Wales in the Roman era
The Roman era in the area of modern Wales began in 48 AD, with a military invasion by the imperial governor of Roman Britain. The conquest was completed by 78 AD, and Roman rule endured until the region was abandoned in 383 AD.
The Roman Empire held a military occupation in most of Wales, except for the southern coastal region of South Wales, east of the Gower Peninsula, where there is a legacy of Romanisation in the region, and some southern sites such as Carmarthen, which was the civitas capital of the Demetae tribe. The only town in Wales founded by the Romans, Caerwent, is in South Wales.
Wales was a rich source of [|mineral wealth], and the Romans used their engineering technology to extract large amounts of gold, copper, and lead, as well as modest amounts of some other metals such as zinc and silver.
The Roman [|campaigns of conquest] in Wales are documented in surviving ancient sources, which record in particular the resistance and ultimate conquest of two of the five native tribes, the Silures of the south east, and the Ordovices of central and northern Wales.
Aside from the many Roman-related discoveries at sites along the southern coast, Roman archaeological remains in Wales consist almost entirely of military roads and fortifications.
Wales before the Roman conquest
Archaeologists generally agree that the British Isles were mainly inhabited by speakers of Celtic languages before the Roman invasion, organized into many tribes. The area now known as Wales had no political or social unity, and Romans did not treat it as a distinct region.Northern and southern Wales had some notable cultural differences before the Roman invasion, and should not be considered one entity. Southern Wales was advancing along with the rest of Britain throughout the Iron Age, whereas the northern parts of Wales were conservative and slower to advance. Along with their technological advancement, from the fifth to the first century BC, southern Wales became more heavily and densely populated. Southern Wales had more in common with the north than it did with the rest of Britain, and they saw little outside influence until the Roman conquest.
Hill forts are one of the most common sites found throughout Iron-Age Wales, and this is what archaeologists mostly rely on for most of their evidence. Nevertheless, due to the relative lack of archaeological activity, survey groupings of these forts throughout Wales can be uneven or misleading. Modern scholars theorize that Wales before the Roman conquest was similar to the rest of Iron Age Britain; however, this is still debated due to the sparsity of evidence. For the most part, the region's archaeological legacy consists of burials and hill forts. Wales gradually stopped making pottery, which usually helps archaeologists explore the distant past, throughout the Iron Age. Archaeological assemblages such as the Wilburton complex suggest that there was trade throughout all of Britain including Wales, connecting with Ireland and Northern France.
Britain in 47 AD
On the eve of the Roman invasion of Wales, the Roman military under Governor Aulus Plautius was in control of all of southeastern Britain as well as Dumnonia, perhaps including the lowland English Midlands as far as the Dee Estuary and the River Mersey, and having an understanding with the Brigantes to the north. They controlled most of the island's centres of wealth, as well as much of its trade and resources.In Wales the known tribes included the Ordovices and Deceangli in the north, and the Silures and Demetae in the south. Archaeology combined with ancient Greek and Roman accounts have shown that there was exploitation of natural resources, such as copper, gold, tin, lead and silver at multiple locations in Britain, including in Wales. Apart from this we have little knowledge of the Welsh tribes of this era.
Roman invasion and conquest
There is uncertainty regarding which parts of Wales were invaded by the Romans prior to the conquest of Anglesey in AD 60, due to a lack of written source material, with Tacitus as the only written source documenting this period.Tacitus records that a tribe had attacked a Roman ally in Britain. According to Tacitus, the tribe that was responsible for this incursion was the 'Decangi', which scholars associate with the Welsh Deceangli. The Romans responded swiftly, imposing restrictions upon all of the suspected tribes, then they began to move against the Deceangli. The Roman conquest of this tribe is believed to have been between the years AD 48 or 49.
Shortly following this, the Romans campaigned against the Silures tribe of south-eastern Wales, which must have had previous encounters with the Roman army. Due to the Silures' ferocity and insubordination, the Romans built a legionary fortress to suppress them. The Silures were led by Caratacus, a king who had fled South-eastern England. Under Caratacus' rule, the Welsh fought the Romans in a pitched battle which led to the loss of all the Ordovician territory. This defeat was not crushing, and Caratacus continued to fight the Romans, defeating two auxiliary cohorts. Caratacus fled to the Queen of the Brigantes, Cartimandua, who was loyal to the Romans and handed Caratacus over to Roman forces 51 AD. While dealing with all these problems, in AD 52, the Roman governor, Publius Ostorius Scapula, died. His death gave the Silures a respite before Scapula's successor, Didius Gallus, arrived. In that time, the Silures defeated a Roman legion led by Gaius Manlius Valens.
In AD 54, emperor Claudius died and was succeeded by Nero. This caused the situation in Britain to change, and Rome began to focus more on consolidating their power in Britain instead of expanding their territory. This is evidenced by the archaeological record, which finds vexillation fortresses at the time of Nero's accession.
