I suppose the big question would be what made Britain such fertile ground for campaigning? Were there resources the Romans were after in Wales or Cornwall or southern Scotland, or were these areas being conquered as a sort of 'forward defence dividend' for more valuable regions in central and southern England? Or was the issue less about resources in and of themselves and more a way to keep the legions in the west under arms? Or was it something else entirely?

Hi! Thank you for coming to answer our questions. In his account of the first Roman expeditions into Britain, Caesar described the Britons using chariots, which the Roman legions were apparently unfamiliar with and suffered heavily from. Were Roman arms & tactics particularly poorly suited to chariot-warfare?

Why did the Romans build the Antonine wall and then abandon it to go back to Hadrian's wall?

Do we know anything about the casualties Rome took while conquering roman Britain?

Are we any closer to narrowing down where the invasion under Claudius happened, the Chichester area or Thanet?

One question I've been throwing around for a while is why did the Romano-British fail to centralize after the Roman withdrawal? IE why were there so many tiny British states after Roman withdrawal?

Why did the Romans keep so many legions in Britain when there land beyond the borders - Ireland/Scotland - was quite small, compared to the vast expanses guarded by similar legions in Germany?

The first Roman invasion of Caledonia, under Agricola, has always fascinated me as an early example of a well-equipped, organized army becoming bogged down in a guerilla war in distant lands. What do we know about Rome's Caledonian adversaries, and how different were the tribes Agricola fought from those that Septimius Severus battled during his invasion a century later?

Hello Dr, thanks for doing this.

Titus Labienus was second in command to Caesar for his campaign in Gaul and was eventually awarded the governance of Cisalpine Gaul for his services, why then was he left behind once Caesar crossed the channel into Britain?

Thanks for doing this Dr. Elliott, I have a few quick related questions about some of Caesar's exploits, and specifically the content of The Gallic War and The Civil War. I recently read the Landmark edition.

One battle/event I found particularly fascinating was Caesar's failed attempt to seize Pompey and his armies at Brundisium. Famously, Caesar came near to (possibly) ending the entire conflict in the opening moves of the Civil War, which would have resulted in a very different chain of events than those which did indeed play out. I have a few questions surrounding this.

Firstly, Caesar was beyond doubt a master strategist and especially an incredible tactician. Brundisium, as far as I have read, sounds like it may have been one of the most dramatic battles in all of ancient Mediterranean history, with Caesar building a floating fortified causeway across the harbor of the city, trapping Pompey's fleet within the harbor while Caesar's forces prepared to enter the city from the opposite side simultaneously. Pompey, of course, managed to escape - but that line there is about all the detail available in the The Civil War. Caesar seems to have brushed right over what must have been an exceptionally unique battle, with Pompey's ships built up with artillery and forcing their way through what sounds like a fortified earthen and floating wall. Moreover, I have struggled to find almost any other information about this particular battle outside of The Civil War. So, do we have more of an idea of what happened here? How did Pompey manage to escape? And what did the logistics of both erecting Caesar's fortification and then also presumably ramming and/or burning through it look like?

Moreover, given that Caesar glosses over what could have been a possible conclusion to the coming wars before they really even got started, why is this failure not examined in greater detail in the historiography of Caesar, or is it and I am just not aware? Finally, given that the beginning of Civil War and the fact that Pompey was no longer in play on the Italian Peninsula essentially paved the way for Caesar to cement the dictatorship that would eventually culminate in his becoming dictator perpetuo and then the later establishment of the Empire, is it possible that Caesar actually allowed Pompey to escape so as to aid Caesar in building his case/legitimacy to seize such broad authority in the Roman political system? As far as I know, it seems unlikely Caesar could have become such a powerful dictator if the Civil War had quickly ended with Caesar capturing Pompey and the two of them returning to Rome to hash things out with the Senate.

Also, could you share what in your opinion your 'favorite' or most interesting battle/campaign in the entire history of pre-Western Empire collapsing Rome would be?

If you can even answer just a slice of those questions, I would love to hear what you have to say!

