A History of Ancient Britain (2011–…): Season 2, Episode 3 - Age of Invasion - full transcript

This is the story
of how Britain came to be,

of how our land and its people

were forged over thousands of years
of ancient history.

This Britain is a strange
and alien world,

a world that contains the epic story
of our distant, prehistoric past.

Sudden climate change and instability
had ended the Bronze Age

and led to a new era

of iron.

This was a time of brochs in the north.

Everything about this place says,
"Keep out."

And hill forts in the south,



marking territories in which
the control of land was everything.

What was emerging
was the world of Celtic Britain,

a society of warriors, Druids
and kings of extraordinary wealth.

What events did he witness
and what power did he wield?

Now, the journey continues
with the next chapter in our epic story.

These beaches were lined
with thousands of British warriors

and out there a fleet of 98 ships
carrying two legions of Roman infantry.

A moment in history
when the Celtic tribes

faced up to a power
of unimaginable force.

The heads were cut off their bodies
and their heads were stuck on spikes.

This is what would happen to you
if you got in the way of Rome.

And Britain fell to the greatest empire
the world had ever seen.

Ripped By mstoll

Britain, 100 BC,



a land of Celtic tribes,
led by powerful warrior kings.

No more than 100 or so regional leaders
reigning over one to two million people.

All vying to protect their own lands
and take that of their neighbours.

The Iron Age tribes were competitive.
They were warlike.

And their leaders
could be extremely wealthy.

They were also
internationally connected.

And there's a remarkable insight
into how widespread

those connections were
here in Edinburgh.

This is a collection of gold jewellery
found in Scotland just last year.

They were actually unearthed
near Stirling, close to where I live.

They're obviously magnificent.
They're incredibly valuable

and, in fact, they're so precious,

I'm not allowed to lay so much
as a finger on them.

Amongst many other things,
they show the wealth and the power

of some Iron Age British tribal leaders.

These first two are typically Scottish.

They're certainly what you'd expect to
find a Celtic Scottish warlord owning.

This one, though, is a bit different.

This was made in the south of France,
so it's a luxury import from Gaul.

But the most intriguing story of all
comes from this one.

The level of craftsmanship here
is of a different order of magnitude.

It's been made by twisting together
eight delicate golden strands.

Then there's this incredible,
detailed finery on the terminals.

This one is the work of hands
trained in the classical world.

In 100 years BC, that made connections
to one place and one place only,

Rome.

During the course of a century or so,

Rome's armies had begun
to create an empire,

extending from their
Mediterranean heartlands

along the coasts of Africa and Europe.

Now, that expansion was bringing trade
to the northern Celtic tribes of Gaul

and to Britain.

The English Channel
was all that separated island Britain

from Gaul in northern France
and the river routes leading south

to the classical world
of the Mediterranean.

But for the Celtic kings
on both sides of the Channel,

increasing contact with Rome
wasn't a military threat,

but an economic opportunity.

And here, behind those cliffs,

was the heart
of Britain's international trade,

Hengistbury Head near Christchurch
on the south coast.

2,000 years ago, this was the
busiest port in the whole of Britain.

Hengistbury forms a narrow peninsula
sheltering a perfect natural harbour.

This was the gateway
into ancient Britain,

a vibrant hub of everything
international and exotic

From around 100 BC, this vast headland

was fast becoming the most important
settlement in the whole of Britain.

It was a boomtown,
fuelled by international trade.

This whole area would have been busy

with hundreds of
merchants' trading posts.

There would have been
people smelting iron,

making jewellery and all sorts.

There would have been shops and homes.

It would be a cosmopolitan place
like any busy port in the modern day.

So there'd be people from
foreign places, foreign accents,

exotic foods and smells.

So much of it would be
instantly recognisable to us.

Iron Age specialist Sir Barry Cunliffe
has studied Hengistbury for decades.

So what kinds of things
were coming through Hengistbury?

The most obvious was wine,
which came from north Italy

in these great containers
called amphorae.

It would be a tall neck
with a big handle.

- They are massive, aren't they?
- Huge things.

They would take
a couple of people to carry them.

And they would stand
a metre and half high

and contain a great deal of wine.

The first wine drunk in Britain
was probably

wine drunk out of these amphorae
somewhere down here.

These are other smaller items,
which you see is just a chunk of glass,

but it's manganese glass,

and they would be
very valuable objects of trade.

A big block of that glass
would be worth a huge amount of money.

And we've also got a little piece
of yellow glass as well.

Goodness, that's glass.
I wouldn't have realised...

It looks more like a fleck of paint.

And again, you see, people wouldn't
have seen anything like that.

