Londinium
Londinium, also known as Roman London, was the capital of Roman Britain during most of the period of Roman rule. Most twenty-first century historians think that it was originally a settlement established shortly after the Claudian invasion of Britain, on the current site of the City of London, around 47–50 AD, but some defend an older view that the city originated in a defensive enclosure constructed during the Claudian invasion in 43 AD. Its earliest securely-dated structure is a timber drain of 47 AD. It sat at a key ford at the River Thames which turned the city into a road nexus and major port, serving as a major commercial centre in Roman Britain until its abandonment during the 5th century.
Following the foundation of the town in the mid-1st century, early Londinium occupied the relatively small area of, roughly half the area of the modern City of London and equivalent to the size of present-day Hyde Park. In 60 or 61 AD, the rebellion of the Iceni under their queen, Boudica, compelled the Roman forces to abandon the settlement, which was then razed. Following the defeat of Boudica by the Roman governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus a military installation was established, and the city was rebuilt. It had probably largely recovered within about a decade. During the later decades of the 1st century, Londinium expanded rapidly, becoming Britannia's largest city, and it was provided with large public buildings such as a forum and amphitheatre. By the 2nd century, Londinium had grown to perhaps 30,000 or 60,000 people, almost certainly replacing Camulodunum as the provincial capital, and by the mid-2nd century Londinium was at its height. Its forum basilica was one of the largest structures north of the Alps when Emperor Hadrian visited Londinium in 122. Excavations have discovered evidence of a major fire that destroyed much of the city shortly thereafter, but the city was again rebuilt. By the second half of the 2nd century, Londinium appears to have shrunk in both size and population.
Although Londinium remained important for the rest of the Roman period, no further expansion resulted. Londinium supported a smaller but stable settlement population as archaeologists have found that much of the city after this date was covered in dark earth—the by-product of urban household waste, manure, ceramic tile, and non-farm debris of settlement occupation, which accumulated relatively undisturbed for centuries. Some time between 190 and 225, the Romans built a defensive wall around the landward side of the city. The London Wall survived for another 1,600 years and broadly defined the perimeter of the old City of London.
Name
The etymology of the name Londinium is unknown. Following Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudohistorical History of the Kings of Britain, it was long published as derived from an eponymous founder named Lud, son of Heli. There is no evidence such a figure existed. Instead, the Latin name was probably based on a native Brittonic place name reconstructed as *Londinion. Morphologically, this points to a structure of two suffixes: -in-jo-. However, the Roman Londinium was not the immediate source of English "London", as i-mutation would have caused the name to have been Lyndon. This suggests an alternative Brittonic form Londonion; alternatively, the local pronunciation in British Latin may have changed the pronunciation of Londinium to Lundeiniu or Lundein, which would also have avoided i-mutation in Old English. The list of the 28 Cities of Britain included in the 9th-century History of the Britons precisely notes London in Old Welsh as Cair Lundem or Lundein.The pronunciation of Londinium in English is , and its pronunciation in Classical Latin is.
Location
The site guarded the Romans' bridgehead on the north bank of the Thames and a major road nexus shortly after the invasion. It was centred on Cornhill and the River Walbrook, but extended west to Ludgate Hill and east to Tower Hill. Just prior to the Roman conquest, the area had been contested by the Catuvellauni based to the west and the Trinovantes based to the east; it bordered the realm of the Cantiaci on the south bank of the Thames.The Roman city ultimately covered at least the area of the City of London, whose boundaries are largely defined by its former wall. Londinium's waterfront on the Thames ran from around Ludgate Hill in the west to the present site of the Tower in the east, around. The northern wall reached Bishopsgate and Cripplegate near the former site of the Museum of London, a course now marked by the street "London Wall". Cemeteries and suburbs existed outside the city proper. A round temple has been located west of the city, although its dedication remains unclear.
Substantial suburbs existed at St Martin-in-the-Fields in Westminster and around the southern end of the Thames bridge in Southwark, where excavations in 1988 and 2021 have revealed an elaborate building with fine mosaics and frescoed walls dating from 72 AD. Inscriptions suggest a temple of Isis was located there.
Status
Londinium grew up as a vicus and soon became an important port for trade between Roman Britain and the Roman provinces on the continent. Tacitus wrote that at the time of the uprising of Boudica, "Londinium... though undistinguished by the name of 'colony', was much frequented by a number of merchants and trading vessels."Depending on the time of its creation, the modesty of Londinium's first forum may have reflected its early elevation to city status or may have reflected an administrative concession to a low-ranking but major Romano-British settlement. It had almost certainly been granted colony status prior to the complete replanning of the city's street plan attending the erection of the great second forum around the year 120.
