CHAPTER 1
BRITAIN IN ROMAN TIMES
The roman occupation of Britain lasted 350 years. During this period, the nativeBritons were first conquered and then gradually converted to the Roman way oflife. Hundreds of forts were established and more than 6,000 miles of militaryhighways constructed which transformed the prehistoric trackway system into ahighly organized network of routes of a standard neither equaled nor surpasseduntil comparatively modern times.
Roman forts were always built at locations which were of strategic importance.Thus Chester, Wroxeter, and Gloucester were at positions from which Wales couldbe invaded, and at places where the plain could be defended from the incursionof the mountain tribes. Carlisle, York, and Lincoln all controlled importantroutes and were vital from a military point of view. London was the center ofthe military system which linked with all parts of Roman Britain, and from whichsupplies could be obtained in times of need. Beyond the Straits of Dover, thesystem of roads continued with the entire European network focused on Rome,giving rise to the old saying that "all roads lead to Rome."
One of the most important forts constructed by the Romans during their conquestof Wales was at Caerleon-upon-Usk in Gwent. In A.D. 75 they raised an earthenbank and surrounded it by a moat filled with water. By A.D. 110, a turretedstone wall measuring 540 meters by 450 meters had been built to enclose an areaof 20 hectares. Gradually, a very impressive fortress town was constructed withconsiderable quantities of stone transported from Bath by barge down the Avon,across the Severn, and up the Usk.
The Second Augustan Legion was stationed here with Julius Frontinus commandingthe garrison, which in its heyday consisted of some 6,000 men. This particularlegion was a highly trained force which had been brought here to deal with thedifficult problem of subduing the Silures, who inhabited this area and were ledin battle by the brave Celtic king, Caratacus.
Caer Wysg (Fortress on the Usk) is the ancient name for the settlement, whichwas a center of trade used by the Britons long before the Romans arrived. Butwhen the Romans settled here, they abolished the old British name and their newfort became known as Isca Silurum. They named it Isca after the River Usk, nearwhich it stands, and Silurum after the local tribe to whom they referred asSilures. This was one of three legionary fortresses established in Roman Britainand it was their chief city in South Wales.
The name Caerleon is a Welsh rendering of Castra Legionum and the abbreviatedtitle of the Legion's name—LEG II AVG has been found stamped on countless bricksuncovered during many years of archaeological excavation. When GiraldusCambrensis (Gerald of Wales) came here in 1190, the Roman remains were stillvery impressive and he described them as follows:
[A]n ancient and authentic city, excellently and well built in olden times bythe Romans. Many vestiges of its former splendour may yet be seen, mighty andhuge palaces with gilded roofs in imitation of Roman magnificence ... a townprodigious in size, wonderful bath buildings, the remains of temples andtheatres, all enclosed within fine walls, which are yet partly standing. Youwill find on all sides, both within and without the circuit of the walls,subterraneous buildings, water-pipes, and underground passages, and, moreremarkable than all, stoves contrived with wonderful art to transmit the heatinsensibly through the narrow flues up the side of the walls.
In sunshine, Caerleon certainly became a city of gold, for the many buildingswere roofed with glazed brown tiles which caught and reflected the rays of thesun. Venta Silurum (Caerwent), just 13 kilometers away, must have been eclipsedby the rising splendor of Isca Silurum, which became the chief station ofBritannia Secunda. It was here that the Praetor resided, the Roman eagle wasdeposited, and the principal courts of justice were located.
In A.D. 77, Julius Agricola arrived on the scene and subsequently became themost famous of the governors of Britain. He immediately turned his attention tothe subjugation of the Ordovices and the Deceangli, who inhabited the area weknow today as Clwyd. He went on to capture Anglesey. With the conquest of Walesthus consolidated, he was able to turn his attention to the north.
He established a base at Chester, which was then known as Deva, after the RiverDee, and in A.D. 79 he overcame the Brigante tribe. Next he moved on to make hisheadquarters at Eboracum (York). From here he conducted his northern campaignsand consolidated his position with the construction of roads and a chain offorts. Eboracum became the base of the Ninth Legion and in later years itdeveloped into the chief military center of Roman Britain, known as "AlteraRome"—the other Rome.
The Romanized capital of the Brigantes was situated about sixteen milesnorthwest of York and was called Insurium Brigantium. Today, the site isoccupied by the village of Aldborough, which stands on the road that still marksthe route followed by Agricola on his advance into Scotland. He pushed on viaStirling and Perth to reach Inchtuthill, where another important base wasestablished. In due course, a whole chain of forts was constructed from theFirth to the Clyde and this became the northern limit of the Roman Empire. Itwas decided not to proceed any farther north because of the harsh mountainousterrain and the problems already experienced with the fierce Pictish tribes.
