III. Importance of Britain

People are always tempted to view Britain under the Romans as a backwater province of Rome - of little importance to the empire and offering even less profit. Yet throughout its history, Roman Britain acted as a proving ground for aspiring politicians and a powerbase for usurping emperors. Set aside arguments over whether Britain was 'profitable' or not (it certainly was when Julian used it to supply Germany in the 360s!), for such calculations never mattered to the empire. Britain was a frontier province, which contained three legions for most of its chequered history. As such, it was important.

Britain was invaded because it could further a Roman's career. It was conquered for similar reasons. The Boudiccan Revolt was only possible because the governor, Paullinus, was pursuing military glory against the druids. His distinguished subordinate and eventual successor Agricola founded a very respectable career, including a consulship in Rome, on subduing the rest of Britain.

Constantine proved what many Roman generals before him had realised - that Britain was an excellent base from which to mount a rebellion. When his father died at York in AD 301, the troops immediately acclaimed him as emperor, and he used the British army as the core of the force with which he finally conquered the empire. At the Milvian Bridge in AD 312, he scrawled the Chi-Rho symbol of Christianity onto his soldiers' shields, and won a miraculous victory. In gratitude, he made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, and at the Council of Nicea established the Nicene Creed of the Catholic Church. In one respect, you could say that Britain was the birthplace of Roman Catholicism.

In AD 410, the civitates of Britain sent a letter to the emperor Honorius, asking him to come to their aid against the Saxon invaders. He wrote back telling them to 'look to their own defences', and Roman influence in Britain was officially ended. The very fact that the citizens of Britain appealed to the Roman emperor for help says much about their self-perception as citizens of the empire, and the fact that the emperor could not oblige says much about the pressure he was under. Britain had already 'looked to her own defences' in AD 259 under the Gallic Empire and AD 284 under Carausius, and both times she had been brought back into the fold. Britain had been conquered to satisfy the need of an individual Roman emperor. Once taken, the imperial image required that it should be held onto tenaciously. Its loss was the first ominous death knell of Rome.

Conclusion

The Romans brought a unity and order to Britain that it had never had before. Before them, Britain was just a set of peoples with no sense of national identity. In the wake of the Roman occupation, every 'Briton' was aware of their 'Britishness'. This defined them as something different from those people who came after them, colouring their national mythology, so that the Welsh could see themselves as the true heirs of Britain, while the Scots and Irish were proud of the fact that they had never been conquered by Rome.

Rome's most important legacy was not its roads, nor its agriculture, nor its cities, nor even its language, but the bald and simple fact that every generation of British inhabitant that followed them - be they Saxon, Norman, Renaissance English or Victorian - were striving to be Roman. Each was trying to regain the glory of that long-lost age when Britannia was part of a grand civilisation, which shaped the whole of Europe and was one unified island.

The Romans occupied Britain, ensured its prosperity, which , however, did not last long , and after they left, left little trace in the form of language , ideas, military innovations . Soon after the Romans left, Britain was invaded by barbarians , and the overall level of development of the newly fallen. Was lost most of theacquired over many years of advanced technologies. Eventually ,was lost even citizens' confidence in their security , because Rome wasno longer able to protect them. But there were some things that the barbarians anddegradation could not destroy . This knowledge , which is reflected in the books andin the archives of the locks, and thus survived to the present day , the architecture , the level ofwhich we can still see from the surviving structures , and religion

I've served in Britain forty years, from Vectis to the Wall,

I have none other home than this, nor any life at all.

Last night I did not understand, but, now the hour draws near

That calls me to my native land, I feel that land is here.