The most amazing thing, I think,
is this piece of bracelet.

Oh, goodness, that's fantastic.

So that's that raw purple glass
and that yellow, brought together.

The yellow glass
would be very, very rare.

And they've just used it
to make the trail.

If you can give people
something they've never had before,

like wine at a feast,
then your status will stay pretty high.

If you can give them one of these
glass bracelets in a feast as a gift,

my word, you had power.

The future came in through this door,
didn't it?

That's absolutely right.

But these boom times
were about to come to an abrupt end,

all because of war.

All the amphorae found here
are from the same period.

After that, the import
of Roman luxuries stopped.

What's clear is that
by around 50 or 60 BC,

the good times were over
at Hengistbury Head.

And why?

The Romans were on the march.

Just across that narrow channel in Gaul,
things had turned ugly.

Nobody was thinking very much
about trade any more.

Instead, all minds were preoccupied
by the brutal war that had broken out

as the Romans sought
to take over Celtic Gaul.

The Roman army was coming closer.

And as war raged in mainland Europe,

island Britain, for all her
warrior kings and Celtic glory,

suddenly looked vulnerable.

Britain was about to enter a new chapter

because, under the Romans,
nothing would be the same again.

When the Romans came to Britain,
they changed everything.

Modern governance
with laws and taxation.

The idea of urban life, with towns
and cities connected by roads,

written language with names
for people and places, as well as dates.

This would be the very end
of prehistory.

But the arrival of Romans in Britain
wasn't going to happen overnight.

And not without a series
of brutal conflicts.

Early on the morning of 23rd August,
55 years BC,

these beaches in Kent were lined
with thousands of British warriors.

On horseback, in chariots,
brandishing long swords,

they were a fearsome sight.

Just days earlier, their leaders had
turned down the invitation to surrender,

opting instead to rise
to the challenge of invasion.

Having crushed Gaul, by 55 BC,
Rome had set its sights on Britain,

one more prize.

Out there, a fleet of 98 ships
carrying two legions of Roman infantry,

20,000 soldiers,

and at their head, Julius Caesar,
Roman general and budding emperor,

intent on demonstrating his bravery
and strength to the citizens of Rome.

And what better challenge than to make
the treacherous Channel crossing

and add Britain to his list of triumphs?

As the huge fleet of warships
approached these shores,

the British warriors
knew what was at stake.

The mission was clear,
to fight, to protect their own identity

and to defend Britain's independence
from Rome.

As it happened,

the hostile British welcome
and the shallow Kent beaches

were more than Caesar had bargained for.

He was quickly sent off with
a bloody nose and some broken boats.

The hard men of Britain had won,
at least for a while.

But Caesar wasn't about to back down.

He just needed even more force.

And that's something Rome had in plenty.

On 7th July the following year,
Caesar was back.

This time with 800 ships
carrying 50,000 professional soldiers

and 2,000 cavalry.

For a glorious century, Britain had
enjoyed the finest Roman luxuries.

Now, they were to take a dose
of Roman brute force.

If ever there was a time
when the warring tribes of Britain

needed to stand shoulder to shoulder,
this was it

The lands of Celtic Britain
were divided into

fiercely independent tribal territories.

Those facing Caesar
were in the southeast.

The Cantiaci, who gave
their name to Kent,

the Iceni in Norfolk,

the Trinovantes in Essex and Sussex

and, most powerful of all,

the Catuvellauni who controlled
extensive lands north of the Thames.

The trouble was that the Trinovantes
hated the Catuvellauni

even more than they hated the Romans.

The Trinovantes were an Essex tribe

locked in a war with their belligerent
neighbours, the Catuvellauni,

a name that meant "expert warriors."

After their king was murdered,

the Essex boys reasoned that they
could get revenge by helping Caesar,

so they guided him across Kent
towards Catuvellauni territory.

The British tribes, led by the leader
of the Catuvellauni, had moved inland,

hoping to ambush Caesar
as he moved north.

Only one man was trusted
to command the force,

the most fearsome and belligerent leader

of the most fearsome
and belligerent tribe,

Cassivellaunus,
king of the expert warriors,

sworn enemy of Caesar's
newfound friends.

These were tough warriors,
fighting for their lives and homes,

and armed with the very latest
in Iron Age weapons.

The British possessed
a weapon they had invented,

one that was desired throughout Europe,

the long, iron, slashing sword.

The lesson there is don't stand still

if a man on a horse
is coming at you with a sword.

At least, duck.

Andy Deane is an expert
in ancient combat

If you're on horseback,
obviously you're coming down

on those vulnerable areas higher up.

