Roman Britain was the territory that became the Roman Province of Britannia after the Roman conquest of Britain, consisting of a large part of the island of Great Britain. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410.
Vindolanda was a Roman auxiliary fort (castrum) just south of Hadrian's Wall in northern England, which it pre-dated. Archaeological excavations of the site show it was under Roman occupation from roughly 85 AD to 370 AD. Located near the modern village of Bardon Mill in Northumberland, it guarded the Stanegate, the Roman road from the River Tyne to the Solway Firth. It is noted for the Vindolanda tablets, a set of wooden leaf-tablets that were, at the time of their discovery, the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain.
Roman roads in Britannia were initially designed for military use, created by the Roman army during the nearly four centuries (AD 43–410) that Britannia was a province of the Roman Empire.
Attacotti, Atticoti, Attacoti, Atecotti, Atticotti, and Atecutti were Latin names for a people first recorded as raiding Roman Britain between 364 and 368, alongside the Scoti, Picts, Saxons, Roman military deserters and the indigenous Britons themselves. The marauders were defeated by Theodosius in 368.
Northumberland, England's northernmost county, is a land where Roman occupiers once guarded a walled frontier, Anglian invaders fought with Celtic natives, and Norman lords built castles to suppress rebellion and defend a contested border with Scotland. The present-day county is a vestige of an independent kingdom that once stretched from Edinburgh to the Humber, hence its name, meaning literally 'north of the Humber'. Reflecting its tumultuous past, Northumberland has more castles than any other county in England, and the greatest number of recognised battle sites. Once an economically important region that supplied much of the coal that powered the industrial revolution, Northumberland is now a primarily rural county with a small and gradually shrinking population.
Lucius Neratius Marcellus was an imperial Roman military officer and senator who held a number of posts in the Emperor's service. Marcellus was elected consul twice, first under Domitian in 95 AD and again under Hadrian in 129. His life provides several examples of how patronage operated in early Imperial Rome.
Valentia was probably one of the Roman provinces of the Diocese of "the Britains" in late Antiquity. Its position, capital, and even existence remain a matter of scholarly debate. It was not mentioned in the Verona List compiled around AD 312 and so was probably formed out of one or more of the other provinces established during the Diocletian Reforms. Some scholars propose Valentia was a new name for the entire diocese, but the List of Offices names it as a consular-rank province along with Maxima Caesariensis and the other equestrian-ranked provinces. Hypotheses for the placement of Valentia include Wales, with its capital at Deva (Chester); Cumbria south of Hadrian's Wall, with its capital at Luguvalium (Carlisle), the lands between the Antonine Wall and Hadrian's Wall, possibly with a capital at Habitancum (Risingham),, although the latter is dismissed by some modern scholars due to the absence of archaeological evidence for a Roman re-occupation of southern Scotland in the fourth century.
Fullofaudes was a Dux Britanniarum, a military leader in Roman Britain in the later fourth century.
A wax tablet is a tablet made of wood and covered with a layer of wax, often linked loosely to a cover tablet, as a "double-leaved" diptych. It was used as a reusable and portable writing surface in Antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages. Cicero's letters make passing reference to the use of cerae, and some examples of wax-tablets have been preserved in waterlogged deposits in the Roman fort at Vindolanda on Hadrian's Wall. Medieval wax tablet books are on display in several European museums.
Segedunum was a Roman fort at modern-day Wallsend, North Tyneside in North East England. The fort lay at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall near the banks of the River Tyne, forming the easternmost portion of the wall. It was in use as a garrison for approximately 300 years, from around 122 AD, almost up to 400AD. Today, Segedunum is the most thoroughly excavated fort along Hadrian's Wall, and is operated as Segedunum Roman Fort, Baths and Museum. It forms part of the Hadrian's Wall UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Vindolanda tablets were, at the time of their discovery, the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain. They are a rich source of information about life on the northern frontier of Roman Britain. Written on fragments of thin, postcard-sized wooden leaf-tablets with carbon-based ink, the tablets date to the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. Although similar records on papyrus were known from elsewhere in the Roman Empire, wooden tablets with ink text had not been recovered until 1973, when archaeologist Robin Birley, his attention being drawn by student excavator Keith Liddell, discovered some at the site of Vindolanda, a Roman fort in northern England.
Luguvalium was a Roman town in northern Britain in antiquity. It was located within present-day Carlisle, Cumbria, and may have been the capital of the 4th-century province of Valentia.
Robin Edgar Birley was a British archaeologist. He was the Director of Excavations at the Roman site of Vindolanda and head of the Vindolanda research committee. He was the son of Eric Birley and brother of Anthony Birley. His wife Patricia Birley and son Andrew Birley are also published authors on Roman Vindolanda.
The overall size of the Roman forces in Roman Britain grew from about 40,000 in the mid 1st century AD to a maximum of about 55,000 in the mid 2nd century. The proportion of auxiliaries in Britain grew from about 50% before 69 AD to over 70% in c. 150 AD. By the mid-2nd century, there were about 70 auxiliary regiments in Britain, for a total of over 40,000 men. These outnumbered the 16,500 legionaries in Britain by 2.5 to 1. This was the greatest concentration of auxilia in any single province of the Roman Empire. It implies major continuing security problems; this is supported by the (thin) historical evidence. After Agricola, the following emperors conducted major military operations in Britain: Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Constantius I, and Septimius Severus.
The Vallum is a huge earthwork associated with Hadrian's Wall in England. Unique on any Roman frontier, it runs practically from coast to coast to the south of the wall.
Hadrian's Wall, also known as the Roman Wall, Picts' Wall, or Vallum Hadriani in Latin, is a former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. Running from Wallsend on the River Tyne in the east to Bowness-on-Solway in the west of what is now northern England, it was a stone wall with large ditches in front of it and behind it that crossed the whole width of the island. Soldiers were garrisoned along the line of the wall in large forts, smaller milecastles and intervening turrets. In addition to the wall's defensive military role, its gates may have been customs posts.
Scotland during the Roman Empire refers to the protohistorical period during which the Roman Empire interacted within the area of modern Scotland. Despite sporadic attempts at conquest and government between the 1st and 4th centuries AD, most of modern Scotland, inhabited by the Caledonians and the Maeatae, was not incorporated into the Roman Empire.
Cataractonium was a fort and settlement in Roman Britain. The settlement evolved into Catterick, located in North Yorkshire, England.
Sulpicia Lepidina was the wife of Flavius Cerialis, prefect of the Ninth Cohort of Batavians, stationed at Vindolanda in Roman Britain in the early 2nd century AD. She is known from her correspondence, including a birthday invitation she received from Claudia Severa.
Roman Cumbria was an area that lay on the north-west frontier of Roman Britain, and, indeed, of the Roman Empire itself.. Interest in the Roman occupation of the region lies in this frontier aspect: why did the Romans choose to occupy the north-west of England; why build a solid barrier in the north of the region ; why was the region so heavily militarised; to what extent were the native inhabitants "Romanised" compared to their compatriots in southern England?
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