Invasion Of Britain Research Articles

The Anglo-Saxon Invasion of Britain

The Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries is typically a story of slaughter anddestruction. This is largely because Gildas, the only known contemporary to write about the events,portrayed it as such, and subsequent writers have taken his interpretation as fact. However, Gildas wasnot a historian, nor did he claim to be. Modern archeological research has proven that Gildas exaggeratedmuch of the destruction he claims took place, but this has not changed the popular notion that theAnglo-Saxons conquered and subdued the native Britons. However, the literature, art, and language ofthe Saxons and the Britons prior to and during the Anglo-Saxon period indicates the two peoples musthave joined together in more than just war. However, the question remains: to what extent did thisaffect the peoples, and the culture that emerged from this period? This paper uses an interdisciplinaryapproach. First, it uses archeological evidence to critically examine the modern historiographicevidence for the conquer-and-destroy model of Anglo-Saxon colonization. It then uses literary analysisto demonstrate the Celtic story-telling influences in the Anglo-Saxon literary opus Beowulf, and finallyconsiders the linguistic evidence of Celtic language influences on Old English. Ultimately, though theAnglo-Saxon language (Old English) emerged as the dominant language of the island, there was far morecultural exchange between the two peoples than has previously been acknowledged. This is crucial tounderstanding this important era of British history and the development of British-English culture.

THE PROLOGUE OF VALERIUS FLACCUS’ARGONAUTICA(1.1–21): QUINDECIMVIRATE,CORTINAAND CALEDONIAN SEA

This paper challenges certain more or less standard interpretations of Valerius Flaccus’Argonauticaprologue, viz. that lines 5–9 reveal that the poet was axvvir sacris faciundis, that thecortina(6) stood in or in front of his house to symbolise his quindecimvirate, and thatCaledonius… |Oceanus(8–9) refers to an exploit of Vespasian during the Claudian invasion of Britain. I argue that Valerius’ quindecimvirate is a mirage, that thecortinastood in a different ‘house’, and that ‘Caledonian Ocean’ refers to an event or events closer in time to the composition of theArgonautica. The alternative interpretations proposed radically alter perceptions of the prologue.

Shedding light on ancient secrets [cryptology of ancient documents

Many ancient texts have kept their secrets for centuries. But a host of low-tech and high-tech tools are helping cryptologists to reveal the past.WHEN ALAN TURING developed the machine that helped to crack the Enigma code, his aim was to understand messages that the Nazis wanted to keep secret. When ancient writing expert Roger Tomlin came across wooden tablets found recently at an excavation site in central London, he knew the words - now mere scratches on wood but originally marked in beeswax with a metal stylus almost 2,000 years ago - were not meant to be a secret. However, it took him a year to decipher them. The tablets are the oldest handwritten documents found in the UK, detailing financial transactions and events in early London, starting a few years after the Roman invasion of Britain; they even mention events related to the revolt of Queen Boudica of the Celtic Iceni tribe in what is now East Anglia, who stood up against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire.

Astronomy and Tidal Analysis Applied to the Study of Julius Caesar's Commentarii

A beautify example of forensic astronomy and geophysics, applied to a specific problem of history, is given by the work of Thomas Lewin. He used the references to natural phenomena in the Caesar’s Commentarii de Bello Gallico to determine times and places of the Caesar campaigns in Britain. In “The invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar”, published in 1859, Lewin explains how, using ephemeris and tidal data, he deduced the date and the place from where Caesar departed from Gaul and the place where he landed for the first time in Britain. Besides the Lewin’s analyses, in this paper we will give also some considerations on the orientation of Caesar’s navigation by night, using the stars of Ursa Minor, Ursa Major and Draco.

‘To Arms!’: Invasion Narratives and Late‐Victorian Literature

AbstractThis article introduces readers to the fiction of invasion, a paranoid literary phenomenon that responded to widespread social concerns about the possible invasion of Britain by an array of hostile foreign forces in the period between 1870 and 1914. It begins with an overview of the development of this relatively unknown body of work in the late‐Victorian and Edwardian periods, charting assumptions of imminent large‐scale war, fascination with the technology of warfare and the marked participation of military men who used the fiction to agitate for increased defence spending. While this alarmist brand of popular fiction provoked considerable contemporary commentary, modern critical engagement with it has been somewhat limited. Beginning in the 1960s and dominated by the work of the master bibliographer I. F. Clarke, the initial scholarly response necessarily took the form of classification and survey and evinced particular interest in adjudging the accuracy of fictional predictions about future war. More recent scholarship is concerned with reading the fiction in the context of its own times, probing its relationship with external imperial factors and internal domestic concerns and its effectiveness as a propaganda tool. In addition to offering an overview of this line of enquiry, this article seeks to broaden the understanding of the invasion narrative in fin‐de‐siècle popular fiction, drawing lines out to the recurrence of the invasion theme across a broad range of genres and modes exceeding that of future war fiction and including so‐called ‘yellow peril’ narratives, crime and detective fiction and the gothic. In conclusion, a number of avenues complementing the textual and the historical are suggested for future exploration.