In about A.D. 121, the Emperor Hadrian visited Britain and, after taking a hardlook at the problems being caused by the troublesome Picts, decided that apermanent northern frontier for his province should be established. The locationwhich he selected was much farther south than Agricola's chain of forts;itlinked the Tyne Gap from Bowness on the Solway Firth, to Wallsend on the Tyne.Known as Hadrian's Wall, this mighty example of Roman engineering, stretchingacross the "neck" of Britain, was built within five years. Throughout its lengthof nearly 112 kilometers (70 miles) it was defended by a chain of forts. At eachRoman mile stood a mile-castle which provided quarters for the man on sentryduty. Two turrets were located between each mile-castle and these were used forsignaling purposes. The wall was from 6 to 7 meters high and 2 to 4 metersthick. It is one of the most impressive monuments in Britain and perhaps thefinest Roman military structure in the world.
When Antonius Pius acceeded in A.D. 138, a decision was made to establishanother walled frontier farther north, along the line of Agricola's chain offorts from the Firth to the Clyde. This time, to speed up its construction, thedefensive boundary was built of turf instead of stone and, at 59 kilometerslong, it was half the length of Hadrian's Wall. It stretched from OldKirkpatrick on the Clyde to Bridgeness near Corriden on the Forth and becameknown as the Antonine Wall. However, this outer northern boundary of the RomanEmpire was subsequently abandoned and left to the mercy of the threateningtribes and the destructive forces of the elements, while the legions retreatedto the greater security of Hadrian's Wall.
Reinforcements were sometimes sent from Caerleon to this northern outpost. Forthe Second Legion this would have meant a march of nearly three hundred milesalong the great Roman highways. A posting to Hadrian's Wall must have beenregarded with dread, and in winter the men guarding the wall must often havefelt homesick and lonely as they stared north over a bleak and mist-shroudedlandscape.
The purpose of these great walls was to enable the legions to defend thenorthern limits of their extended empire against a fierce tribe known as theScottis. It seems surprising today to realize that this name was originallygiven to the people of northern Ireland, and until the tenth century, Scottimeant Irishmen and Scotia was Ireland. The Scottis from Ulster crossed the seain large numbers and moved into the territory which became known as Scotland.They settled along the west coast to the north of the Antonine Wall (in the areanow known as Argyll) and created the kingdom of Dalriada. Settlers from Irelandalso came to Wales and settled in Dyfed and South Wales, where they implantedthe Irish language and founded a kingdom of their own. One band also penetratedthe Welsh mountains and established a dynasty in the area which later becameknown as Brycheiniog (Breconshire). Evidence of the distribution of these earlyIrish settlers is today revealed by their Ogham inscriptions on the manymemorial stones of the fifth/sixth century period which have been found in theold counties of Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, and Breconshire.
In A.D. 197, the Emperor Septimus Severus divided Britain into two parts, whichbecame known as Upper and Lower Britain. Lower Britain was in the north of theisland and was divided into Britannia Secunda and Flavia Caesarentis. The southbecame Upper Britain and was reorganized into Britannia Prima and MaximaCaesarentis. In the north, the two new provinces had their capitals at York andLincoln, as they are known today. Britannia Prima in the south had its capitalat Cirencester and the administration center for Maxima Caesarentis was London.It has been suggested that the Romans named the south of the country UpperBritain because this part of the island was nearest to Rome, while the territoryfarther away was regarded as Lower Britain.
The military command for Upper and Lower Britain was divided between threegenerals, who were given titles which are of particular significance, for thissystem of defense was continued by the Britons after the Romans departed. Thesetitles were Comes Britanniae, Comes Litoris Saxonici, and Dux Britanniarum.
It was the Comes Britanniae (Count of Britain) who was the supreme militaryauthority, with a roving commission to defend the country against foreigninvasion. The other two were slightly subordinate officers under his command.For a long time after the departure of the Romans, the Britons kept intact theorganization of defense which their conquerors had established during theiryears of occupation. It would seem that the position of Comes Britanniae as warleader was the same as Amherawdyr (Emperor), which is mentioned in early Welshliterature and is a title given to Arthur alone among British heroes.
When Saxon raiders began to harass the eastern shores of Britain, the Romansdecided to erect a series of forts from the Wash to the Solent. These wereplaced under the control of an officer known as Comes Litoris Saxonici—the"Count of the Saxon Shore." He had the responsibility for guarding these coastalforts which had been erected as a bulwark against pirate raids. Saxon tribesfrom the Continent had plundered the British shores from the third century, butthis chain of forts held them off at least until the middle of the fourthcentury.
The duty of the Dux Britanniarum was to guard Hadrian's Wall against the Pictsand this must have been a daunting task for it was such a long frontier acrossthe rugged Pennines. In 367, there was a particularly determined raid by thePicts and the Scots who succeeded in crossing Hadrian's Wall, while at the sametime the Saxons landed on the east coast. This combined enemy force ravaged anddestroyed as they advanced, causing the forces of the Count of Britain and theCount of the Saxon Shore to retreat.