After a short period of relative inaction, Quintus Veranius became governor of Britain and decided it was time to conquer the rest of the British Isles. Veranius began to campaign against the Silures, but in AD 58 he died, one year after he was appointed to Britain. Suetonius Paulinus was his successor, and it would seem that Veranius had had some success in his campaigns because Paulinus began to shift north. Paulinus was quite successful in his conquest of northern Wales, and it would seem that by AD 60 he had pushed all the way to the Irish Sea because he was preparing for a conquest of Anglesey.
Anglesey was swelling with migrants fleeing from the Romans, and it had become a stronghold for the Druids. Despite the Romans initial fear and superstition of Anglesey, they were able to achieve victory and subdue the Welsh tribes. However, this victory was short-lived, and a massive rebellion in the province of Britain led by Boudica erupted in the east and interrupted the consolidation of Wales.
It was not until AD 74 that Julius Frontinus resumed the campaigns against Wales. By the end of his term in AD 77, he had subdued most of Wales.
Only one tribe was left mostly intact throughout the conquest, the Demetae. This tribe did not oppose Rome, and developed peacefully, isolated from its neighbours and the Roman Empire. The Demetae were the only pre-Roman Welsh tribe to emerge from Roman rule with their tribal name intact.
Wales in Roman Society
Mining
The mineral wealth of Britain was well-known prior to the Roman invasion and was one of the expected benefits of conquest. All mineral extractions were state-sponsored and under military control, as mineral rights belonged to the emperor. His agents soon found substantial deposits of gold, copper, and lead in Wales, along with some zinc and silver. Gold had been mined at Dolaucothi before the invasion, but Roman engineering was applied to greatly increase production of gold and other metals. This continued until the process was no longer practical or profitable, and the mine was abandoned.Modern scholars have made efforts to quantify the value of these extracted metals to the Roman economy, and to determine the point at which the Roman occupation of Britain was "profitable" to the Empire. While these efforts have not produced definitive results, the benefits to Rome were substantial. The gold production at Dolaucothi alone may have been of economic significance.
Industrial production
The production of goods for trade and export in Roman Britain was concentrated in the south and east, with virtually none situated in Wales.This was largely due to circumstance, with iron forges located near iron supplies, pewter moulds located near the tin supplies and suitable soil, clusters of pottery kilns located near suitable clayey soil, grain-drying ovens in agricultural areas where sheep were raised, and salt production concentrated in its historical pre-Roman locations. Glass-making sites were located in or near urban centres.
In Wales none of the needed materials were available in suitable combination, and the forested, mountainous countryside was not amenable to this kind of industrialisation.
Clusters of tileries, both large and small, were at first operated by the Roman military to meet their own needs, and so there were temporary sites wherever the army went and could find suitable soil. This included a few places in Wales. However, as Roman influence grew, the army was able to obtain tiles from civilian sources which located their kilns in the lowland areas containing good soil, and then shipped the tiles to wherever they were needed.
Romanization
The Romans occupied the whole of the area now known as Wales, where they built Roman roads and castra, mined gold at Luentinum and conducted commerce, but their interest in the area was limited because of the difficult geography and shortage of flat agricultural land. Most of the Roman remains in Wales are military in nature. Sarn Helen, a major highway, linked the North with South Wales.The area was controlled by Roman legionary bases at Deva Victrix and Isca Augusta, two of the three such bases in Roman Britain, with roads linking these bases to auxiliaries' forts such as Segontium and Moridunum.
Furthermore, South-east Wales was the most Romanised part of the country. It is possible that Roman estates in the area survived as recognisable units into the eighth century: the kingdom of Gwent is likely to have been founded by direct descendants of the Silurian ruling class '
The best indicators of Romanising acculturation is the presence of urban sites and villas in the countryside. In Wales, this can be said only of the southeasternmost coastal region of South Wales. The only civitates in Wales were at Carmarthen and Caerwent. There were three small urban sites near Caerwent, and these and Roman Monmouth were the only other "urbanised" sites in Wales.
In the southwestern homeland of the Demetae, several sites have been classified as villas in the past, but excavation of these and examination of sites as yet unexcavated suggest that they are pre-Roman family homesteads, sometimes updated through Roman technology, but having a native character quite different from the true Roman-derived villas that are found to the east, such as in Oxfordshire.
Perhaps surprisingly, the presence of Roman-era Latin inscriptions is not suggestive of full Romanisation. They are most numerous at military sites, and their occurrence elsewhere depended on access to suitable stone and the presence of stonemasons, as well as patronage. The Roman fort complex at Tomen y Mur near the coast of northwestern Wales has produced more inscriptions than either Segontium or Noviomagus Reginorum.