A History of Ancient Britain (2011–…): Season 2, Episode 4 - Age of Romans - 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.

For hundreds of years, regional tribes

had fought for the land
of Iron Age Britain.

It was a time of heroes, of champions,
men who could wield swords.

This was a world
of powerful Celtic warriors,

Druids and kings,

before Britain was torn apart
by an even greater force,



the Roman army.

These men were executed

and their heads were stuck on spikes.

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

Now, the journey continues

with the next chapter in our epic story,

a time when our land was being
re-created in the image of Rome itself.

This isn't just an abstract depiction
of gladiatorial combat.

These people have names.

And its people had to come
to terms with a bewildering,

new and utterly modern world.

This is science fiction.

Ripped By mstoll

Britain, 200 AD.



The brutal violence of the Roman
military campaign was a distant memory.

Apart from the lands
of the Picts to the north,

all this was a far flung
corner of empire,

Roman garrisons and administrators

ruling over a land
of more than three million people.

The roads, buildings, and cities

were established and impressive features
in the landscape of Britain.

People no longer felt
that they had been invaded.

Instead, they were part
of the most impressive,

most technically advanced empire
the world had ever seen.

Britain was being dragged
from its ancient, pre-historic past

into a new and very modern world.

A world in which you could,
perhaps, be both British

and Roman at the same time.

Today, the relics of Roman Britain

still lie buried,
right beneath our feet.

Here in central London, construction
work is uncovering fragments

of a city that once stood here
almost 2,000 years ago.

This building is completely derelict,
as you can see.

And it's shortly gonna be
almost razed to the ground

and replaced by something new.

Hey.

But, at the moment,
there's just this brief window of time

the archaeologists can take advantage of

and dig deep into the foundations.

And what they are revealing
deep down here

is a rare glimpse of Roman London.

Alison Telfer and her team
are uncovering the preserved remains

of streets and buildings.

This is planned, urban development

- Everything about this is amazing, Al.
- Yeah.

It's so... It's so recognisable.
This is Roman timber.

Yes, and you can see the skill
of the workman who made this.

The timber survived very well
because of the damp conditions,

and that's really helped
to obviously preserve it.

In just a few generations,

Roman London had grown into
Britain's most important trading town.

What's being discovered here
are some of the shops

and workshops that stood
right at its very heart.

Is that a fence line there?

It is a fence line dividing
this building from the one over there.

And then, heading that way,
there might've been shop frontages,

and about 20 metres that way
is probably the Roman road.

When you use words like
"shop frontages",

it suddenly sounds modern
and recognisable.

At the time, it would've been.

You probably could come
and get your latest leather shoes here,

maybe get them made to measure.

It fascinates me
that life down here is so vivid.

Yes.
Makes people real, doesn't it?

Look at this. This is a bag of leather.

Pieces that've been excavated from here.
Now, how recognisable is that?

That's the sole of a leather
Roman shoe. Look at that.

And you can see on the sides
the holes for stitching.

And even more interesting, in a way,
given that we're in a workshop,

is a piece like this,
which is an off-cut of leather

that's been cut from a larger piece

during the shaping
and the making of something.

And it's a find like this that shows

that shoes aren't just
being sold from these premises,

they're actually being made here.

And it still smells,
ever so faintly, of leather.

As early as AD 50, a bridge
had been built across the River Thames,

and London grew rapidly around it

This was a trading hub, the Thames
connecting Britain to mainland Europe

and the furthest reaches
of the Roman world.

Not only to France, Italy, and Spain,

but Africa and the Middle East.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, all of this

was green fields
as far the eye could see,

because there were no Britons
settled on either bank.

This is the actual site of the very
first bridge across the Thames,

built by Romans in the first century AD.

It would've taken its line
across the Thames,

parallel to modern
London Bridge up there.

And the settlement that grew up
on either side, they called Londinium,

a name that has such a profound

and deep connection
to the city we know today.

The Roman city of London
was built on two hills.

Cornhill and Ludgate Hill.

By around 200 years AD,
it stretched all the way

from where St Paul's Cathedral is today,
to the site of the Tower of London.

It was home to maybe 40,000 people.

And it was Britain's
very first metropolis.

The growth of urban living
wasn't only felt in the southeast.

From Bath in the west
to York in the north,

many early forts and garrison towns
had evolved into civilian centres

of government and commerce.

