Writing Roman Britain: Roman Ethnography and Historiography, AD 43-61

Abstract

Roman accounts of the history, geography and ethnography of Britain, while useful to modern historians for the limited factual information they contain, are perhaps of even more use for the insight they give into Roman ways of perceiving the world and, thus, into Roman imperialism. This thesis examines these records of Britain and explores the worldview that lay behind their writing. Throughout the accounts, a consistent imagery appears: on one side is Rome, synonymous with order and civilisation. The Roman people are moderate and rational. The Roman army is inevitably victorious, winning through valour and discipline. On the other side are the northern barbarians and their lands, the embodiment of chaos. They are literally incomprehensible: they speak no civilised tongue. They are technologically backward - having villages rather than cities - and are irrational and emotional, with tendencies to immoderate behaviour such as drunkenness. The landscape they inhabit is bleak, damp and inhospitable.