A critical Comparison of Caesar’s account of his two brief expeditions in 55 and 54 BC,other comments by Greek and Roman writers, evidence of archeology gives us a full picture of British life in the last century BC,and also revealed Contact’s with Rome which took Britain from prehistory to history. Britain shared the same language and religion as the continental Celtic peoples and the material culture of the island was broadly similar to that found in Gaul.

As the society was dominated with warrior aristocracy, mixed farming being practiced and larger conglomerations being centres for collection and storage of agricultural produce, Britain had reached a stage of development that made them suitable candidates for incorporation in the Roman Empire. Production of coinage, import of metal goods, wine and olive oil-and some technological skill revealed their increased contacts with Rome. They were also capable of building hill-forts, which demonstrates that they had sufficient political organization and engineering skill to shift thousands of tons of soil and prepare and install thousands of posts.

There is a variety of evidence from which to reconstruct the history of Roman Britain. Rome’s greatest historian, Tacitus, was son-in-law of the governor Julius Agricola, and his brief biography includes a summary account – supplemented in places by further detail in his later works – of Agricola’s ten predecessors as governor, as well as the story of Agricola’s seven years in the post. Thus the first forty years of Roman rule are exceptionally well recorded; and the Agricola also contains the most explicit description in Roman literature of the policy of deliberate ”Romanization”.

Epigraphic evidence, so important for the history of the Roman empire as a whole, is unfortunately very limited for Britain. Less than three thousand stone inscriptions survive the great majority from the military districts, especially Hadrian’s Wall and the forts of its hinterland, and the legionary bases at Caerleon, Chester and York.

Civilian life in Britain is seriously under-represented in comparison with many other provinces of the empire. Some inscriptions from elsewhere supply important information, but once again this is mainly on the military side. To compensate, in part, archaeological investigation has been exceptionally intensive, although much work remains to be done.

The limit of Roman Britain was marked by Hadrian’s Wall in the 120s and effectively Roman control was to be confined to what is now England and Wales, except for a brief period, c. 138-62, when southern Scotland was reoccupied, and an even more short-lived attempt, by the Emperor Septimius Severus, to reconquer the whole of Scotland in the years 208-11. In the period of the roman rule the garrison was extremely large, considering that the population can hardly have exceeded five million at the highest estimate. Over ten per cent of the entire Roman army was based in Britain.