Roman Britain

In 55 and 54 BC, Julius Caesar attacked Britain but he couldn’t take over the country. Emperor Claudius conquered Britain in AD 43. The Romans remained in Britain for 350 years. In AD 409 the Roman soldiers left Britain and three Germanic tribes (The Saxons, the Angles and the Jutes) settled there.

Roman life in BritainAll over Britain there were stone forts where the soldiers lived. Nowadays, the towns which were in the past Roman forts have names ending in “eter” (Exeter), “caster” (Lancaster), “chester” (Manchester) or “cester” (Gloucester). Apart from keeping the Britons in order, the soldiers fought against the tribes that lived in Scotland and Wales. The Picts raided the north of Britain to take the cattle away and rob farms so Emperor Hadrian tried to stop them by building a great wall which was 73 miles long from Wallsend on Tyne to Bowners near Carlisle. At intervals, there were small forts and signal towers called turrets. To connect the main forts and towns, the Romans built roads with stones and gravel and they became the main roads of modern Britain.

Photos by: Nealy-J , JochenB (Hadrian's Wall)

London was the largest town in Roman Britain and, like other towns, it was surrounded by walls. Inside the walls, there were baths, theatres and shops. Public baths were very important. They consisted of a variety of rooms at different temperatures. A visit to a bath was a social occasion as people would talk to friends, play or drink wine.


Photo by:Nicholas... (Bath)

Education

Boys and girls had a different type of education. Girls had to stay at home where their mothers taught them how to read, write and look after the house. Boys, on the other hand, had to go to school, which was very strict. They studied astronomy, history, music and the works of Greek and Latin Poets.