If we were on foot, then I'd be
looking for vulnerable targets,

say, down by your knee,
the tendons at the back of the knee.

As soon as I've hit that,
it's basically an execution after that,

so you'd choose your target.

So even on the ground,
you'd still be chopping down...

Well, I try not to chop too much. I try
and keep the sword moving all the time,

so that I retained energy, so that
that movement would keep it going.

So if I was coming for your leg,
it would be cut, sliced through,

and, then as you went down,
then I would... The coup de gr?ce.

- Can I hold that?
- Of course you may.

- I could see your eyes lighting up.
- I want to hack at something.

Well, we can organise that.

We can get something big and solid
for you to have a play with.

I fear I might do an air shot.

Do not let go of the sword.

But I can only use this thing about...
I want to do that.

Honestly, if you use...
Have a couple of swipes over the top.

Yeah.

A bit like a golf swing.
And then, literally as you're...

Taking the top of a dandelion off.
Phu-pum.

Right.

Okay.

I think I might be
a natural backhand actually.

- Have a go with it, then.
- No.

Okay.

Oh.

- Gosh, it doesn't even slow down!
- No.

- Absolutely stunning.
- Wow. Have another go.

But for all their swords, chariots
and spears,

the British were driven back.

Their last hope was
to mount a final defence

on the north bank of the Thames.

Over there, where those trees are today,

the Thames opened out
into a wide, marshy ford

that was just shallow enough
to walk across.

Now, only that ford stood between
Rome and the British heartlands.

The British chief assembled his forces
here on the north shore

and he lined the bank
with sharpened stakes,

preparation for an ambush.

Really though, the best hope was that
the Romans would never find this place

and the river would act
as a natural barrier, holding them back.

But, with the help of
their new British allies,

the invaders were here in no time

and the end game was in sight.

It's strange to think that today
you can relax here with a drink

surrounded by this very British scene.

Because it was here, 2,000 years ago,

that British history
hung in the balance.

The Roman army just kept on coming,
wave after wave of soldiers.

The British ambush was in vain

and, once again, they were forced
to abandon their position and flee.

With the country laid wide open
to the invaders,

the chiefs in the surrounding area
knew what was coming.

And, one by one, they defected,
becoming sworn allies of Rome.

The British leader of Cassivellaunus
and his closest followers

put up one last stand.

But were massacred.

This was more than the end of an era.

It was the end of Britain's
ancient prehistory,

unfolding in the face
of an unstoppable force,

Rome and the modern world.

After such a decisive victory,

it's tempting to imagine Britain
falling under outright Roman rule.

But that's not what happened.

With pledges of allegiance
from the tribes of the southeast,

it seems Caesar was satisfied.

And after just three months
in the country, he left,

taking his entire army with him.

The Britain he left behind
was by no means completely Roman.

But it wasn't completely
British any more either

and her people would
never be the same again.

Britain was entering
a whole new chapter.

But, so far, Roman force had only
touched a small part of our land.

In the north and west,

Caesar's expedition must have seemed
as distant as his war with Gaul

But in the south, things were different

Some tribes hated the Romans.

Others saw the idea of taking on modern
Roman ways as a bright, new future.

It was to be the best part of a century

before any Roman soldier ever
set foot on British soil again.

But in the decades after 55 BC,
Britain began to change from the inside.

And remarkable evidence for that
is being found here in Hampshire.

Look at these massive walls
and this gateway.

They mark the perimeter
of one of the most important cities

in all of Roman Britain, Calleva.
We know it today as Silchester.

But the town of Silchester began life

long before Britain became
part of the Roman Empire.

What archaeologists are finding here
is evidence of a proper town,

quite unlike anything
ever found before in Britain,

a town founded by Britons,
built by Britons and run by Britons.

Amanda Clarke is in charge
of one of the biggest

archaeological excavations
taking place in Britain today.

Where we're walking now
is the surface of a street

that we believe was founded
as early as 25 BC.

- Right.
- So in the Iron Age.

Oh, so this isn't just random territory
we're walking across here.

- This is a street.
- This is actually a street surface.

And it runs from the northeast
down to the southwest,

which is the Iron Age alignment.

Ah, right.
So completely counter to the way

the Romans subsequently
aligned their grid plan.

We believe that it's aligned
to the midsummer sunrise

and the midwinter sunset.

And that's what the Iron Age people
aligned their buildings and streets on.

Where does the road go? When it hits the
corner of the trench here, what happens?

It turns a 90-degrees right angle
and joins with a wider street,

which runs from the north-west
to the south-east.

Iron Age towns aren't supposed
to do that, are they?

They're not supposed
to be regular like that.