By this time, Britain's provincial administration had also almost certainly been moved to Londinium from Camulodunum. The precise date of this change is unknown, and no surviving source explicitly states that Londinium was "the capital of Britain," but there are several strong indications of this status: 2nd-century roofing tiles have been found marked by the "Procurator" or "Publican of the Province of Britain at Londinium", the remains of a governor's palace and tombstones belonging to the governor's staff have been discovered, and the city was well defended and armed, with a new military camp erected at the beginning of the 2nd century in a fort on the north-western edge of the city, despite being far from any frontier. Despite some corruption to the text, the list of bishops for the 314 Council of Arles indicates that either Restitutus or Adelphius came from Londinium. The city seems to have been the seat of the diocesan vicar and one of the provincial governors following the Diocletian Reforms around 300; it had been renamed Augusta—a common epithet of provincial capitals—by 368.
History
Founding
Unlike many cities of Roman Britain, Londinium was not placed on the site of a native settlement or oppidum. Prior to the arrival of the Roman legions, the area was almost certainly lightly rolling open countryside traversed by numerous streams now underground. Ptolemy lists it as one of the cities of the Cantiaci, but Durovernum was their tribal capital. It is possible that the town was preceded by a short-lived Roman military camp, but the evidence is limited and this topic remains a matter of debate.Archaeologist Lacey Wallace notes "Because no LPRIA settlements or significant domestic refuse have been found in London, despite extensive archaeological excavation, arguments for a purely Roman foundation of London are now common and uncontroversial." The city's Latin name seems to have derived from an originally Brittonic one and significant pre-Roman finds in the Thames, especially the Battersea Shield and the Wandsworth Shield, both assumed to be votive offerings deposited a couple of miles upstream of Londinium, suggest the general area was busy and significant. It has been suggested that the area was where several territories intersected. There was probably a ford in that part of the river; other Roman and Celtic finds suggest this was perhaps where the opposed crossing Julius Caesar describes in 54 BC took place.
Londinium expanded around the point on the River Thames narrow enough for the construction of a Roman bridge but still deep enough to handle the era's seagoing ships. Its placement on the Tideway permitted easier access for ships sailing upstream. The remains of a massive pier base for such a bridge were found in 1981 close by the modern London Bridge.
Some Claudian-era camp ditches have been discovered, but archaeological excavations undertaken since the 1970s by the Department of Urban Archaeology at the Museum of London have suggested the early settlement was largely the product of private enterprise. A timber drain by the side of the main Roman road excavated at No 1 Poultry has been dated by dendrochronology to 47 AD.
Following its foundation in the mid-1st century, early Roman London occupied a relatively small area, about or roughly the area of present-day Hyde Park. Archaeologists have uncovered numerous goods imported from across the Roman Empire in this period, suggesting that early Roman London was a highly cosmopolitan community of merchants from across the empire and that local markets existed for such objects.
Roads
Of the fifteen British routes recorded in the 2nd- or 3rd-century Antonine Itinerary, seven ran to or from Londinium. Most of these were constructed near the time of the city's foundation around 47 AD. The roads are now known by Welsh or Old English names, as their original Roman names have been lost because of the lack of written and inscribed sources.The road from the Kentish ports of Rutupiae, Dubris, and Lemanis via Durovernum seems to have first crossed the Thames at a natural ford near Westminster before being diverted north to the new bridge at London. The Romans enabled the road to cross the marshy terrain without subsidence by laying down substrates of one to three layers of oak logs. This route, now known as Watling Street, passed through the town from the bridgehead in a straight line to reconnect with its northern extension towards Viroconium and the legionary base at Deva Victrix. The Great Road ran northeast across Old Ford to Camulodunum and thence northeast along Pye Road to Venta Icenorum. Ermine Street ran north from the city to Lindum and Eboracum. The Devil's Highway connected Londinium to Calleva and its roads to points west over the bridges near modern Staines. A minor road led southwest to the city's main cemetery and the old routes to the ford at Westminster. Stane Street to Noviomagus did not reach Londinium proper but ran from the bridgehead in the southern suburb at Southwark. These roads varied from wide.
After its reconstruction in the 60s AD, the streets largely adhered to a grid. The main streets were wide, while side streets were usually about wide.