Medieval Caesarean Section

J Obstet Gynaecol Can 2014;36(11):1040 C section has been a part of obstetrical culture since ancient times. Its history is shrouded in myth, and the true origins of the term “Caesarean” have likely been distorted over time. It is commonly believed that “Caesarean” is derived from the surgical birth of Julius Caesar. However, this seems unlikely, since his mother, Aurelia, is reputed to have lived to hear of her son’s invasion of Britain and was 60 to 70 years old when she died. It may be that one of Julius’ ancestors was delivered by a postmortem section, according to Pliny the Elder. In any event, it is clear that most procedures were performed on women who were dead or dying. The odds of a woman surviving hemorrhage and/or subsequent infection were slim until the 19th century, when surgical delivery became a viable option.

Gallic War Songs (II): Marcus Cicero, Quintus Cicero, and Caesar’s Invasion of Britain

This article assembles and examines the evidence for the poetic outputs of Marcus and Quintus Cicero related to Caesar’s invasion of Britain. Following the establishment of a relative chronology of the evidence for their work, it is argued that Quintus Cicero most likely produced a fabula praetexta (not an epic poem, as commonly assumed). His brother, in turn, wrote an epic, based on Quintus’ eye-witness reports. Careful analysis of the ancient discourse about this piece reveals insights in Cicero’s poetic workshop and the creation of ‘archival truth’ through narrativising historical events in epic poetry. Finally, a case is made for greater attention to financial affairs between Caesar and the Ciceros that happen to coincide with the drafting process of their respective literary works.

Claudius Caesar: Image and Power in the Early Roman Empire (review)

Reviewed by: Claudius Caesar: Image and Power in the Early Roman Empire Laura A. De Lozier Josiah Osgood . Claudius Caesar: Image and Power in the Early Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. xv + 357 pp. 63 black-and-white ills., 5 maps, 4 tables. Cloth, $80; paper, $32.99. This book explores the changes to the political culture of the principate caused by the Praetorian Guard's acclamation of Claudius as imperator in 41 C.E. Osgood approaches his subject through an art-historical model informed by Kaisergeschichte. He studies Claudius' symbolic role, what he calls the "powerful fiction" of the emperor (26), a focus that distinguishes Osgood's book from previous studies. The book is intended to be accessible to students from all disciplines (xi). Quotations in the original languages are avoided, except in an appendix (105-6). Brief surveys of imperial practices precede the laying out of [End Page 330] evidence. A bibliographic essay for each section of endnotes contextualizes the chapter's discussion. The book is attractively illustrated, and Osgood writes in a clear and engaging style. After sketching in the prologue what the imperial system looked like in 41 C.E., Osgood reviews in the introduction how the study of Claudius has evolved. He takes issue with Fergus Millar's formulation of the Roman emperor as merely the sum of his deeds; Osgood argues that the emperor actively disseminated policies and images (25-26). Twelve chapters follow tackling a problem or opportunity for image-making at a given moment in Claudius' principate. Osgood embraces discrepancies and hostility in his sources and concedes that some things are nearly impossible to recover. He does not shy from following more speculative lines of interpretation but acknowledges when he does so in the text and directs the reader to further literature in the endnotes. The first three chapters treat Claudius' accession and immediate responses to its legitimacy. The first chapter, "Claudius Caesar," emphasizes the extra-constitutional means Claudius used to secure power as the first Caesar who was not a Julius. In acquiring Caligula's residence Claudius obtained the empire's financial and military records as well as the slaves and freedmen who kept them and irrevocably altered the practice of letting these materials pass under private law to the legitimate heirs of the princeps (38-40). The second chapter, "A Statue in Silver," examines the visual culture from Claudius' first years: his coins and portraits; the pageantry for the consecration of his grandmother Livia (perhaps depicted on the "Reliefs of the Vicomagistri," 57-58); and monuments to his family in Rusellae and Ravenna. These early images highlighted Claudius' maturity; underscored his connections to Augustus through Livia, his mother Antonia, his father Drusus, and his brother Germanicus; and compensated for his inexperience by suggesting that he had inherited their skills and virtues, particularly constantia from his mother (56-61). In the third chapter, "Imperial Favors," communities and groups outside of Italy strategically deploy embassies to the new emperor to increase their visibility, to affirm his legitimacy through honors, and to secure his confirmation of their rights and privileges. The subsequent five chapters explore how Claudius began to fulfill the promises about his potential made in his earliest images. "Subduing the Ocean," the fourth chapter, considers the invasion of Britain. Osgood is sensitive to the campaign's planning and to how its successes were shared with potential successors (Claudius' son-in-law Pompeius, prospective son-in-law Silanus, and infant son Britannicus) and his wife Messallina. Osgood draws on the Villa Medici reliefs traditionally attributed to an Ara Pietatis Augustae to reconstruct lost visual elements from Claudius' victory celebrations (94-95). The acquisition of geographic knowledge and its ideological implications are the subjects of the fifth chapter, "Lists of Peoples and Places." Annexations in Mauretania, Lycia, Thrace, and Judea and the scrupulous avoidance of wars in Germany, Dacia, and Parthia illustrate a core concern for security (114). Imposing order was part of Roman self-identity, but Claudius and his officials matched [End Page 331] ideology with a genuine ability to bring stability. In drawing administrative units, setting each unit's status and fiscal responsibility, building roads, and lining them with...