That's certainly what was believed
before we started working here,

that the Iron Age towns are
much more organically developed.

And it really wasn't until two ears ago

that these streets began
to appear in our excavations

and we realised, "Hang on, this is
actually laid out on a grid system."

It implies so many things,

not least that somebody had to plan it,
somebody had to organise it,

that you had to decide
where certain buildings were.

It's a real difference.

Iron Age Silchester
is the earliest known example

of urban design anywhere in Britain.

So who was having these ideas if
there were no Romans here at the time?

Well, Caesar had left 30 years before
and he took hostages with him,

sons of the elite.

They weren't exactly captured
and taken against their will.

It was more as gestures of goodwill,

guarantees of healthy relationships
in the future.

They were schooled in Rome
and then sent home

full of Roman habits and ideas
to spread the word.

They'd be the ones saying,
when it came time to build a city,

"Well, if you're going to do that,
the streets and roads

"have to be laid out in a grid pattern.

"It's all got to be done right. It's got
to be done the way they do it in Rome."

And, in Silchester, it wasn't only the
streets that were becoming romanised.

The Roman influence is tangible
in the foods that were being consumed.

There's evidence of the use
of coriander, dill and anchovies.

There's also evidence
of the consumption of oysters.

These shells here.

Iron Age Britons, prior to contact
with Rome, weren't eating oysters.

So the fact that these had
come back into fashion

is evidence of contact with Rome,

of people acquiring
Roman habits and Roman tastes.

This tiny coin excavated here

is a very powerful indication
of just how much

the people living here
modelled themselves on Rome.

It's a silver minim.

On this face, it has the head of a king,

looking every inch the Roman emperor,

except, on his head, instead of a crown,
he has a Celtic torc.

There's even writing on it on this side,
the name of the king, Verica.

On the other side,
there's another Celtic torc

and it surrounds two letters, "CF."

These stand for Commius Filius,
son of Commius,

the first king of the Atrebates tribe.

This is from very early
in the first century,

a time when most British people
had no idea about writing.

So to incorporate writing on this coin
is truly radical.

This was new. Not entirely Roman,
but not entirely Celtic either.

In Silchester, classical
and Celtic cultures were colliding,

touching not just the social elite,

but the lives of everyone
who lived here.

This is a fascinating,
exciting time to imagine.

The coming of Rome.

I suppose it's easiest to imagine
that the British social elite

would have been the first and
the fastest to take on Roman ways.

But here, in the building
of this town, this city,

for the first time
we see Roman practices,

the Roman way being embedded
into the very fabric of people's lives,

to such an extent
that it even determined

the layout of their streets
and roads and buildings.

But imagine, too, what all of this
was like for ordinary people,

coming in from the surrounding area,
encountering a city for the first time,

walking along regimented grids
of streets,

smelling foreign foods,
seeing the new clothes.

It must have been quite literally
like walking into an alien world.

But Silchester and the Roman-friendly
pockets of southeast England were rare.

Across most of Britain,

the tribal traditions of
the Celtic Iron Age continued unabated.

Look at this slope. This is a rampart.

Now, some British tribes may have
bought into the Roman dream,

but almost a century after Caesar,
this giant fortress

was still a proud symbol
of Iron Age Celtic identity.

This great hill fort was the focal point
of tribal life for the Durotriges,

a powerful Dorset tribe.

Behind these massive ramparts
was an obvious place of defence,

a safe haven in time of war.

But for 100 years or more,

there had been relative peace
in this part of Britain.

By the middle of the first century AD,

people were living far and wide
in scattered settlements.

This fort and others like it
had become symbolic focal points.

Places in which to gather,
for storage, for trade,

for ceremony and for worship.

But, in AD 43,
almost 200 miles to the east in Kent,

Roman troops landed once more,

this time to go one better than Caesar
and take all of Britain,

to make it part of the empire,
under total Roman rule.

Hod Hill and other hill forts like it
were to see action once more.

Studies of human remains
reveal the outcome

of the bloody battles
for Dorset's Iron Age hill forts.

They appear to have been stabbed.

One person has trauma to their hands.

They may have actually tried
to grab the weapon.

And on this individual,
this square aperture here

was probably caused by a Roman spear.

There are multiple chop marks,
so they were disfiguring these people.

They're more than necessary
to kill them.

They're quite violent
and aggressive injuries.

It wasn't only male warriors

who were on the receiving end
of the Roman swords.

We have one woman where she
has a chop mark to the back of her leg

and then she has a further two big chop
marks to the back of her head.

And that's quite commonly seen
in where people are trying to run away.

As well as hand-to-hand combat,

the full might of Rome was being
launched in a wave of shock and awe.

