Roads intersected the island, linking northern fortress with southern port, garrison with tribal capital, stretching from the forts along Hadrian’s Wall to the clustered villas of the South Downs, from the legionary fortress at Chester in the west to the large town of Caistor-next-Norwich on the east coast. And at the center of this complex of roads stood Londinium, one of the most impressive cities north of the Alps.
Roman London was a city of some 30,000 inhabitants, living in an area of more than 300 acres enclosed by three miles of strong stone walls, nine feet thick, up to twenty feet high, and pierced by gates where the main roads led through them. The river gate, which faced the traveler as he came across the wide, wooden bridge spanning the Thames, opened onto the street leading up to the Basilica, the center of commerce and government, a vast and impressive building more than 420 feet long, with high arcaded walls. Just inside this river gate were the public baths, and down the streets on either side were the wide, arched fronts of numerous shops and counting houses, and the porticoed homes of prosperous merchants.
Life in Londinium, like life in the other big towns of Roman Britain, was well-organized and pleasant for all but the poor and the slaves. The farms outside the walls, and the gardens within them, produced meat, vegetables, and fruit; potable water, piped in hollowed tree trunks, was plentiful; the Thames, whose wharves moored scores of trading ships, was full of salmon and trout and shoals of fresh-water fish. There was no shortage of work. Brickfields, potteries, and glassworks, joiners’ shops and mills, masons’ yards and furniture factories, as well as row upon row of warehouses and work sheds lined the riverfront. Latin was the universal language, written as well as spoken. The citizens of Londinium prided themselves in being more civilized than the Germanic pirates and raiders from across the sea - barbarians who worshiped gods of war, who feared and believed unfamiliar towns were places where evil spirits dwelt.
The Britons, Romanized and peaceable, were no match for these invaders. Although they still were held together by strong tribal loyalties and customs, they no longer possessed the warlike spirit that had inspired the Iceni tribe when they followed their Queen Boudica into battle against Roman conquerors in the reign of the Emperor Nero. Accustomed for centuries to relying on the empire’s legions to protect them, the Britons now were incapable of defending themselves, and as the fourth century drew to its close, they grew ever more in need of protection.
The Saxons, an increasing menace, had established bases along the Continental coast from which they could raid Britain more easily. In the west, the Scotti were an increasing threat under High King Niall of the Nine Hostages; in repeated raids hundreds of prisoners were carried off to become the slaves of Irish chieftains. Niall’s forces invaded as far inland as Chester, Caerleon-on-Usk, and Wroxeter. In 405, Niall was killed at sea, but the raids continued.
After the legions had gone, and the Vandals had begun to swarm across Roman Africa under King Gaiseric, Roman Britain had not lost all hope of survival. In 429, a bishop named Germanus arrived from Auxerre in Gaul. He had been a soldier in his youth and never had lost his taste for battle. Germanus found Britain a “most wealthy island,” with thriving communities governed by local kings whose families had been used to kingship from ancient times. Even before the Romans occupied Britain permanently in 43 A.D., Cunobelinus, the powerful ruler of the Catuvellauni tribe in southern Britain, used to style himself rex, or king, on the coins issued from his mint. With the breakdown of Roman rule, the Britons tended to honor ancient ties and rally around their regional leaders.
Despite the constant inroads by the barbarians, Germanus found that town life continued. Trade in the port of Londinium remained active; in Verulamium, farther north, the Roman theater had become a refuse dump for decaying market vegetables, but shops were open and local businesses flourished. Germanus also found that while the invaders might destroy isolated farms near the coast, burn the huts of peasants and fishermen, trample orchards and vineyards, they were not capable of fighting a pitched battle or storming the stone walls of a Roman town or fort.
Before his arrival in Britain, Germanus had been military governor of the Armorican district of Gaul, charged with guarding the Channel coast. It was not as a soldier, though, that he had been sent to Britain, but as a preacher who could combat a new heresy called Pelagianism. A Briton named Pelagius had begun to teach that the soul is born in a neutral state and that the human will was free to make its choice between virtue and vice. This idea denied the concept of original sin, and the bishops of Rome feared such teaching might undermine the authority of the church. Germanus, however, was as concerned with the bodies of the British people as with their souls.