The roads that had been built
to transport troops

were now carrying the latest goods
to growing centres of population.

Roman mass manufacturing
was making decorative goods

ever more accessible
to the aspirant middle classes.

Innovations such as glassware
would have been a modern marvel.

Look at that. Instant product!

And it's so detailed,
just from the clay mould.

You've got the basis of
mass production there, haven't you?

You have, yeah.

Even the idea of windows
was new to Britain.

It's almost impossible for us
to imagine a world without glass.

But try and put yourself
in the mind of an Iron Age Britain,

for whom the world had only
and always been glass-less.

And think of the impact for him

of standing inside a building

and, while being proof
against the rain and the wind,

to still be bathed in sunlight.

And glass was far from the only modern
marvel that came with the Romans.

Look at this.
This would have been a wonder.

This is all that remains of a gigantic
statue that stood 20 feet high.

And it wouldn't have been green, either.

The figure would've been painted gold,
it would've been gilded.

The native tribes had never before seen
likenesses of human beings.

But to see that these people
were accompanied by golden giants

three times the size of a human being,

what would that have said to you
about what these people were capable of?

And then look at this. It's so familiar.

It's exactly what it looks like.
It's a padlock.

Here's the keyhole.
This could well be the key that fits.

It shows the way in which
the Romans, quite literally,

brought the modern world,
they brought the future with them.

This is science fiction.

Of course, not everyone in Britain

was so directly exposed
to the wonders of Rome.

Away from the heavily Romanised south,

the impact of Roman culture
would have been much less.

But if you were living
in one of the new urban centres,

then the classical,
civilised Roman world

would have touched
every part of your life.

And it wouldn't necessarily
have been threatening and foreign,

it would've been exciting and seductive.

But if the new
urban centres weren't enough,

the new commercial opportunities,
the new technologies,

then Rome had something else
to offer the people for the first time.

And that was mass entertainment,
often on a truly massive scale.

I'm cycling along a piece
of invisible Roman Britain.

Because, where I am now
used to be a race track

where charioteers would hurtle along,
racing against one another.

That's once around. Another six to go.

Colchester was the first
Roman retirement town,

where old soldiers could settle
with their own plots of land.

Its racetrack, or circus, was discovered
by archaeologist Philip Crummy.

What we've found is the only circus
known in Roman Britain.

Comparing it to these modern buildings,
it's colossal even by modern standards.

I mean, look at this modern industrial
unit there, and the circus dwarfs it.

This is the largest Roman
building that we know of in Britain.

This is the real deal.
This is a giant thing.

Despite knowing
its layout, only fragments

of the original structure
have ever been excavated.

Gosh, so it's half a kilometre long and
they're taking out just this slot here?

That's right.

Inches beneath the ground,
evidence of building work

still remains from the massive stadium.

All right, let's fire this up.

1,800 years ago,

Romans and Britons,
rich and poor, citizens and slaves,

would've shared in one of the greatest

sporting spectacles
of the ancient world,

a chariot race.

What you would hear
is the sound of the chariots

going seven times
around the central barrier,

and the cheers of up to 15,000 people,
yelling and screaming.

This was the modern
equivalent of football.

Right. So, it's mass entertainment,
almost on an industrial scale.

It is. This is where you come
for a bit of excitement.

So, that's mortared masonry.
Oh, yeah, look at that.

That's it there.
That mortar, coming up there.

- Oh, yeah.
- It's the start of Roman stuff.

- Oh, look at that.
- Roman brick there. Hah!

These are the foundation
remains of one of the greatest stadiums

in northern Europe.

Under a car park.

It's good, isn't it?

But in Colchester, the racetrack wasn't
the only mass entertainment on offer.

People could also get a glimpse

of some of the sporting superstars
of the age,

gladiators.

This piece of pottery, this vase,

encapsulates so much of what we think
about the Roman world.

It was found in Colchester,
near the circus.

It's widely regarded
as one of the finest pieces

of Roman period pottery
ever found in northern Europe.

These two men here are bating

what looks to our eyes, like a dog,
but it's actually a bear.

And that is so much how we think
about Roman sport, Roman entertainment.

How it was all wound up
in blood and cruelty.

But it's not just animals that are
on the receiving end of the violence.

On this side of the vase
are two gladiators.

This one here is a class of gladiator
called a secutor.

He has armour, a helmet,
a shield and, classically, a sword.

