Roman Britain: Ruling Britannia
Archaeologist Miles Russell describes recent discoveries which overturn accepted views about the Roman invasion of Britain.
New archaeological evidence from Sussex suggests that the history of Britain will have to be rewritten: the invasion of AD 43 never happened, at least not in the way that the Roman emperor Claudius would have had us believe.
Like 1066, 1588 or 1940, AD 43 is considered one of the most defining dates in British History. This was the year that the Roman emperor swung his gaze across the northern seas and claimed Britain for Rome. 40,000 heavily armoured Roman soldiers, one of the largest invasion fleets ever to assemble against Britain, swept ashore on the coast of Kent, before cutting a bloody path north towards the Iron Age city of Camulodunum (modern day Colchester). In AD 43 Britain was forcibly incorporated into one of the largest and most successful empires ever. But was it really like that?
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