He reorganized the bands of local militia, persuaded their leaders to appoint him their supreme commander, and taught them how to fight a formal battle. When the barbarians appeared, the Britons, instead of retreating inland, withdrew in a disciplined fashion and drew their enemies into the trap that Germanus had laid for them. The unsuspecting Saxons marched into a narrow valley, and when they had gone too far to retreat, Germanus cried, “Alleluia!” The Britons took up the cry and rushed down both sides of the valley onto their foes. The Saxons fled, dropping their spears as they ran.
It was a great victory, but only a temporary respite. As the years passed, the Saxons and their allies grew more resolute and enterprising. They came now not only in galleys but also in ships with leather sails, concealing their vessels in coastal inlets and using neglected roads to advance into the British countryside. They became expert at besieging and storming fortified encampments. They soon began to settle in the land they had previously been intent on pillaging and established small farming settlements around the wooden halls of their thanes, or lords.
In 446, the Britons made a final plea for help from Rome. Those parts of Romanized Britain that still were able to act collectively dispatched an urgent message to Aetius, the Roman general in Gaul: “To Aetius, three times consul, the groans of the Britons; the barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea drives us to the barbarians; between these two forms of death, we are either massacred or drowned.”
But there was no response. Aetius was occupied fighting barbarians in Gaul. No help came.
Then - or so it seems from the confused and incomplete records of these times - a call was made to Vortigern, a powerful ruler who had gained control of an extensive district in the west of Britain and who exercised considerable influence over the south of the island as well. According to some historians, Vortigern married Sevira, daughter of the Roman Emperor Magnus Maximus, and though a rough, British-speaking overlord himself, he had some respect for Roman ways. His advice to the Britons was to employ a Roman solution.
To maintain its power, the Roman Empire had relied not only upon recruits taken into its army from all the world’s races, but also upon entire tribes enlisted to defend particular areas. These tribes, or foederati, were admitted into the empire in return for defending whatever portion of it they were allotted; although the soldiers gained land within the empire, they maintained their own laws and customs and their own identities. This policy, Vortigern apparently suggested - and the British councilors agreed - should be adopted now. In return for their help in keeping the Pitts and Scotti and any other raiders at bay, and on the understanding that they live at peace with their British neighbors, a war band of Saxon troops and their women were accepted, and they settled in the southeastern region of Britain.
Venerable Bede, the Northumbrian monk and historian whose Ecclesiastical History of the English Church and People, completed in 731, is our chief source of information for this period, tells us that the leaders of the federated troops, Jute chiefs named Hengist and Horsa, established themselves on the Isle of Thanet, an area of fertile farmland separated from Kent by a narrow channel, which was guarded at each end by a Roman fort. The area was a long way from the parts of Britain under attack by the Picts and the Irish war bands, but it was convenient for Vortigern to keep them
under his control when they were not fighting in the north, and the Saxons were well placed to undertake coastal patrols for the protection of Londinium.
At first, Britain was successful. The Picts and Scotti were subdued, the Kentish settlement prospered, and Britain enjoyed a period of unaccustomed peace. But the settlers gradually called friends and reinforcements - Angles, Jutes, and Saxons - from across the North Sea and began spreading themselves deeper into southeastern Britain, demanding more land and greater payments. At some time in the 450s, the angry quarrels between them and their British employers flared into open war. At a ferocious battle at Crayford in Kent in 457, the Britons lost 4,000 men on the field and “fled to London in great terror.”
This event is the last recorded mention of London for a century and a half. Britain’s capital and other Roman towns fell victim to the invaders, now armed with Roman siege equipment. The Saxons advanced inland, devastating countryside and towns alike: “Public and private buildings were razed [according to Bede], priests were slain at the altar; bishops and people alike, regardless of rank, were destroyed with fire and sword, and none remained to bury those who had suffered a cruel death. A few wretched survivors captured in the hills were butchered wholesale, and others, desperate with hunger, came out and surrendered to the enemy for food, although they were doomed to lifelong slavery even if they escaped instant massacre. Some fled overseas in their misery; others, clinging to their homeland, eked out a wretched and fearful existence.”