His opponent, however,
is in all kinds of trouble.

He should be armed with a net
and a trident, but he has lost both.

But what makes this vase so fascinating

is that this isn't just an abstract,

notional depiction
of gladiatorial combat.

These people have names.

Valentinus and Memnon.

Now, Valentinus was an international
superstar of his age.

He was attached to a legion in Germany,

so, perhaps, he was brought over

to Colchester, to Britain,
to the provinces,

to entertain the locals here
and give them

a taste of European glamour.

Nothing like this could've been seen,
even conceived of,

by the native British tribes,

not, at least, until they
had contact with Rome.

Ancient Britain had evolved gradually

through thousands
of years of pre-history.

But in the centuries
following the Roman invasion,

the face of Britain
was being transformed.

And it was all part of a plan

to feed and bolster the economy

of an increasingly bloated Roman Empire.

Look at this. It's a silver Roman coin.

It's got the head of the emperor
on one side. It's called a denarius.

And, in its day,
it was worth around ?100.

And it was money and wealth like this
that was key to the control of Britain.

Across an empire
of perhaps 80 million people,

the Romans needed to keep resources
circulating and coming towards them.

And so it was likely that
Britain was taxed directly,

the individuals,
for the very first time.

All the building, all
the entertainments, the military forts,

the roads, it all had to be paid for.

So, another coin, like this one,
would've become a common sight.

It's called an as,
and it was the pound coin of its day.

We can imagine it
being handed over reluctantly

by a worker from Londinium
to a Roman tax collector.

It's usually the Roman military

that gets all the attention,
that has all the glamour.

But, in truth, when it comes

to controlling
a province like Britannia,

keeping control of its economy,

then the secret lies in
Roman bureaucracy, its civil service.

London, the commercial
gateway to Britain,

also became its political nerve centre.

At the heart of the city,
the Roman administration

built a base for government
in the shape of a vast basilica.

The one built here was three storeys
high. So an enormous building.

In fact, it wouldn't
have been much smaller

than the building that's here
on the site today.

The Roman basilica though,
was part court house,

part records office, part tax office.

So, all in all,
a frighteningly imposing structure.

During the last 2,000 years, this ground
has been built on over again and again.

But, amazingly, a fragment
of the ancient basilica still survives,

if you know where to look for it

You are not going to believe
what is behind this door.

Look at that!

Unbelievable as it may seem,

this is all that remains
of what was once

one of the largest, most impressive
buildings of the Roman Empire,

one of the largest things
they ever built north of the Alps.

It might have been
a wonder of the empire,

it was certainly a wonder
of ancient Roman Britain.

In London, Rome had created
a provincial capital,

the capital of a single territory,

the very idea of Britannia
that endures to this day.

What you've got here is the start
of something quite new.

Whereas Iron Age Britain was based
around local, tribal power bases,

the Romans had imposed a single,
unified political structure.

Look at this. It's a tile.

And it's stamped with the letters,
P-P-B-R-L-O-N.

So, it's from London.

It's stamped by the authority

of the procurator
of the province of Britannia.

What you've got here is the very start
of the idea of Britain

as a separate country.
A single unit, if you like.

And it all starts with Rome.

For Rome, though, Britannia
was just one part of something

even greater still,
the Roman Empire itself.

And just like today's cities,
Roman towns were cultural melting pots,

not only between the people
of Britain and Rome,

but people from all
its far-flung provinces.

As far north as York, just 100 miles
or so from Hladrian's Wall itself,

inhabitants would still
have felt very much part

of an exotic, international world.

This was about as far
from Rome as you could get

and yet still feel that you were
in a civilised city.

But even this far north, you still
would have been bumping into people

from all corners of the empire.

People who were either from,
or had their origins in Germany,

France, the Middle East, even Africa.

Here, languages would have
been heard from across the empire.

But there was a common tongue, Latin.

What made Latin special was you couldn't
just hear it, you could see it.

Latin brought writing
to Britain for the very first time.

And that was a massive shift.

It took us from the pre-historic world

into a world of records,
names and dates.

The trouble is so little remains
of Britain at this time.

Most of what we have are abbreviated
memorial slabs,

and gateways,
and tombstones and the like.

So it's very difficult to know

what ordinary people in Britain
were writing about.

A rare collection of wax tablets

is revealing unique insights
into ordinary life in Roman Britain.