What we've got here
is this embedded projectile.

So you can see that it's come in
at a slight angle

and has removed portions of the bone.

These projectiles are actually fired.
They're kind of like artillery weapons.

If the sheer weight of numbers

and military organisation
weren't enough,

the Roman army also brought
a new machinery of war.

- This is your missile.
- This is the weapon.

You might call it an arrow.
We call it a bolt.

Just weeks after landing,

Rome had taken control of the southeast,

but it wasn't until about a year later

that they began their campaign
for the Celtic heartlands of the west.

Oh! Over the top.

You can imagine these things
coming out of the sky.

If you were the enemy,
you wouldn't see them coming.

And imagine a whole battery of these.

What range are we talking about then
with one of these?

The ancient writers tell us they
could go something like 300 metres.

- This can go 300 metres?
- Yeah.

Which is way, way beyond
what a bowman could do.

From the surrounding area,
the tribes people

gathered behind the ramparts
lined with sharpened stakes.

They faced a dreadful choice.

Should they risk their identity
and accept the so-called civilisation

of the Roman Empire

or risk their lives and fight
to retain their independence?

But even the defences of the giant
hill forts were no match for the Romans,

as its armies stormed
into the southwest.

- Right, same guy third on the left.
- Yes. Third on the left.

Head shot.

Yes!

So if that was flesh and bone,
that would have gone through.

- And out the other side.
- Sticking out your backbone, yes.

Wow.

The continuing invasion though

was much more than a series
of battles and route marches.

It was a colossal logistical exercise,

a master plan the Romans knew
would take decades to complete.

It's tempting to imagine the Romans
sweeping across Britain in a great wave.

But it wasn't like that.

In fact, it was more
of a slow, steady creep.

Decade by decade, fighting all the way,
building roads, building forts.

Everywhere they went, they had
to create an entire infrastructure.

Years of construction created
a whole network of roads

that linked military garrisons,

strategically spaced
to control southern England.

This is a Roman military road,

part of a network that
eventually stretched for 2,000 miles

throughout the whole country.

These were the motorways
of the Roman occupation,

express routes to help them
keep the locals under control

But for the native Britons,

the psychological impact
of their presence

was every bit as much as disturbing
as their practical function.

Each road, a monument to the Roman army.

In places, this bank is as much
as six feet high and fifty feet wide.

That's some statement
to make to the locals,

a constant, impressive reminder
of the might of Rome.

With a military infrastructure in place,
the Romans then began to build towns,

Colchester, London and St Albans
in the comparatively safe southeast.

Exeter, Gloucester and Lincoln
on the frontier.

But it would take decades
to expand this frontier,

first, into Wales,
and then to the north.

York was founded in AD 71.

And the far reaches of Carlisle
in AD 79.

After 35 years of Roman campaigns,
much of the template of modern Britain

had been carved from
its ancient landscapes.

One of the very first Roman towns
was Colchester, or Camulodunum,

founded in AD 49, just six years
after the start of the invasion.

This gate, known as the Balkerne Gate,

is the oldest surviving,
most complete Roman gateway in Britain.

It was once part of
an enormous triumphal arch

built to honour
the Roman emperor Claudius.

Now, if you lived
in an Iron Age village in a round house,

you wouldn't really need to feel
the sharp edge of a Roman sword

to know that the people
who are building these

were the people in control.

A Roman soldier
returning here from the front

or a civilian bureaucrat counting taxes

would have found a place
little different

to any other town
anywhere in the empire.

These towns were built
in the image of Rome for Romans.

The most important starting out
as colonies for retied soldiers,

so, clearly, they were here to stay.

If the Roman army was the cutting edge,
then these towns were the beating heart.

These were the nerve centres
of Roman rule and administration.

And you can imagine the impact
on the local population

as people were press-ganged
into actually building these towns.

These skulls were found in the 1970s.

They were excavated from within
the fill of a ditch

that was originally cut
soon after the Roman invasion began.

Apart from one small piece of arm bone,

there were no other
human remains with them.

So these weren't burials.

These were skulls that had been
thrown away, discarded like rubbish.

These men,
and they are native British men,

lived around 50 years AD,

soon after the Roman invasion
and precisely when

the bright, shiny, new city
of Camulodunum was being built.

But what's more fascinating about them

is the fact that they didn't die
of natural causes.

This is a depressed fracture.

It shows no signs of healing, so it
probably caused this man's death.

It's been the result of him
having been struck very forcibly

with something blunt but heavy.

He's been bludgeoned to death.

There's even more graphic violence
on this skull, though.