Did Caesar ever do any of his own killing? In many of his more exciting battles, he seems to get intimately close with front lines fighting. In those situations, would he have grabbed a sword and joined in? What would/were contemporary attitudes about him participating - would that be seen as strength or weakness?

What was it about Roman Britain or sub-Roman Britain that resulted in the language spoken across Brittania to shift to Anglo-Saxon whereas the rest of the Roman West remained speaking Romance languages despite also being conquered by Germanic tries following the collapse in the West?

What drew the Romans to Britain and what made occupation profitable? Did the island have any notable resources or industries that generated any wealth?

What would you most like to tell us about that you feel is less known or less understood by the general public?

Hi! Thanks for sharing knowledge. I have a question: Why did the romans not conquer the ~scotland area and ireland? Did they not know it was there, because I would think having hostile nations/tribes etc would not be great because the british isles are a island ofcourse.

We often see the use of Roman divide and conquer policies throughout their campaigns, with the aim of dissolving otherwise dangerous confederations and alliances. Did the employ of such policies in Britain differ significantly from how they were employed in Gaul? Were these policies as effective in Britain? More so? Less?

I recall reading years ago that during the Crisis of the Third Century, Britain was a relatively peaceful and prosperous part of the Empire. Does that analysis still hold up? If so, what made it so different from the rest of the Empire in this regard?

So recently I read some comments on Roman empores just before the fall and that they were all crazy or something. What is the craziest/funniest story from your area of research? And do you have any book advice about weird stuff from history? Thank you for your time.

How was Britannia managed as a province? Were there regional governors in place? How much bureaucracy was in place? How much autonomy was given from room?

How did you get into history and is there a market for more Roman historians? I am fascinated by Rome but worry it won't be something I can do as a career.

Did the Romans intend for their infrastructure to be in use for thousands of years or do you think they would have built things a little more shoddy if they knew how long it would really last? I just can't imagine any modern government building something intended to last that long.

As someone in academia (Hebrew Bible/Assyriology/Ancient Near East) who is finishing their dissertation, I have two questions - one of which is not related to your subject matter but broader.

1. how do you find time to publish so much in such a short period of time? Especially book length studies.

2. we have a debate in our field about the use of the term “empire.” What are your views on this term? Is the Roman Empire the first true empire in world history? Related, what are your views on methods of imperialism? I am particularly interested in cultural imperialism which has been done a bit in your field, but is used more prevalently in modern studies.

Thanks!

How close was Septimius Severus to conquering Scotland when he died and his kids abandoned the campaign?

Thanks for doing this! I love a good conspiracy theory, and one of my favorite conspiracy theories has to do with the Ninth Legion, whose last definitively recorded location was near York in 108. What do you think happened to them?

What is a misconception about Rome (or anything in history) that drives you up the wall?

I have a few question regarding the language spoken by settlers and legions stationed in Britain: to what extent did the language spoke by the native islanders influence the language spoken by legionnaires?
Were any British/Celtic words adopted by Romans as a sort of slang?
Did any Romans learn the language fluently or even “convert” to it in that they used it as their primary language?
Were there any legions that, in the later years of the empire, spoken primarily British dialects, in Britain or elsewhere?

what made the Romans split Britain into Britain superior and Britain inferior?

Why does the “Battle of Watling Street” have such a weirdly anachronistic name? Also 200k seems pretty outlandish for British troop totals what are more realistic totals?

Three questions if you would:

What made Scotland so damn hard to conquer? It's mountainous, but so are Italy, Greece, Hispania, and Anatolia. It's not even that big! But not only couldn't Romans conquer Scotland, they finally had to throw a wall up to keep them out. Roman history has some tough foes, like the Germanic tribes, but even they were able to coexist at the Rhine.

How "Roman" was Briton? After the initial prestige of conquering the edge of the world, was governing Briton a prestigious post? Were there cities there on par with those in the Mediterranean? Or was it more like a backwater port town/military outpost? Being that far away from Rome it would seem like it would have more autonomy and be more of a client kingdom than a province. It also seems like moving forward it lacks much of the remnants of Roman civilization that were left behind in other parts of Europe - like language and laws.