It's a most remarkable find
for Roman Britain

because, until this material came to
light, we had nothing at all like this

either from this period,
or really from the whole

of the provincial era of Britain
under the Roman Empire.

The tablets were discovered
at Hladrian's Wall in 1973,

but it's only now that new imagining
technology is able to decode them fully.

These are private letters,

written around 100 AD and sent home
from the very edge of empire.

We've got one tablet which mentions

a price paid for a small
quantity of pepper.

We have another example
in which a writer

refers to somebody
who he's clearly trying to help,

as a man who is a lover
of literary culture.

It's really quite a remarkable
phrase to be using

on the northern frontier
of Britain at this time.

These fragments reveal
Britain on the cusp of a new age,

the very beginnings of written history.

For Britain itself, of course,
there were a large number

in the pre-Roman period,
of different tribal units,

and different small kingdoms
and fiefdoms.

And, of course, one of the things
which the Roman presence did

was to bring them all
under one political system

and that political system
was run in Latin.

Latin language
and widening literacy

were yet more
unifying forces across the empire.

If you had the chance,
and you took the leap,

regardless of the heritage
that you carried with you from birth,

you could be Roman.

Even as far north as York,

evidence can be found of the cultural
mobility that came with Rome,

the remains of a woman
who died nearly 1,800 years ago.

This is the skull of a young woman.

When she died,
she was around 22, 23 years old.

She was buried with fantastic wealth.

This is just a few of the things
that were alongside her, in her grave.

This is a necklace
made of blue glass beads.

The individual beads
are so beautifully made.

Look at the way it allows
the light through it.

Anyone who saw this,
saw this woman wearing it,

would've identified her
as someone of status,

someone with access to real money.

But then the story
takes a strange twist.

Because alongside her in the grave,

were bangles
made of African elephant ivory,

with beautiful, turned decoration on it.

Now, what on earth
is an African ivory bangle

doing in a grave in York?

There are clues
here in the skull itself.

First of all, she has a broad,
and quite flattened forehead,

which suggests someone
of black African descent.

But when we look at her nose,

her nose is typical of a white European.

So, in this skull, we've got
the suggestion of someone of mixed race.

And when her teeth were subjected

to chemical analysis,
it was found possible,

or even likely, that she grew up
in North Africa,

somewhere like Libya or Tunisia.

Perhaps she's the wife or the daughter
of a centurion posted to York.

She's this, to our eyes, exotic figure,

with this luxury jewellery,
these luxury items.

And yet, in Roman York,
when she walked around the streets,

she wouldn't have been so very unusual.

To be a Roman wasn't
about where you were born,

but about how you lived,
how you dressed, how you spoke,

the values you held.

There was a sense
that within the Roman Empire

you could make your own way.

You weren't necessarily bound
or handicapped by your ancestral class.

And whatever barriers Rome did put up,
colour wasn't one of them.

But was it possible to be both
Roman and British at the same time?

Or, 200 years after the invasion,

did that distinction
even matter any more?

In Celtic Britain,

tribal identity had always been
central to who you were.

Now, under Rome, who and what you were

seemed to be becoming more of a choice,
or a matter of circumstance.

You could either act as a Roman, or not.

You could either
live an urban life, or not.

And that's aside from class.

Whether you were wealthy
and powerful, or a trader or craftsman,

or at the bottom, a slave.

Or even more grim than that,
a slave's slave.

Think of that

Despite the growth of Roman towns,

most of the population
of Britain remained rural

But, even out here, the influence
of Rome was unmistakable.

The new modern Roman ways
weren't restricted to the townsfolk.

As a Roman citizen, you could own land
with proper legal title,

which meant that it could be
bought, sold and inherited.

And in the southeast,
amongst the very rich,

that was to lead
to something truly spectacular.

Rich agricultural estates

surrounding big country houses,

the villas of southern England.

To our eyes,
this is incredibly ordinary,

but it's as staggeringly modern

as anything you would've seen
in Roman towns.

These buildings were built
on top of the foundations

of the original building that stood here
in the late Roman period,

into the 300s.

And it's representative
of a kind of architecture

that had never been seen
in Britain before the Romans.

You have to remember that Iron Age
houses in Britain were round,

single-roomed dwellings.
They look ancient.

But this is a house.
You've got a rectangular floor plan,

you've got separate rooms inside.
There's even glass in the windows.