Bede’s picture is a fearful one, yet the vast majority of survivors, in discomfort and misery, probably stayed close to what once had been their homes. Some may have sailed across the Channel to the old Roman province of Armorica, the first stage of three centuries of migration that eventually took a British (Celtic) language - and gave the modern name of Brittany - to this great Atlantic peninsula.
In the west, tribal leader Ambrosius Aurelianus stood against the Saxon threat and offered shelter to those who had escaped or were prepared to take up arms in defense of the old culture. He advised Vortigern of the dangers of the Saxon alliance and managed to avoid its consequences.
Ambrosius was of Roman descent, and the land he ruled was certainly as Romanized as any in Britain. Although the Saxon warrior Aelle landed near Selsey in 477 and carved out the kingdom of the South Saxons (the present-day county of Sussex), and in 495, Cerdic landed on the shore of Southampton Water to found the kingdom of the West Saxons (later King Alfred the Great’s kingdom of Wessex), the Romano-British kingdom of Ambrosius remained secure. To this haven, says a sixth-century British historian and monk named Gildas, men from the other threatened tribes of Britain flocked “as eagerly as bees when a storm is brewing.”
For some time, Ambrosius prevented conflict in his kingdom. A contemporary writer on the Continent described Britain in the 480s as prosperous and peaceful despite the Saxon incursions. By 500, there was a considerable settlement of Saxons along the east coast, and the kingdoms of Sussex and Wessex continued to flourish and expand. Yet in the Cotswold Hills, along the borders of Wales, and in Dumnonia (occupied today by the counties of Devon and Cornwall) Roman Britain lived on.
Although written records and archaeological evidence from this time in Britain are sparse, it is possible to build a credible picture of what life was like in the western area of Britain loyal to Ambrosius.
Some sort of seaborne trade was maintained with such Atlantic ports as Bordeaux and Nantes, and with the Mediterranean - increasingly so after about 500. Small amounts of wine in amphorae, and perhaps cooking oil as well, came in the ships of the traders. Early writings suggest that corn, woolen goods, hides, Irish wolfhounds (which were prized for their speed and strength), and slaves were exported in return.
In centers like Gloucester, life may have continued according to Roman customs. But in most of Ambrosius’ kingdom, people had reverted to a less Romanized way of life, grouped in small communities similar to the hill forts of their ancestors and speaking a variety of British dialects. For the poor life was difficult. Living in stone-and-thatch huts, tilling small fields to improve their diet of bread and occasional pieces of meat with herbs, such people still valued their freedom and sense of national identity - and were prepared to fight for them.
Perhaps to protect themselves against Saxon invasion and their cattle from raids, either by the Saxons or other British tribes, the inhabitants of this last enclave of Romano-British civilization built a series of linear earthworks. One of the largest of these is the Wansdyke, a man-made ridge that stretches fifty miles from Inkpen in what is now Berkshire, across Savernake Forest and the Marlborough Downs, over a Roman road that used to lead into Bath, on toward the Bristol Channel. Historians are uncertain of its purpose, but its presence, rising up from the peaceful fields of the modern English countryside, is a reminder of some tremendous effort by people who had only the most primitive implements to aid them.
Under Ambrosius, the Britons may have occasionally lost ground, but they never were driven into retreat. They had a cause and a leader. But once he died, succession was a concern. Could anyone replace Ambrosius? Could any man be a more effective leader?
With their warrior king dead, the Britons’ need for a leader in their struggle against the Saxons was answered by a young man whose ability would make him into a legend - Arthur.
“In those days [that followed the death of Ambrosias] the Saxons grew in numbers and prospered in Britain. . . . Then Arthur the warrior and the kings of the Britons fought against the Saxons, but Arthur himself was the dux bellorum, the commander in the battles. The first battle was on the mouth of the river which is called Glein. The second, the third, the fourth, and the fifth upon another river, which is called Dubglass, and is in the region of Linnuis. The sixth battle was upon the river which is called Bassas.
