ROMANO-BRITISH NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



or four years the Romans held all the south and midlands as far as 

 Exeter, Shrewsbury and Lincoln ; part was annexed, part left to ' pro- 

 tected ' princes — for instance, the princes of the Iceni in what is now 

 Norfolk and Suffolk. Then came a pause ; some thirty years were 

 spent by Ostorius Scapula and his successors in reducing the hill tribes 

 of Wales and Yorkshire, and during these years the protected princi- 

 palities were absorbed. About a.d. 8o the advance into Scotland 

 began ; about a.d. i 24 the Emperor Hadrian built his wall from Tyne 

 to Solway, and henceforward the Roman frontier was sometimes to the 

 north, never to the south of this line. 



The province thus acquired fell practically, though not officially, 

 into two well marked divisions, which coincide roughly with the low- 

 lands conquered in the first years of the conquest and the hills which 

 were conquered later. The former was the district of settled peaceful life, 

 and in it we have to include the area now called Northamptonshire. The 

 troops appear to have been soon withdrawn from this district, and with 

 a few definite exceptions there probably was not a fort or fortress through- 

 out this part of our island after the end of the first century. It was the 

 Roman practice, at least in the European provinces of the Empire, to 

 mass the troops almost exclusively along the frontiers and to leave peace- 

 ful interior districts free from garrisons, and Britain was no exception. 

 The whole mihtary force was stationed in Wales or in the north — 

 that is, in the troublesome regions and on the Caledonian frontier. This 

 military district was purely military ; it had its fortresses, roads and 

 garrisons, but no towns or ' villas ' or ordinary civilian life. The army 

 which held it was perhaps forty thousand strong and ranked as one of 

 the chief among the armies of the provinces. The most important 

 element in Roman Britain was the military element. 



With this military element, however, we are not here concerned. 

 For our present purpose it is enough to note its existence in order to 

 explain the rarity of military remains in Northamptonshire. But we 

 may pause to examine the features of the non-military district, within 

 which the area of our county lies. These features are not sensational. 

 Britain was a small province, remote from Rome, and by no means 

 wealthy. It did not reach the higher developments of city life, of 

 culture and of commerce which we meet abundantly in more favoured 

 lands, in Gaul or Spain or Africa. Nevertheless it had a character of 

 its own. 



In the first place, Britain, like all western Europe, became Roman- 

 ized. Perhaps its Romanization was comparatively late in date and 

 imperfect in extent, but in the end the Britons generally adopted the 

 Roman speech and civilization, and in our island, as in Gaul and Spain 

 and elsewhere, the difference between ' Roman ' and ' provincial ' 

 practically vanished. When about a.d. 410 the Roman rule in Britain 

 ended, the so-called ' departure of the Romans ' did not mean an emigra- 

 tion of alien officials, soldiers and traders, such as we might see to-day if 

 English rule ended abruptly in India or French rule in Algiers. It was 



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