This is the future.
And wait till you see what's inside.

No one knows who owned this villa
and its surrounding estate,

but we can be sure they were rich.

And that they enjoyed a life of luxury.

If this was my villa,

this would have been the floor
of my private dining room.

It's luxurious and lavish
in the extreme,

it's a real show of status.

My guests would've been arranged
around the outside of this mosaic floor.

And it's covered in scenes
of myth and Roman legend.

My guests would have listened

to the soft sounds
of the water tinkling in the fountain.

They'd have been drinking wine,
celebrating the god Bacchus.

Their eyes were probably drawn

to the depictions
of topless lady dancers.

And maybe if it was
a really special occasion,

I'd have laid on real
topless dancers. Make it a real party.

But, in any event, this was,
and is, a spectacular place.

Now, as well as all the grandeur,

this room affords us a glimpse
of something else.

Because, at some point,
this part of the floor has collapsed,

revealing the under-floor
central heating system.

It's called a hypocaust,
which means heat from below.

And you can see, in this void,
where all the vents

have been positioned
to circulate the hot air.

And the heat actually comes
from a purpose-built furnace

on the other side of that wall.

All the hot air is just pushed through,
makes the floor warm.

So, the whole interior
is heated. Very cosy.

The big man, the owner of the estate,

would've sat at that end of the room,
in pride of place.

He would've greeted his guests,
and visitors from there.

And he would've been close by
where that mosaic of Venus is.

That is regarded
as one of the very finest

Roman mosaics anywhere in Britain.

Any rich landowner would also
have enjoyed a rich Roman diet,

an aspect of life
studied by Sally Grainger.

- We've got coriander and cumin.
- Mmm-hmm.

Now, they are the dominant
spices in curry today.

- We've got lovage.
- Lovage?

- It's very bitter.
- Mmm-hmm.

You use too much of it,
you make appalling food.

We can then add some fish sauce.

- It's rather fundamental 'cause Roman...
- Fish sauce?

- That's quintessential Roman cuisine?
- It is. It is.

Oh, that's so potent, yeah.

- That's strong, whatever it is.
- Yeah?

Lentils in wine.

- Are lentils Roman?
- They are.

They came to Britain in the first
20 ears after the invasion.

You find them on sale in London.

So compared to the way that native
Britons would have approached food,

how much of a surprise would all this

messing about with spices have been?

I think a great surprise,
because certainly, archaeologically,

we have no evidence
for use of spices in Britain.

What they were doing is roasting a lot
of meat and drinking a lot of beer

and eating a lot of bread,
but not actually developing a cuisine,

and I don't think it comes
until the Romans.

The Romans wrote recipe books
and created the first fine dining.

Fruits from cultivated orchards
of apples and cherries.

New green vegetables,

cabbages, leeks, and peas,
as well as exotic herbs.

Even modern staples like chicken
begin with the Romans.

For rich Britons,
it was a culinary revolution.

- Now we're going to flavour our pears.
- Okay.

And we're going to also add
the fish sauce.

- The fish sauce!
- Fish sauce.

Goodness! Why?

Why ever do that?
It's all going so well.

- It sounds so wrong.
- It works.

I can't believe you put that in there,
that just...

- God! Oh!
- You want some more?

It's like varnish.

Here we go.

Oh!

- Fairly crunchy on the outside, there.
- Fairly crunchy.

On the inside there, you can see it
looks pretty... It's definitely cooked.

Very tender. It's falling off.

- Mmm. Now, I must say...
- It's good.

I must hold my hands up and say
I can't taste fish sauce in that.

- Of course ou can't. No. No, no.
- At all.

Somehow, all of this,
the variety, the spices, the care,

seems almost more civilising

than so many other things
that Romans are famous for.

There's something
about all this fine food

- that would be so pleasing to people.
- Mmm.

You'd think it would lead
to the betterment of society.

You'd think, yes. The trouble is we
don't know how many people it affected.

It's very difficult to tell.

City life and some
of the big villas, yes.

And I think as British natives
became more Romanised,

and consumed more of this stuff,
yes, it was great, it was wonderful.

But it's always for the people with
wealth and leisure and a slave cook.

I can't do without one, myself.

Rome might have transformed
the lives of many people,

but it didn't transform everyone's,
not by a long way.

Of the three to four million
people living in Britain,

only a tiny fraction lived in towns,

even fewer around villas.

