The Roman Occupation

       In 55 ВС Britain was invaded by Julius Caesar, а Roman general and governor of Gaul (France), soon to be, in all but name, the first Roman emperor.

       At that time the city of Rome was about 700 years old, but the Roman empire was much younger. As late as 211 ВС Rome had narrowly escaped destruction by the Carthaginian general, Hannibal. But Hannibal's defeat left Rome without а serious rival, and by Caesar's time it controlled an empire that stretched from Spain to the Near East.

       Two places more different than imperial Rome and Celtic Britain could hardly have existed. Roman society was urban, with grand public buildings built of marble. Britain was а country of mud huts, with no settlement large enough to be called а town. An upper-class Roman lived in greater comfort than any Britisher before the 15th century. His house even had central heating.

       The Romans, as heirs of the civilization of Ancient Greece, were interested in art, philosophy and history (Caesar himself wrote good military history in simple prose). The British could neither  read nor write. They were not savages, and in some ways Celtic art was superior to Roman, or so it seems to us, but the Romans naturally thought of them as hopelessly primitive barbarians. То the Romans - and to many non-Romans too - there was but one worthwhile form of society, and that was their own. The only useful function of other peoples was to contribute to the glory of Rome. Britain was а mysterious isle to the Romans. But Caesar knew it contained valuable minerals, and he knew also that the British were helping their cousins in Gaul against Rome. Не decided on invasion. ...