“The seventh battle was in the wood of Celidon - that is, Cat Coit Celidon. The eighth was the battle by the castle of Guinnion, in which Arthur carried upon his shoulders an image of the Blessed Mary, the Eternal Virgin. And the heathen were turned to flight on that day, and great was the slaughter brought upon them through the virtue of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and through the virtue of the Blessed Virgin, His Mother.
“The ninth battle was fought in the City of the Legion. The tenth battle was waged on the banks of the river which is called Tribruit. The eleventh battle was fought in the mountain which is called Agned. The twelfth battle was on Mount Badon where in one day nine hundred and sixty men fell in one onslaught of Arthur’s. And no one laid them low but himself alone. And in all these battles he stood out as victor.”
Thus, Arthur makes his first appearance in the historical record. Its compiler was the Welsh monk Nennius, writing in the ninth century; the work is the same Historia Brittonum that relates the “marvels” of the stone that bears the footprint of Arthur’s dog Cavall and of the mysterious mound that marks the grave of Arthur’s son Anir.
Although these marvels may defy belief, Nennius is more credible when he lists these twelve victories won by Arthur as commander of British forces. While some of the places named are no longer identifiable, some others might be pinpointed, based on ninth-century Welsh names. It is impossible to identify the sites of Castle Guinnion, the mountain called Agned, or the River Bassas, but it has been assumed that the region of Linnuis could be the Lindsey area of Lincolnshire south of the Humber, and that the River Glein is the Lincolnshire River Glen. This would support the belief that Arthur may have campaigned against the Saxons and Angles who were landing on the east coast of Britain in the early sixth century - giving their name to the area now known as East Anglia. The wood of Celidon is probably the forest of Caledonia in the wild Scottish uplands beyond Hadrian’s Wall, where a campaign against the Picts was fought about this time. The City of the Legion is probably Chester. Mount Badon has been variously identified with Badbury near Swindon in Wiltshire, Badbury Hill in Berkshire, Badbury Rings near Blandford in Dorset, and Bedwyn near Inkpen - but in any case, i
t is believed to be in southern Britain near the Wansdyke. Wherever it was, Mount Badon was clearly the site of an important battle or siege. Arthur’s troops likely surrounded the steep and fortified hill, cutting off the enemy’s supplies, forcing them to break out, then attacking them as they tried to escape.
Because the list of battles appears to range so widely across the country, some historians believe all the battles took place in one area - the north, for instance, or the southwest. But if they ranged across Britain, this would bear out Nennius’ description of Arthur as a dux bellorum: a supreme military leader who took his army from coast to coast fighting invaders whenever and wherever they seemed most threatening.
Arthur’s defense of Britain may have been based on a system developed by the Romans in the previous century, when the island was divided into four provinces and its military organization into three commands. The Dux Britanniarum (the Duke of the Britains), who had his headquarters at York, was responsible for defending the northern frontier against the Picts and Scotti; the Comes Litoris Saxonici (the Count of the Saxon Shore) defended the southeastern coast from Germanic pirates aided by forts that stretched from the Wash to the Isle of Wight. Both these leaders commanded a local militia who were charged with defending the frontier line. The third leader, the Comes Britanniarum (the Count of the Britains) was entrusted with a field army of six cavalry and three infantry units, a mobile army that was able to come to the defense of his colleagues when the need arose.
The army under the count’s command was chiefly cavalry. The early Roman army had made little use of cavalry, preferring to rely on its infantry, grouped in legions 6,000 strong. Gradually, however, as the Roman generals came in contact with barbarian troops using cavalry armed with bows and spears, they incorporated cavalry into their commands. These were, usually, lightly armed foederati, but there were also mailed cavalry, known as cataphracti or Clibanarii. The cataphracts, whose name comes from a Greek word meaning “covered in mail,” wore helmets and body armor made of iron scales or chain mail, with arm and leg pieces attached. The Clibanarii, so called from the Latin word for baking pan, were armed from head to foot in scales or mail, and their horses, too, wore protective iron scales sewn on blankets - a heavy and cumbersome uniform, especially in hot weather. Both types of cavalry were armed with long spears and swords and could slash their way through enemy troops with terrible effect.
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