For over 90% of the population,

for all Rome's apparent impact,

life carried on much
as it had always done.

This is a living space up here,
I think. Up these steps.

They're very simple,
massively built of stone.

Circular in shape, cellular in shape.

You look at it and you can think,

or assume,
that it was built and lived in

1,000 years BC, during the Bronze Age,

because the whole site resonates

with everything you think of
when you think about ancient Britain.

In fact, this village was built
right in the middle of the Romman period.

In 200 AD, these very
ancient-looking houses were brand new.

Away from the Roman centres,
away from the towns and the forts,

you would have had so much more choice
about just how Roman

you actually wanted to be.

And so, a village like Chysauster
would be left behind

as a kind of relic
of ancient Britishness.

A kind of passive resistance,
if you like,

to the centralised authority
of the Roman Empire.

For many Iron Age Britons,
ancient Celtic identity

was even more important
in death than in life.

This is the skeleton
of a man who was around

19, 20, 21 at the time of death.

He was buried in a very particular way.

He was buried in a crouched position,
with the knees drawn up to the chest,

like a baby in the womb.

A Roman, in death,
would have been laid out lying flat.

And, furthermore, would've been buried
far away from any settlement

in a dedicated cemetery.

It's fascinating to speculate
that, while in life,

this young man might have taken on
certain aspects of Rome,

he was using the same tableware,
he might have worn a pin, or a pendent,

ate the Roman ways.

But in death,
he showed his true colours.

In his heart, and in the heart
of the people who put him in the ground,

he was no Roman. He was a Briton.

Rome might have established
Britannia as a single entity,

but, behind the administration,
this was a diverse, even fractured land.

The urban hoards
and their mass entertainments,

the villa d'elite
and all their luxuries,

the serfs and slaves who worked for them

and the lives of the countless
thousands of self-sufficient farmers.

And that's just counting
the part of Britain

that was actually under Roman control.

We're talking about the territories
that would one day

be called England and Wales.

Because up here, in Northumberland,

beyond edge of Empire,
there was an awful lot of Britain

that the Romans never did control.

Ever since 136 AD, a defensive wall

had stretched like a ribbon
from coast to coast,

from Carlisle to Newcastle,

guarded by 40,000 Roman soldiers.

This wall marked more
than the limit of empire.

For Rome, it was the very edge
of civilisation itself.

Far beyond the wall,
the Scottish Highlands

still remained under the control
of Celtic Iron Age tribes,

Pictish peoples,
who were as fiercely resistant

to Roman rule as they'd ever been.

And at the National Museum of Scotland,

there's a relic of a proud
and fiercely independent Britain.

This fragment is the earliest,

the oldest, piece
of tartan cloth ever found.

And for us in the modern world,

it's also a potent
symbol of Scottishness.

The people who made this,
used this, wore this,

had their own culture,
customs and traditions.

It wasn't by choice that Rome
had drawn a line across Britain.

It had tried to conguer Caledonia
a number of times.

But the Picts had repelled them
again and again.

The name "Picts" means painted people.

And when it came to battle, the warriors
were in the habit of stripping off naked

to reveal these tattoos,
or painted designs, on their skin.

And the theory goes, that they believed
that the gods would look down upon them,

see the designs and confer
their protection upon them.

The Picts generally avoided engaging
the Roman army in set-piece battles,

preferring instead
to employ guerrilla tactics,

striking fast and then disappearing

into the forbidding landscape
of mountains and forests.

And you can easily see,
in terrain like this,

even a small group of lightly armed men
who understood this landscape,

could use it to turn it
to their advantage,

so that they could harass and even
severely damage a much larger force.

In the end, for the Romans,
it simply wasn't worth the effort,

and the tribal lands of Scotland
always remained unconquered.

Even in second and the third
century AD, here in the north

the customs, the traditions,

the lifestyle
of ancient Iron Age Britain

continued stubbornly,
beyond the reach of empire.

Rome still needed to make sure the Picts

couldn't cause any trouble
further south, though.

And back in Edinburgh,
there's evidence of how they managed

the slightly friendlier tribes
of southern Scotland and Northumberland.

Look at this.

It's a tiny part of a huge horde

of Roman silver,
that dates from around 400 AD.

The whole horde, the whole collection,
would fill several museum cases.

