A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



town has yet to be written. If such an exploration should ever be undcr- 

 >^ taken, there is little doubt it would disclose much history of the Late Celtic 

 and Romano-British periods. No object earlier than the Late Celtic age 

 has as yet been found on the site ; consequently it may perhaps be suggested 

 that the town was established by the Catuvellauni, a tribe that arrived in 

 Britain about B.C. 200, whose chief stronghold it certainly became. As has 

 been already stated,'* there can be little doubt that Verulamium was the 

 ' oppidum ' of Cassivellaunus, Prince of the Catuvellauni, to which Caesar 

 led his troops in B.C. 54. We know the town was then taken and probably 

 sacked by the Romans, but from the evidence of coins and other objects it 

 must have quickly recovered its prosperity. It was during the reign of 

 Tasciovanus, who succeeded Cassivellaunus about B.C. 47," that Verulamium 

 seems to have reached the height of its wealth and importance. It remained 

 the seat of his government and from his mint here were issued the earliest 

 known inscribed British coins.*" The issue was so large as to indicate 

 wealth, and the Latin inscription on the coins suggests a strong Roman 

 influence." After the death of Tasciovanus, about a.d. 5," Cunobeline 

 seems to have made Camulodunum the chief town of the two tribal 

 territories, and thereafter, so far as we know, no further coins were struck at 

 the Verulamium mint.** 



After the death of Cunobeline, about a.d. 41, Camulodunum apparently 

 remained the seat of government of the Catuvellaunian and Trinovantian 

 princes, for it was by its capture by Claudius in a.d. 43 that the whole of 

 south-eastern Britain was brought under Roman rule.** The Romans 

 apparently adapted the native system of administration in Britain as they 

 had done in Gaul, and governed each Celtic canton or tribal area from its 

 cantonal town. From Verulamium and Camulodunum the territories of 

 the Catuvellauni and Trinovantes were respectively ruled until possibly the 

 government of the two tribes was merged in the time of Tasciovanus. 

 The Catuvellaunian dynasty seems, however, to have assumed an over- 

 lordship over the Belgic tribes of south-east Britain, and therefore the chief 

 administration over all these tribes was probably conducted from whichever 

 of these two towns happened to be the seat of government for the time 

 being. The Romans, therefore, at once seized and Romanized these towns, 

 their policy being to subjugate the country through them by the then 

 existing organizations. Hence it is that Camulodunum was made a 

 ' colonia,' about a.d. 49, and Verulamium probably received the rank of a 

 ' municipium ' about the same time, remaining the only town in Britain 

 created a ' municipium ' during the Roman occupation.*' 



The ' municipium ' was of civil development and, as Professor Haverfield 

 states, was a status given in the early Empire ' especially to native provincial 

 towns which had become Romanized without official action or settlement 

 of Roman soldiers or citizens, and which had as it were merited municipal 

 privileges.' ** It seems probable, as he suggests, that Verulamium had 



'* Ante, p. 122. '^ Evans, Coins of the Ancient Britons (1864), 288. 



^ F.C.H. Herts, i, 238-42. " Haverfield, Camb. Medieval Hist, i, 371. 



^ Evans, op. cit. 289. *^ Ibid. 287, 289. ** Dio Cassius, Hist. Rom. lib. Ix. 



** Verulamium is first referred to as a 'municipium' by Tacitus (Annals, xiv, 23) in regard to the 

 insurrection of Boadicea, but it had probably attained this rank some time before 

 <5 Haverfield, Romanization of Roman Britain (ed. 2), 55. 



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