‘Broken Friendships and Vanished Loyalties’: Gender, Collective (In)Security and Anti-Fascism in Britain in the 1930s

The study of women's adherence to fascist movements and regimes is now widely developed, and much has been done to rectify the reductive view that women who supported Britain's fascist movements suffered from false consciousness or, on the other hand, were merely the victims of fascist sexism and misogyny. But what about those women who resisted fascism, women who were both actively and temperamentally opposed to the British Union of Fascists and who dedicated even more energy to opposing fascism and Nazism abroad? We know that the names of many political women appeared on Heinrich Himmler's Black List for Invasion of Britain, yet there were no organisations that successfully united like-minded anti-fascist women. This article is particularly concerned with the various ways in which women organised against fascism but also how their investments in pacifism and particularly the League of Nation's panacea of collective security acted to reign in a more concerted anti-fascism. It examines how anti-fascism was and was not reconciled with pacifism, and more specifically how women – represented as the world's natural peace lovers – worked through these ideological and emotional dilemmas during the course of the 1930s.

How to Think about the Future: History, Climate Change, and Conflict

History is our only laboratory for the future. But examining history reveals two apparently contradictory messages. First, history repeats itself. The first quote above is not from some contemporary political analyst in Afghanistan, Georgia, Iraq, or Colombia, though it could well be—It is from the Roman historian Tacitus, describing the Roman invasion of Britain, and was written nearly 2,000 years ago. Second, only charlatans and bookies predict the future. Complexity and human ingenuity combine to make the future inherently unpredictable. It is possible to make projections or educated speculations, but few true predictions.The second quote is from a former chief executive of the Digital Equipment Corporation, one of the pioneering computer companies in the USA. The future is the past, with new wares and bits replaced. The problem is in predicting which parts will stay and what the innovations are going to be.The biggest mistake organizations make is in assuming an either/or future: no change—business as usual, or all change—a brave new world. Neither ever will be true. Understanding how to think about and prepare for a complex and uncertain future is going to be the key challenge for humanitarian agencies during the next decade. Those that adapt and are nimble will be able to provide service to the disaster-affected of the world. Those that don’t, won’t.

The Long American Grain Invasion of Britain: Market Integration and the Wheat Trade Between North America and Britain from the Eighteenth Century

This paper provides evidence that transatlantic commodity market integration began prior to the “first era of globalization” at the end of the nineteenth century. It does so by giving a long term perspective to the story of the development of an Atlantic Economy in wheat between the United States and Britain. Both trade statistics and contemporary comment reveal the importance of this trade from the middle to late eighteenth century, long before the so-called grain invasion of the late nineteenth century. Using data on imports from America and a large volume of substantiating primary evidence, specific periods are identified when market integration might have been possible. Using price data for wheat in America and Britain, some evidence is found that markets were integrated, but this process was continuously being interrupted by “exogenous” events, such as trade policy, war and politics. Transportation costs cannot be seen to be the driving force behind periods of increased trade, which are more attributable to the absence of these exogenous events.