Towards the base of the back
of the skull,

you can see a notch of bone
has been hacked away.

This man, soon after death,
was the victim of a fairly crude,

brutal decapitation.

It seems likely that these men
were executed by the Romans.

The heads were cut from their bodies and
then the heads were impaled on spikes.

These were an example.

This was to show passersby what happened
to transgressors, opponents of Rome.

Whoever these men were,
whatever they were doing,

they had become victims
of an oppressive, often violent regime

that was extending its control over
the newly acquired colony of Britannia.

Rome was transforming Britain and
its efforts were all for one purpose,

to plunder our land
of its natural resources.

Copper and tin had been central
to Britain's economy

right back into the Bronze Age.

But Britain also had other minerals
that were prized by the Romans.

These scars are the remains
of Roman lead mining.

In some places, these trenches,
or rakes, as they're called,

are 100 metres long and 10 metres wide.

It took the Roman army just six years
to get their fort established

and to get the lead mining
up and running at full tilt.

And it must have been some operation

because, very quickly,
these hills were established

as the single biggest lead mine
in the whole of the Roman Empire.

Spanish lead producers felt so
threatened by what was going on,

they tried to demand a cut
in production here. Some hope.

The scale of lead mining
here in the Mendips

wouldn't be seen again for 1,000 years.

This is an ingot of Roman lead,

mined from these hills
2,000 or so ears ago.

Now, lead had long been used
by the native Britons

as a constituent of bronze,
as a constituent of pewter.

But the Romans had found more
practical applications for the metal.

They'd used it for plumbing, obviously.

They'd used it for lead pipes
and as parts of aqueducts.

They had also, more worryingly,
given that lead is toxic,

used it to line cooking vessels.

They'd even used lead
within some recipes.

The lead was smelted
behind the walls of the Roman fort

and the fort was kept heavily guarded.

This is an incredibly heavy object.

It weighs about as much as a grown man.

There'd be around
90 kilograms in this one.

This ingot is stamped.

The property of the Emperor
Vespasian Augustus.

Now the reason this material mattered

so much that it could bear
the name of an emperor

is because of what's
contained within it.

By processing lead,

Roman metallurgists
could extract another metal

that lay at the very heart
of the Roman economy,

silver.

This is the starting point
of all of this.

This is just a piece of galena,
lead sulphide,

which is the lead mineral for which

everyone would be mining
here in the Mendips.

- So that's naturally occurring?
- Yeah, exactly.

This is galena.
It's a mineral, not a metal.

That's actually too hot
to sit in front of.

Well, that's a very good sign.

What scale would the Roman smelters
have been working on?

They would normally work at a scale
at least ten times larger than this.

The lead has already melted

and as soon as we're exposing it
to oxygen,

as you can see,
it's tarnishing at the surface.

It's becoming yellow

and all of this yellowness
is the lead oxide.

That's precisely what we want to happen.

We want progressively to oxidise
all of this lead

until eventually we're left
with a smaller pill of the silver.

- There it is.
- Yeah.

- Well, something shining in the bottom.
- Yes.

That's our silver.

Wow.

And that, at the end of it,
is the justification

for this scarred landscape.

It was natural resources

that made the conguest
of western Britain a priority

and, above all, Wales.

Because, out here, the Romans knew

there was the most
valuable prize of all.

They were 30 years
into their invasion of Britain

before Wales was finally subdued
and this was a major prize,

because here, in these hills,
there was gold.

In typical Roman style,
the technology they used was staggering.

This was gold mining
on a truly industrial scale.

Here they built aqueducts
along that hillside

to bring water directly
into the mine workings

from seven miles away in that direction
and from five miles away over there.

The water was channelled
into great tanks

each the size of a tennis court.

This was one of them
or the remains of it.

And, if you look, you can see rising up
the remains of the retaining walls.

Massively built to contain
as much as a million gallons of water.

You see, the Romans weren't
interested in just collecting

flecks of gold
from the streams and rivers.

Instead, they would open sluice gates.

This is the remains of one here.

And then all those millions of gallons
of water would flood down the hillside

stripping away trees, plants,
the very soil

to expose the veins of quartzite
that contained the gold.

And that was only the beginning.

Once they'd found the gold,
they needed to dig it out.

In the past, this would have been
a hive of activity.

Soldiers, miners,

the movement of material, processing,
all sorts of things.

Archaeologist Barry Burnham has studied
one of the grimmest jobs in the empire.

Where was the gold going?
What was it used for by the Romans?

I think at this date
it would have been...

The bulk of it would have been going

straight into the exchequer
and being turned into coin.

And who would they have been,
the miners?

Were they locals? Were they slaves?

