The Celtaic Empire
From 500 to 100 BC that the Celtic languages arrived in Britain, probably introduced by small groups of migrants who became culturally dominant in their new homelands, and whose culture formed part of a great unified Celtic "empire" encompassing many different peoples all over Northern Europe. The Greeks called these people, with their organized culture and developed social structure Keltoi, the Romans called them Celtai. The most powerful people in Europe with lands stretching from Anatolia in the East to Ireland in the West, the Celts were unable to prevent intertribal warfare.
Even the Celtic languages on Continental Europe eventually gave way to those stemming from Latin. In Britain for a few hundred years after the Roman victories on mainland Europe, the Celts held on to much of their customs and especially to their distinctive language which has survived today as Welsh. Along with the new languages, new religions entered Britain, particularly that of the Druids. The fierce resistance of the tribes in Wales meant that two out of the three Roman legions in Britain were stationed on the Welsh borders. Roman fortifications remain to be seen: Isca Silurium (Caerleon) with its fine ampitheatre, in Monmouthshire and Segontium, (Caernarfon), in Gwynedd. Mountainous Wales and Scotland were not as easily settled; they remained "the frontier."
Rome acknowledges Cymbeline, King of the Catuvellauni, as king of Britain in 5 AD. Romans, under Aulus Plautius, land at Richborough (Kent) for a full-scale invasion of the island. In the south-east of Britain, Caratacus leads main British resistance to the invasion, but is finally defeated in 51 and Caratacus was taken to Rome. In 61, Queen Boudicca of the Iceni led uprising against the Roman occupiers, but is defeated and killed by the Roman governor, Suetonius Paulinus. The Iceni were a Celtic tribe living in Norfolk and Suffolk in eastern Britain where several of a Saxon Shore fort was built centuries later. Trade flourished across the English Channel with the Roman empire, their merchants and rulers prospered, issuing their own coinage between about 65 BC and AD 61. The Boudiccan forces burned and destoyed the three major towns of Londinium (London), Verulamium (St. Albans), and Camulodunum (Colchester), killing many thousands of citizens. From the clientele of the Romans, the Iceni were a subject population of the Roman administrators. The story is told in the Annals of Tacitus, written about AD 110-120.
Tacitus had a special interest in Britain because his father-in-law, Agricola, became governor of the Province in AD 77-85 after a successful military campaign in Wales and the north. The campaign, together with some details on the native Celtic tribes, is described in the book Agricola by Tacitus, written in AD 98. After their defeat in AD 61, the Iceni were resettled in a civitas capital at Caistor-by-Norwich (Caistor St.Edmunds), located along the River Tas. The site may be visited today along with related exhibits at the Norwich Museum. In 63, Joseph of Arimathea came to Glastonbury on the first Christian mission to Britain.
The Romans who built a temple at Bath around 50 AD. dedicated to Sul, a Celtic god and Minerva the Roman goddess of healing. They also built a public baths which was supplied by the hot springs. There is a legend that Bath was founded in 860 BC when Prince Bladud, father of King Lear, caught leprosy. He was banned from the court and was forced to look after pigs. The pigs also had a skin disease but after they wallowed in hot mud they were cured. Prince Bladud followed their example and was also cured. Later he became king and founded the city of Bath. A town called Aquae Sulis, the waters of Sul was built for sometime during Anno Domini the first century. In the late 2nd century a ditch was dug around the town and an earth rampart was erected. It probably had a wooden palisade on top. In the 3rd century it was replaced by a stone wall. The Celtic settlement nearby prospered as the Roman soldiers provided a market to about 80 AD the Roman army moved on but the nearby town flourished. From 75 to 77 The Roman conquest of Britain is complete, as Wales is finally subdued; Julius Agricola is imperial governor to 84. Julius Agricola once extended the protected northern limits with adding of a four-fold barrier of chains of forts and these ran a paralell ancient line with the northern shores of the Tyne and Irthing and solid stone from sea to sea was put by the Britons and the last legion of Romans there. The Britons came from three very powerful Germanic tribes, the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. The people of Kent and the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight are of Jutish origin and also those opposite the Isle of Wight, that part of the kingdom of Wessex which is still today called the nation of the Jutes.
The cohorts lacked equidistance as without the walls, each station was merely a town of both inhabitants. The Magna of the Romans, and the last Roman station in Northumberland, is Caervoran. The wall passes down the river Tippal, and leaving Thirlwall Castle to the north, crosses the Poltross-burn, and enters Cumberland, where near Mumps Hall, Severus' ditch appears large and distinct, detached about eight yards from the wall. According to a fourth century description of the wall, it was intended to divide the barbarians from the Romans. Severus defends Britain and repairs Hadrian's Wall in 208. The next year, the third century began with St. Alban, first British martyr.
What happened to Bath afterwards is not known for certain for a span of three or more hundred years until AD 81, Julius Agricola ordered the northern limits of Roman territories protected against northern incursions, to many centuries following, Adrian commanded a fence divided from the south and surrounding hamlets, walls then surrounded mounds of earth some distance from the Tyne. Up to this time all had not been well in Britain, which had been engaged in constant warfare during the governorship of Pompeius Falco 188-122 after Julius Severus, governor of Britain, is sent to Palestine to crush the revolt in 133. The middle of the second century was at the request of King Lucius, the missionaries, Phagan and Deruvian,were said to have been sent by Pope Eleutherius to convert the Britons to Christianity. This is, perhaps, the most widely believed of the legends of the founding of Christianity in Britain. The invasions had been from barbarian tribes outside the province, with some possible collusion with rebel tribes on the inside.
