CELTIC AND ROMANO-BRITISH HERTFORDSHIRE 



A little before his death, which occurred about a.d. 41, dissensions 

 arose among his sons Adminius, Togodumnus and Caratacus, and possibly a 

 fourth, Bericus. The dissensions led to an insurrection " on account of 

 which Adminius was banished by his father. He fled to the Emperor 

 Caligula and persuaded him in a.d. 40 to start on an expedition to invade 

 Britain.'^ The army got no farther than the sea shore opposite Britain, 

 where, as the story goes, the mad Caligula drawing up his troops suddenly 

 ordered them to gather shells as ' the spoils of the ocean,' and then retired.*' 

 The confusion in Britain continued after Cunobeline's death when Togodumnus 

 and Caratacus either divided their father's dominion or ruled jointly. 



In A.D. 43 the Emperor Claudius, at the instigation of Bericus, who 

 had fled to Rome,'" sent an army under Aulus Plautius to subjugate Britain. 

 The Romans met with little opposition till they reached a river, probably 

 the Medway, where Togodumnus and Caratacus vainly attempted to stop 

 their progress. Similar tactics were tried at the Thames without result, 

 but at one of these engagements Togodumnus was slain. There was then 

 a pause in the campaign in order that Claudius might bring up reinforce- 

 ments and take part in the conquest of Camulodunum or Colchester. 

 The defeat of Caratacus by Claudius and the capture of Camulodunum 

 do not belong to the history of this county, but they marked the subjuga- 

 tion of all south-eastern Britain including the lands of the Catuvellauni and 

 Trinovantes. 



The Romans having thus established themselves, the army was formed 

 into three divisions, the Second Legion going south-west to Somerset and 

 Devon, the Fourteenth and Twentieth Legions north-west to Shrewsbury 

 and Chester and the Ninth Legion north towards Lincoln. All the eastern 

 side of Britain up to the Humber was occupied probably by a.d. 47, when 

 Britain was annexed to the Roman Empire, and in a.d. 48 or a little later 

 the subjugation of the more hilly country to the north and west began 

 under Ostorius, who succeeded Plautius. 



About A.D. 49 Ostorius founded a colony of veterans at Camulodunum 

 with the twofold object of overawing the district and giving the Britons an 

 example of Roman civilization.'^ The result, however, was unsatisfactory, 

 for the veterans were overbearing and the Roman officials avaricious and 

 tactless.'** The unrest which consequently arose culminated in the rising of 

 the Iceni, a tribe occupying the eastern part of Britain, under their Queen 

 Boudicca or Boadicea in a.d. 62. They were joined by the Trinovantes, in 

 whose territory Camulodunum lay, and to these, we are told, there were 

 added the neighbouring tribes, among which was probably the Catuvellauni. 

 Taking advantage of the absence of Suetonius the governor with the Roman 

 army in North Wales, the confederated British tribes fell on Camulodunum 

 and overwhelmed the garrison. Suetonius hastened south, but not being 

 strong enough to save Verulamium and Londinium, he marched back from 

 London towards Chester. Having collected what troops he could he 

 determined to engage the Britons under Boadicea in the open. The site of 

 their engagement is unknown, but as Tacitus states that there was a forest 

 at the rear of the Romans who came from London and an open plain in 



2' Dio Cassius, Hist. Rom. lib. Ix. ^^ Suetonius, De xii Caesaribus. ^9 ibid. 



'0 Dio Cassius, Hist. Rom. lib. Ix. '^ Tacitus, Annals, xii, 32. ^2 ib,d. xiv, 31. 



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