Third - any reason why they were so keen on taking Briton, made multiple attempts to take Scotland, but left Ireland alone? It's not like it was far away. They knew it was there.

Is it true Romans stole alot of wolfhounds for the games? Did this make the locals angry at the Romans?

Doc, simple question, I am wholly ignorant of the era, do you recommend a good book to start with?

Thank you for doing this chat. Is there any information on when the first Christian missionaries arrived in Britain? When Constantine was in Britain would he have knowledge of Christian sects in the region?

How successful do you think Caesar’s campaigns in Britain were in long term? Often I see them refered to as failures militarily even if he did achieve the glory of going to the island first. However I have seen some people write that the people form Britain did send tribute to Rome afterwards and that Caesar didn’t index to do more in Britain that what he ended up doing.

Thanks for doing this AMA Dr Elliott. How thoroughly did the Romans culturally assimilate the local populaces in England and Wales during the occupation and how long did elements of Roman society persist in Britain after the Roman withdrawal?

I was recently researching Julius Caesar for a paper and I am across an interesting article: "An analytic narrative of Caesar’s death: Suicide or not? That is the question" and it tosses the idea that perhaps Caesar had an idea of his assassination plot and let it happen because he wanted to die because of his medical conditions.

Is this something you have ever read about or entertained during your research?

How accurate was jc's claim that the belgae were the fiercest barbarians?

This is sort of to deal with History for that area in general but especially for England. Is what most of historians know from that period from written documentation by people who were there? From my knowledge it was a fairly backwards place compared to rome, so most if not all of the scribes would've been roman and would have stored the accounts of what happened there, and then somehow these survive all these years for historians to study.

Thanks for doing this AMA Dr Elliott!

Big question first: How has views views of Roman Britain and the Roman army changed over time? Any historiographical insights you can give us?

I remember reading ages ago about how the concept of ethnogenesis from the social sciences had an effect on Roman scholars. Especially on the conceptualisation of late Roman and 'Barbarian' successor kingdoms which I found really interesting. Wondering if there's anything similar you've come across or influenced your own work.

Second question: What got you interested in Roman history? How or when did you decide to turn that interest into a career?

You mention that part of what drew Rome to Britain was its natural resources, resources that would presumably have to be mined. Knowing how difficult and dangerous mining is today (and even more back during the convict-lease system in the Southern US), I wonder if you could shed any light on what mining was like in the time of the Romans?

How reliable do historians consider the core factual components of Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico? Is there any contemporary (or near contemporary) criticism of portions of the text as unreliable or fabricated?

I've recently been listening to the History of Rome by Mike Duncan and I've reached the Crisis of the Third Century and the frankly hilarious succession of provincial soldier generals. One thing I have noticed is that despite Pannonian, Illyrian, Syrian etc Emperors, there was never a Britannic Emperor. Even the Gallic Empire was ruled by Emperors who were born in Gaul.

This being the case, it got me thinking who is the most prominent person on historical record from Britannia? I.e. born and raised in the province, not prominent for their actions in Britannia like Agricola. For a province with such a large military presence, it seems to have produced next to no prominent military/political figures as far as I can tell, likewise with economic and cultural figures.

After the initial campaign, how much military involement was there in the more civilian areas of southern England?

Your book refers to the First Hammer of the Scots , isn’t that misleading. Weren’t the tribes that became the Scots still inhabiting Ireland ?

Hello Dr. Elliott, thank you for taking your time to answer some questions. As a current undergrad in History, one of my favorite subjects is that if the Roman Empire and their control of Britain. I have never done any hands in research on subjects from the classical era, so have never encountered any authentic primary sources. My question: what sorta of primary sources have you used in your work and where did you usually find them? Thank you so much again.

A question that I had for a while would be Rome’s use of coal? I understand that they mined it and used it as Jewelry but since there was a lot of coal deposits in Roman Britain did they ever exploit them or find any practice use for it?

Perhaps a controversial question, but to what extent did Italic Roman colonists intermarry with the natives of Britain? As I understand it there have been observed DNA traces in the modern English population that have been postulated to have been Roman, but I cannot find definitive historical records on the matter.

