
0:56:39 > 0:56:43if there was a tremendous disaster, if there was a plague, war.
0:56:43 > 0:56:47You know, this feeds into our fears about the collapse,
0:56:47 > 0:56:52the potential collapse of society, the fragility of our own society.
0:56:52 > 0:56:55The end of Roman Britain is one of the most contentious issues
0:56:55 > 0:56:57in history and archaeology,
0:56:57 > 0:57:00even within subjects where much of what we do know
0:57:00 > 0:57:03is constantly updated and argued over.
0:57:03 > 0:57:05Even after decades of research,
0:57:05 > 0:57:09historians still don't know for sure how Roman Britain ended.
0:57:09 > 0:57:13It remains a shadowy episode only half understood
0:57:13 > 0:57:16and open to endless theorising.
0:57:18 > 0:57:22But what we do know is that some time around 410 AD
0:57:22 > 0:57:27something changed and the place we know as Roman Britain
0:57:27 > 0:57:29became something else.
0:57:29 > 0:57:32The age of the Anglo-Saxons had arrived
0:57:32 > 0:57:35and a new chapter of our island story began.
0:57:37 > 0:57:41From that point on, the image we have of Roman Britain has been
0:57:41 > 0:57:46in constant flux, slowly changing with each new generation.
0:57:48 > 0:57:52But in the last century, it's been archaeology that has driven
0:57:52 > 0:57:57forward our understanding, and each new find and breakthrough
0:57:57 > 0:58:01has helped to build a clearer picture of this fascinating period.
0:58:02 > 0:58:03Over the last 50 years,
0:58:03 > 0:58:07Roman Britain has never been far from our screens,
0:58:07 > 0:58:09and it's been portrayed as
0:58:09 > 0:58:12a myriad of different and often contradictory places -
0:58:12 > 0:58:18violent yet civilised, multicultural yet deeply divided.
0:58:18 > 0:58:21Well, I'm sure that Roman Britain will never be
0:58:21 > 0:58:24far from our screens for the next 50 years
0:58:24 > 0:58:27but I'm also sure that our perceptions and our understanding
0:58:27 > 0:58:31of this crucial period of British history
0:58:31 > 0:58:33will continue to change and evolve.