Britain remained part of the Roman Empire until A.D. 410, when Rome fell intothe hands of the Visigoths and the Roman legions were withdrawn from thisisland. The Emperor Honorius formally relinquished control of the province in aletter which informed the Britons that henceforth they would have to fend forthemselves. This decision ended 367 years of Roman rule in Britain and put theisland at the mercy of the Picts, Scots, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. The Britonswere beset by enemies on all sides and it was not long before Picts from thenorth began raiding British territory in earnest.
After nearly four centuries of Roman rule, the Britons had come to feel safeunder the protection of their conquerors and it would have been quite naturalfor them to continue the same system of defense.
The period which immediately succeeds the withdrawal of the Romans, and whichincludes the brief Celtic supremacy before the establishment of the Saxonkingdoms, is in many ways the most interesting period of our history.... Itis the formative period which saw the birth of most of the languages, theideals, and the traditions which still to-day predominate in the greater part ofthe British Isles.
—Nora Chadwick
CHAPTER 2
IN THE WAKE OF THE RED DRAGON
On a hill overlooking Caernarfon in Gwynedd stand the ruins of Segontium, afortress built by Agricola in A.D. 78, prior to his invasion of Anglesey. WhenNennius, a priest from South Wales, compiled his Historia Brittonum in about800, he included a list of twenty-eight cities; Cair Segeint (Segontium) was oneof them. Evidently, the ruins of this fort must have been impressive, otherwisethey would not have been worthy of a mention.
In the Mabinogion story titled "The Dream of Macsen Wledig," Magnus Maximus, whowas known in Welsh tradition as Macsen Wledig, is explicitly associated withSegontium. This romantic tale relates how Maximus dreamed of making a journeyacross the sea to a land where he crossed a mountain range to reach the "fairestand most level region that any mortal had ever seen." Near the mouth of ariver, he came upon a castle where he observed a ceiling covered with gold andwalls decorated with stones. In the great hall, he found a beautiful maiden,finely dressed and sitting in a golden chair. As in all fairy tales, he fell inlove with her at first sight. Taking her in his arms, he sat down with her inthe golden chair. At this point, just as the dream was getting interesting,Maximus woke up. But he could not get the beautiful girl out of his mind and hebecame obsessed with her memory. In due course, his quest to find her broughthim to Aberseint, near the old Roman fort of Segontium in Gwynedd. Here he metthe Princess Elen, who was exactly like the girl in his dreams, and they ofcourse fell in love and married.
Magnus Maximus was, in fact, a Spanish officer who came to Britain as anofficial in the household of Count Theodosius the Elder in 368. After the Countdeparted, the Picts were soon on the rampage again, but Maximus succeeded indriving them back from Hadrian's Wall and, within the new provinces ofStrathclyde and Manau Guotodin, the Britons were able to live in peace. His sonAntonius Donatus was made responsible for Strathclyde, while the province ofManau Guotodin was placed under the Romano-British Prince Paternus of the RedTunic, who is remembered as the grandfather of Cunedda Wledig.
Maximus traveled south to Gwynedd to rebuild and garrison the abandoned fortressof Segontium, which became his new headquarters. While he was there, he met andmarried the Princess Elen. She belonged to the ruling British family whose seatwas at Caer Seint yn Arfon, which is the old name for Caernarfon. Her father wasEudaf Hen, otherwise known as Octavius the Old, who held the title of DuxGewissei, i.e. Prince of Gwent, Erging, and Ewyas. The corresponding Welsh formof Gewissei is Iwys and this is preserved in Ewyas Harold and Ewyas Lacey inHerefordshire. In addition to Gwent, Eudaf's estate comprised that of theHwiccas, a British and Christian people with whom the Anglo-Saxon settlers laterintermingled. In later times, it was portioned out into the shires of Hereford,Gloucester, Worcester, part of Warwick, and the district between the Wye and theSevern, which included the Forest of Dean.
By marrying this British heiress, Magnus Maximus gained control of theSegontium-based troops, who were to form his personal bodyguard. Elen receivedas her dowry possessions in the areas of Caernarfon, Carmarthen, and Caerleon,which is an indication of the extent of this important British family'ssovereignty, extending in an "L" shape around the coast of Wales.
There is a tradition that Elen caused highroads to be constructed from onefortified town to another, and the evidence for such an association is veryclear, for in Wales, Roman roads and old mountain tracks are called Sarn Elen,Ffordd Elen, and Llwybr Elen, meaning respectively Elen's Causeway, Road, andPath. From Segontium, Roman roads led through the mountains, eastward to Chesterand southward to Carmarthen and Caerleon, portions of which are known to thisday as Sarn Elen, "Elen's Causeway."