Pushing Wheat: Why Supply Mattered for the American Grain Invasion of Britain in the Nineteenth Century

This paper documents the evolution of variables central to understanding the creation of an Atlantic Economy in wheat between the US and the UK in the nineteenth century. The cointegrated VAR model is then applied to the period 1838-1913 in order to find long-run relationships between these variables. The main result is that explanations for the expansion of trade based on falling barriers to trade need to be augmented by another factor: the expansion of US supply. This implies that the growth of the Atlantic Economy cannot wholly be attributed to the decline in transportation costs, as is usually considered to be the case.

A. Plautius' Campaign in Britain: An Alternative Reading of the Narrative in Cassius Dio (60.19.5–21.2)

Three aspects of Cassius Dio's account of the Claudian invasion of Britain are discussed. First, the convention, by which ancient historians routinely introduced their detailed narrative of military campaigns with a summary, allows the two first battles in the sequence to be eliminated as separate events. Secondly, the kings, Togodumnus in Cassius Dio and Cogidumnus in Tacitus' Agricola, are taken to be the same individual, who after defeat was reconciled to be Claudius' client-ruler. Thirdly, the argument is restated that the invasion took place through the harbours of West Sussex on a route suggested by the description given by Dio and by the evidence of place-names, known from the Geography of Ptolemy and the Antonine Itinerary.

Exhibition: Napoleon and the Invasion of Britain

Exhibition: Napoleon and the Invasion of Britain

The Claudian Invasion of Britain and the Cult of Victoria Britannica

The Claudian Invasion of Britain and the Cult of Victoria Britannica

The First Century Historians of Roman Britain

The ‘stratigraphy’ of literary sources is a matter that archaeologists need to bear in mind if or when they attempt to employ them in supplementing or interpreting archaeological material. The work of earlier historians is ‘redeposited’ in that of later writers in a great variety of ways and in a variable state of completeness. This can be seen in the different treatments by Tacitus and Dio Cassius of the Boudican rebellion, and their use of earlier material revealed in this comparison should alert us to the need for extreme care in assessing events for which only one literary source exists such as the Roman invasion of Britain in AD43.

Water vole in the Scottish uplands: distribution patterns of disturbed and pristine populations ahead and behind the American mink invasion front

AbstractThe invasion of Britain by American mink has had a catastrophic impact on water vole populations. We surveyed and live‐trapped water voles over 2 years in eight c. 25 km2 blocks in the upland of Scotland behind and ahead of the mink invasion front. Water voles had a similar distribution in the Grampian Mountains of north‐east Scotland, on the edge of the invasion front, and in the Assynt area of north‐west Sutherland well beyond the front. Water voles occurred in small, discrete colonies. Median nearest‐neighbour distance between colonies was 0.6‐0.7 km in both areas. Colonies experienced a high degree of turnover with extinction and colonization being commonplace and only a fraction of suitable sites were occupied at a given time. High dispersal rates connecting numerous (> 30) colonies over large areas (> 25 km2) enable water voles to persist in such circumstances. Synchronized fluctuations in occupancy not caused by mink also occurred at the regional scales of the Grampian Mountains and Assynt areas. Localized mink invasions have fragmented a previously continuous metapopulation into smaller clusters and this may indirectly affect the likely persistence of water vole colonies not directly exposed to predation by mink.

Sentius Saturninus and the Roman Invasion of Britain

Our fullest account, indeed the only account of any length, of the Roman invasion of Britain in a.d. 43 appears in the Roman History of Cassius Dio, composed from earlier sources in the third century. Not surprisingly, this is taken as providing a narrative framework for the events of the invasion. However, Dio's account omits or is unclear about even major matters of importance: in recent years, for example, there has been a debate over whether the army commanded by Aulus Plautius actually landed in Kent or in Sussex. A brief notice of the invasion appears in the Breviarium of the fourth-century writer Eutropius. The significance of what Eutropius wrote is examined below and its importance for the strategy of the invasion is assessed.