It's thought that all this
was a massive bribe

from the Romans to a local tribe
called the Votadini.

You can see how it's been crudely
cut up with shears of some kind.

Experts believe that before
the Romans handed the silver over,

they themselves cut it up,

so that it was only going across
as scrap silver.

Now, the Romans
weren't bribing the Votadini

because they had trouble with them.

Rather, they were determined
to keep that tribe on side,

because with the Votadini
inside the tent, as it were,

the Romans were free
to concentrate their attentions

on the tribes,
the people further north in Scotland,

people considered
potentially more dangerous.

It's about undermining
inter-tribal allegiances.

This is classic divide and conquer.

Much of the success of Rome

was down to the number
of levels on which it operated.

At first, military might
could crush you.

And then, a finely-tuned
administration would control you.

The trappings of Roman civilisation
could seduce you

and turn you Roman yourself.

And if all that failed,

well, the empire could
simply exclude you.

When Rome came, it changed your land.
It changed your entire way of life.

But the Romans were used
to dealing with culture clash.

After all, they'd been doing it
all across Europe,

in parts of Africa
and in the Middle East.

But they were also past masters
at dealing

with something much more personal,

religion and the clash of beliefs.

Rome might have transformed
the land of Britain

and the lives of many of its people.

But religion was
something else altogether.

Ancient and heartfelt
Celtic traditions and beliefs.

Every tribe might have had
its own set of gods

controlling a specific part
of the countryside,

their hills, their woods, their rivers.

And then, between the individual tribes
were the Druids,

the great priesthood of the Celtic world
trying to make sense of it all.

The Romans worshipped
very different gods,

Jupiter and Mars,

Apollo, god of the sun,

and Saturn, god of time,

powerful supernatural beings
that held sway over the mortal world.

The Romans had imposed
all sorts of ideas on Britain.

Would they impose their gods
on the people as well?

The city of Bath offers clues
to how the Romans dealt

with the most sensitive
cultural invasion of all.

Because it was here that a spring,
producing a magical flow of hot water,

was sacred, venerated by the Britons.

As far as we can tell,
the ancient Britons believed

that this spring was the domain
of a goddess called Sulis,

and she was all about wisdom
and healing and insight,

and she had to be appeased
with gifts and offerings.

When the Romans conquered Britain,
they were presented with a choice.

Either they could leave
the local gods and goddesses alone

or they could seek to obliterate
goddesses like Sulis

and replace them
with their own Roman deities.

The Romans found a pragmatic solution.

Often they chose one of
their own Roman gods

who seemed similar
to the local British god

and combined the two.

This is a depiction
of the Roman goddess Minerva.

What's happening here
is something very interesting.

It's really about the union
of two goddesses,

one British and one Roman.

The Roman goddess Minerva here
is all about healing and about wisdom,

particularly military wisdom,

and that made her the perfect partner
for the British goddess Sulis,

who was responsible for a lot
of the same areas of business.

So, what we've got here
is a combination.

And when it came to naming
the goddess of the spring here in Bath,

they called her Sulis Minerva.

This combined deity
inhabited the sacred spring

and continued to attract acolytes

who communicated
with the goddess Sulis Minerva

through mysterious lead tablets

that give a ray of insight
into their beliefs.

Classicist Roger Tomlin has been
studying them for 25 years.

Exactly what are these, Roger?

Well, in very crude terms,
they're called curses.

They're a specialised sort of curse.

They're really letters
written to the goddess

asking for ill health and misfortune
to people who've done someone wrong.

This one is...

This woman Basilia, who's lost
her silver ring, tells the goddess,

"I've lost my silver ring.
Curse the thief who did it.

"The thief should lose his eyes.

"He should have his intestines
utterly eaten out."

This is a wonderful exotic phrase,
intestinis excomesis.

His intestines utterly eaten out
and so on.

Just for the theft of a ring?

- Yes, just for the theft of a ring.
- She's hard.

Well, you can't be exactly certain
the ring's going to come back.

You tend to overreact, I think.

If you were certain the ring
was going to come back

you might say,
"Well, I'll give him dinner afterwards."

But there's always
an element of uncertainty

whether the god is actually
going to react to people.

Come out with this horrific language.
Also, it's a bit like letting blood.

It reduces the pressure a bit.

Right, okay.

This one is written backwards
in a rather peculiar way.

Each word is written backwards

but the whole text
isn't written backwards.