Well, my guess would be
that some of them would be slaves.

Some of them, I think,
would be convicts.

People who were condemned to the mines.

See, it was quite normal
to be sentenced damnatio ad metalar,

to be condemned to the mines
for the rest of your life.

I bet everyone of these scores is the
mark of 2,000-year-old hard labour.

It is indeed.

And how important was the gold
to the Romans?

Well, it was absolutely fundamental
to the coinage, obviously.

The coining system of gold, silver
and bronze is such that minerals,

mineral gold was one of
the big things they sought for.

Remember that Tacitus,
the writer in the late first century,

he actually said one of the rewards
for victory from Britain was gold.

British resources,
wheat, gold, lead, silver, slaves,

these helped to feed the Roman Empire.

Many Britons got into gear
with the Roman machine.

They followed the rules,
they played the game.

Many of them got rich on the back of it.

But there was also a quandary.

Was it possible to acquire
this new Roman civilisation

and remain faithful to your Celtic roots
at the same time?

For some, it was all too much.

The Romans might have invaded,
they might have spread north and west,

but they certainly hadn't won
the battle for hearts and minds yet.

Celtic resistance wreaked havoc
in the new Roman towns.

The southern Britons quickly learnt
not to take on the Roman army.

But increasing numbers
of civilian Romans

populating new, undefended towns
were a much easier target.

It all began in 60 AD,
just 17 years after the invasion began,

with the death of an East Anglian king,
chief of the Iceni tribe.

The Romans took advantage of his death,

by appropriating his wealth
and ancestral lands.

To make matters worse,
they disarmed the tribe.

For Celtic warriors,
this was the ultimate insult.

They wore their swords
as symbols of strength and identity.

To be stripped of their swords
was to be stripped of their honour.

When the dead chief's incensed widow
Queen Boudicca,

protested at the way
they were being treated,

the Roman soldiers flogged her publicly
and raped her daughters.

It was too much.

There was no way that Boudicca
could put up with such disrespect.

So she raised an army
from the neighbouring tribes

and went on the rampage.

She turned her murderous
attentions first

on the greatest symbol of Roman
authority she could lay hands on,

the Roman city here at Camulodunum.

Archaeologist Philip Crummy
has spent decades

piecing together what happened next

What do you think would have been
the reaction of the Romans

once they realised that
the British were coming?

They would have been
absolutely terrified.

'Cause, after all, here they were,
stuck in an island off mainland Europe,

in a town which was
completely undefended.

There was no bank,
no ditch around the town,

no wall, completely open, at the mercy
of the British army on the march.

With much of the Roman army
fighting in Wales,

the civilians of Colchester
had to take refuge.

Today, Colchester Castle
stands on the site

of the Roman Temple of Claudius,

once a vast symbol of colonial power.

Well, this is the most
extraordinary space.

We're actually underneath the platform
that supported the Temple of Claudius.

Right, so this was
a massive foundation?

This was the foundation, yes,
this is all Roman.

What finally happened to the people
who were in the room above us?

Well, they were standing
perhaps three or four feet

- above the apex of this vault.
- Uh-huh.

And It would have been absolutely
terrifying for those poor people.

Just imagine women and children,
surrounded by thousands of British,

all shouting and presumably
lobbing missiles

and trying to bash the door down.

It would have been very difficult
for the British to get in

and that'd explain why it took two days
for the British eventually to get in.

And when they get in?

Well, when they get in, I'm afraid
it's curtains for everyone inside.

So the British went
to all possible lengths

to wipe this place off the map.

The archaeological evidence tells us
that everywhere in Colchester,

bar probably this place,
was burnt to the ground.

These are just a few
of the thousands of artefacts

that were recovered from the destruction
of Roman Colchester.

These are fragments of Samian ware.

Beautifully decorated,
it's a luxury import from Gaul.

This is the kind of tableware
that the best Romans

would want to have in their homes.

Now Samian ware should be
a rich orangey-red colour,

but these pieces are charred black
because these were in the fire.

And they were found by the thousands,
so it looks as though this was a shop.

Somewhere that was providing
the citizens of Colchester

with fine tableware.

These are the remains of dates,
another luxury import.

Because of the way
they've been burned in the fire,

they've actually turned into
something a little bit like charcoal.

Most poignant of all
are these human remains.

A few fragments of bone, some jaw bone,

charred black.

This person died possibly in the fire
or just before it.

We don't know if it's a man or a woman,

but it looks as though
it's a young adult.

So, although we have
the written records of tens

of thousands of people
dying in the revolt,

this is the only actual evidence.

This person, whoever he or she was,
knew the truth of it.