Alchester, a Claudian ‘Vexillation Fortress’ near the Western Boundary of the Catuvellauni: New Light on the Roman Invasion of Britain

Recent excavations at Alchester have shown that this Roman small town in Oxfordshire with its rectangular ground-plan had a military predecessor. It was preceded by one, possibly two, successive vexillation fortresses. Parts are buried deep beneath the civilian occupation layers of the later town. However, west of the late second-century town walls, a significant amount of the earlier vexillation fortress (or a large annexe to such) are more easily accessible to archaeological investigation. This paper focuses on the excavations in 1999, the first ever to take place within the vexillation fortress (or its annexe). The main emphasis is on the military phase. The discoveries from Alchester have major implications for the history of the Roman invasion of Britain. Although the investigations are still in progress and are to continue until 2003, analysis of the mid-first-century finds is well advanced so that there is little doubt about the general historical interpretation.

Der Sanitatsdienst im Romischen Reich: Ein sozialgeschichte Studie zum romischen Militarsanitatswesen nebst einer Prosopographie des Sanitatspersonals (review)

Reviewed by: Der Sanitätsdienst im Römischen Reich: Ein sozialgeschichte Studie zum römischen Militärsanitätswesen nebst einer Prosopographie des Sanitätspersonals Vivian Nutton Juliane C. Wilmanns. Der Sanitätsdienst im Römischen Reich: Ein sozialgeschichte Studie zum römischen Militärsanitätswesen nebst einer Prosopographie des Sanitätspersonals. Medizin der Antike, no. 2. Hildesheim, Germany: Olms-Weidmann, 1995. x + 314 pp. Ill. DM 68.00. The publication of this Munich Habilitationschrift will be welcomed by students of ancient medicine and of military medicine for its careful exposition of the ancient evidence for the medical personnel and organization of the Roman army. Concentrating mainly on the period 31 B.C. to A.D. 284, Wilmanns first discusses questions of military and medical organization, before passing to a prosopography of the medical personnel active in the Roman legions, auxiliaries, [End Page 329] and fleets. There are also lists of medical men by regiment, and a map locating various hospitals. Wilmanns makes many cogent points: medici ordinarii were of centurion status; although many auxiliary forts had a small hospital, not all did, and in at least one instance a hospital building was replaced by something else; some physicians joined up for campaigns, and may well have returned to civilian life once the fighting died down. Particularly impressive is the range of her information and the way in which she integrates the very latest archaeological and epigraphical information. Her comments on the evidence for hospitals drastically revise earlier lists, and it is a pity that, despite several good indexes, these observations become almost lost among the footnotes. Above all, there is a solidity about the argumentation and conclusions of both parts of the book that will make this the first resort of anyone wishing to study the medicine of the Roman army. Factual errors are very few. I would have liked a more detailed discussion of the apparently near-total disappearance from use of the legionary hospitals after 284, as well as of the common assumption of a triage system, by which only the serious wounded were sent back from campaign to a base fort hospital—the latter notion seems implausible for Britain, but a German or Danubian perspective might be different. The new Vindolanda tablets show how much sickness and how many accident-injuries there might be in an apparently peaceful period to fill some of the beds of a legionary hospital (cf. recently the sick list of A.D. 253–59 in R. Marichal, Les ostraca de Bu Njem [1992], and Pap. Yadin 723). The idea that Dioscorides might have served as a sort of inspector general of hospitals seems a somewhat far-fetched interpretation of his “life as a soldier.” A few individuals seem to have slipped through the net. The physician and pharmacologist Scribonius Largus took part in the invasion of Britain in A.D. 43, although in what capacity is not entirely clear. A mysterious Archigenes, a “camp doctor,” is recorded in the Anecdota Parisina published by J. A. Cramer, vol. 4 (Oxford, 1841), p. 404. The decoration of military accoutrements on a tomb of a physician Asclepiades at Odessa ca. A.D. 175 (G. Mihailov, Inscr. graec. in Bulgaria repertae 150) suggests that their physician owner had seen military service. Somewhat more doubtful are Glaucias of Mesembria (ibid. 315), whose portrait was either inscribed on a shield or depicted him in military clothing, and Xenocrates of Heraclea in Pontus (Bulletin épigraphique 1938, n. 459), with veteran connections (but cf. Die Inschriften von Heraklea 7). R. P. Wright, in a letter to me, also suspected that the physician at Maryport (Roman inscriptions of Britain 808) was military, but proof is lacking. But these minor criticisms should not be allowed to mar one’s gratitude for what is an excellent survey of material that is both difficult to find and refractory to interpret. Future historians of ancient military medicine will have to begin here. Vivian Nutton Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London Copyright © 1997 The Johns Hopkins University Press