Makes it a devil to read

because you never know
where the word is ending.

And what's the logic?

I suppose
it's to encrypt the text,

to make it personal
between you and the goddess.

No one else can read it.

That's again why you fold
these things up,

you throw them into water,
you put them into graves.

They turn up in all sorts of places,
particularly in this hot spring.

It doesn't really
sound like religion.

It does smack
more of an appeal to the authorities.

It's almost like trying to sue someone

or seek legal redress,
rather than something to do with faith.

I think there's a strong element
to this legalism.

I mean, the Roman world is
somewhat under-policed.

And if earthly authorities can't work,

you appeal to a heavenly
authority instead.

And using the language you might well
use in addressing your patron.

Those healing pools and the temple

to the combined gods
of Sulis and Minerva

are a good illustration of how to handle
a clash between religions.

And the twinning of gods
would be tried again and again

all across Roman Britain.

But that cosy religious relationship
that had served the Roman Empire so well

was about to be seriously disrupted.

In the first century AD,
far away in the Middle East,

a new religious cult
had started spreading

that many Romans found absurd.

Because this religion demanded faith
to just one god,

a Christian god.

Look at this dazzling collection.

All of these spectacular items,

the finest early Christian artefacts
found anywhere in the empire

all come from Britain.

Look at this magnificent,

glorious silver cup, silver vessel.

It's quite possible
that it was made and used

for the quintessential Christian act,

that of turning wine into
the blood of Christ.

And if that's what this was for,

then it's the earliest such vessel
found anywhere in the world.

But as Christianity expanded,
it was outlawed

and its followers had
to practise in secret.

Look at this piece.

The symbol here is called the Chi Rho.

It was like a secret sign that let
early Christians recognise one another.

Chi and rho are the first two letters
of Christ's name.

Also within the symbol
are the letters alpha and omega,

showing that the person
who used this or made this

believed also that Christ
was all powerful,

from first to last.

Part of its popularity was
the central tenant

that anyone who believed in Christ

would never die,
would have everlasting life.

Even slaves. And that was
a truly subversive thought.

Despite the threat of persecution,

there was no stopping
such an enticing message.

Nevertheless, it wasn't until AD 313
that Christianity was finally legalised.

The Roman Emperor Constantine
was sympathetic to Christianity,

and then there came a day
when his army secured a key victory.

And, while doing so,
they had carried at their head a cross,

a Christian cross, as a symbol
to bring them good fortune.

From that moment, Constantine decreed

that Christianity would be tolerated
throughout the Roman Empire.

It was actually another political move.

With Christianity within the fold,

a religious hierarchy
could be established,

controlled by the state.

Look at this ring.

Like the plaque here,
it has on it the Chi Rho symbol.

Whoever wore this was obviously
a Christian, a believer,

may even have been a bishop

in the country,
while Christianity was spreading.

Look at that. Beautiful.

Christianity continued to flourish

and, in AD 391,

it was the old pagan religions
that were banned.

The ancient spring
of Sulis Minerva was abandoned,

left to become silted up
and to overflow,

its temples left to collapse.

It was the end of yet another
ancient prehistoric tradition.

Tens of thousands of years ago

the first nomadic hunters
came to Britain.

Ever since, its people and the land
they inhabited had been entwined.

Mountains holding up the sky,

the seas that made our land an island,

and the sacred springs and rivers
that were so central

to ancient religious beliefs,

all had shaped our history.

But with Rome,
and the modern world it brought,

a new world had been forged,

not of nature's making but of man's.

The rule of Rome couldn't
and didn't last forever.

By 410 AD, the empire was collapsing

and the Roman rule of Britain
was at an end.

The cities decayed
and people in many ways

returned to the rural lives of the past.

But some of the ideas
that emerged under Rome

couldn't be undone.

Christianity, writing,
the very idea of Britannia.

Ideas that are still
very much alive with us today.

When the Romans arrived,
we didn't just start a new chapter,

we started a whole new story,

one that would be written down
in the history of our land.

And when people look back
1,000 or 2,000 years from now,

perhaps they'll see
the beginning of our world

in that sudden break with pre-history,
in the coming of Rome.

And here we are, occupying
this fleeting moment of time

with our hopes and fears,
past and futures, living our lives,

just one more generation
in a story that continues.

The story of Britain and her peoples.

Ripped By mstoll