Boudicca wasn't content
just to slaughter

the citizens of Camulodunum.

Before the Roman army
could return from Wales,

she led her own forces
on a campaign of terror

that destroyed the Roman cities
of London and St Albans.

As many as 70,000 Roman citizens
were murdered.

Noble women were treated
especially brutally.

Their breasts cut off
and sewn to their mouths,

their bodies impaled on stakes.

But Boudicca couldn't go on.

Eventually, the Roman army would return.

And when it did,
her forces would stand little chance.

And in a small valley,
just north of St Albans,

the last British stand
against Roman oppression in the south

was wiped out in a single,
gruesome massacre.

A new Britain emerged
from the bloody clashes of 60 AD.

For the tribes of the south,
there was no longer any choice

but to accept Roman authority.

But the Romans, too,
had learned a lesson.

That they ignored British heritage
and pride at their peril.

By the end of the first century AD,

Rome had southern Britain
firmly under control

But in the north,
the country became wilder

and so did the people.

In particular, the land of Caledonia
and its fiercely Celtic Pictish tribes

stubbornly refused to bow
to the will of the Empire.

If much of southern Britain
had eventually got used

to the idea of Roman rule,

the same couldn't be said
up here in the north.

Almost 80 ears after the invasion,

the Picts were still slugging it out
with the Roman army.

They were just as tempted as anyone else
by the possibility of Roman wealth,

they simply weren't prepared
to trade their independence for it.

So, in a way, they were responsible
for one of the most famous constructions

in the whole of the ancient world.

74 miles long
and stretching from coast to coast,

Hladrian's Wall was built
between 122 and 136 AD.

But having come so far,

the Roman army wasn't
about to stop here.

Because Hladrian's Wall wasn't the only
great wall they built in the far north.

Just 20 years after
Hadrian's Wall was built,

the Romans actually built another wall,
about 100 miles to the north,

right through the heart
of Pictish territory.

These banks in Falkirk
are the remains of that wall.

It stretched for 39 miles

from the Firth of Clyde in the west
to the Firth of Forth in the east,

right across modern Scotland.

So this is as far north
as the empire ever reached.

This wall, the Antonine Wall,
didn't last long though.

This far into hostile territory,
the Romans could not defend the border.

Despite building 17 forts,

one every two miles
along the entire length of the wall,

this was a land that simply
wouldn't fall to Rome.

With little to be gained by battling
for a wild and mountainous land,

Rome at last retreated.

And so it was Hladrian's Wall

that became the enduring
northern boundary of the Roman Empire.

This is where Caledonian pride

forced the Romans to say,
"Enough is enough."

If the northern tribes
wouldn't join the Roman party,

they would be excluded at all costs.

Here the Romans drew
their line in the sand.

This was a symbol of Roman power.

The most northerly frontier of the
most powerful empire on the planet.

This was the most heavily defended
frontier of the entire empire.

Outside the wall, native tribes
so vehemently opposed to the occupation

that it took 10,000 Roman auxiliaries
to keep them at bay.

Over here, inside the wall,
enveloping the fort,

an entire British town

with people taking full advantage
of those same Roman soldiers,

providing all the services
and entertainment

required by the garrison.

Over hundreds of years,

the Iron Age tribes of Britain
had established regional territories

within a shared Celtic culture.

But, now, all that had changed.

In less than a hundred years,
Rome had cleaved Britain in two.

Britannia and Caledonia.

By the middle of the second century AD,

the Romans had been in Britain
for almost 200 years,

Caesar and the invasions
were distant memories.

To be a Roman was
to be more than just an invader,

it was to be part
of that cultural exchange.

Britons adopting Roman ways
and vice versa,

especially in the north.

In the south, Britain was emerging
from an era of turbulence

with a new Romano-British culture.

Up there in the north, it was clear,
you were either in or you were out.

The Roman version of civilisation
simply wasn't wanted.

This wall, this moment that divided
the Celtic tribes of Britain,

would shape our land and our futures.

It would alter our cultures, our
languages and our identities forever.

Next time, my journey continues.

It shows the way in which the Romans

quite literally brought
the modern world,

they brought the future with them.

As I encounter the final chapter
in our epic story.

Their eyes would have been
drawn all the time

to these topless lady dancers.

I mean if it was
a really special occasion,

I would have laid on
real-life topless dancers.

The time of the Romano-British.

She was buried with fantastic wealth.

Anyone who saw this woman wearing it

would have identified her
as someone of status.

When socially, technologically,
and spiritually...

Whoever wore this was obviously
a Christian, a believer.

We finally left our distant
prehistory behind for good.

Ripped By mstoll