What specific Resources did Britain have that made it so valuable to the Romans? Were those same Resources also available for the post Roman (and Anglo-Saxon) peoples or did they get played out by the Roman works?

I've heard a lot about Tin in the Classical era European trade, and we know they had Iron and Coal accessed later in the Industrial Revolution Era, but did they have precious metals? Any specific crops or animals?

Did Caesar adopt liberal policies as a result of his own beliefs or was it more a result of political calculus?

What's your opinion on Norse mythology

• a fellow Elliott

whats 1-line summary of this?

Hi! I'm currently working on my Master's degree studying Roman identity in Roman Britain. So my question is: What kind of sources have you come across that demonstrate the British reception to Roman imperialism on the island? Is it only archaeological?

Do we know more about why Claudius deployed a single elephant to Britain? Is there any evidence to it's actual value as a military asset there?

I didn't even realize there was going to be an AMA on this, what a wonderful surprise! Dr. Elliott, and this just might be me, but it seems like Roman Britainia gets a lot more attention as a Roman province as a whole, then say, the Asia Minor or Hispania, why do you think that is? Is there something inherently unique about Britiania, is it simply a bias on some English writers, or am I simply looking in the wrong places for other histories of other provinces under Roman rule?

What do we make of the Romans pulling back from Scotland after Agricola's campaign? Is there much of an explanation for why he was not allowed to finished occupation of the region? Likewise, with all the trouble Hibernian raiders seem to have caused the Romano-British, is there a reason the Romans never seriously moved to pacify it?

How did Boudicca manage to almost annihilate the 9th Legion, but then lost so overwhelmingly at Watling Street?

I was surprised to find so many ruins in the lake district, I visited the Hardknot pass fort (Mediobogdum), The Ravenglass bath House (Glannoventa), The Ambleside fort (Galava).

Is there a reason so many ruins are still there ? Because of the way to romans left the British Isles ? In France we have great ruins but they all seem to be restored somewhat and inside cities, I haven't had the chance to visit many forts (because they became cities maybe ?)

What was relationship between Augustus and Britain? I think Cunobeline was the major king in Britain during Augustus' reign. What was the relationship between Rome and these kings shortly after Caesar?

Aside from certain physical structures, is there any lingering evidence of the Roman occupation that we can observe today? Specifically I’m wondering about things like cultural practices or linguistic artifacts.

What are your thoughts on the unique gallo Roman temple styles? Where did they come from and is it true that some of the circular styles predate Nero's gold house and the pantheon?

Considering that it seems the current dominant paradigm of the rise of the Anglo Saxon culture in sub-Roman Britain is more one of acculturation and adoption of an "Anglo Saxon" culture by the Romano-Celts instead of the older paradigm of conquest, subjugation, and extermination, why are there so few Celtic loan words in English? It seems that if the "Anglo-Saxon" identity came about through a process of acculturation and gradual ethnogenesis in which most of the later Anglo Saxons were acculturated descendants of the Romano-Celts, one would expect to see a lot more linguistic borrowing, particularly since Old English did eventually borrow quite a number of words from Norse and Latin.

Why did the Western Roman Empire abandon Britain so early?

Hi Simon. Sorry to be late o the party (time zone). Ive recently been rethinking about Caesar more sympathetically. He grew up seeing the Sulla proscriptions and it must have made an impact. As he was rising to power, he is well known for his clemency (at least to other Romans). And he did the complete opposite of Sulla when he took ultimate power in Rome by again showing clemency to his enemies, which probably killed him in the end. His will seems to also indicate he was planning on relinquishing power back to the republic on his death. I also think that he was essentially forced into marching on Rome as it had basically turned on him and even his war with Pompei was reluctant as he (and Pompei) tried to limit Roman casualties. Basically Ive been forming an opinion Caesar was a better human than history remembers him to be. He did not want to be an emperor and would have eventually restored the republic.

Do you think this sounds accurate or am I way off base?

I'm teaching Shakespeare Julius Caesar to 6th graders

Could you maybe go through some of the highlights of the historical inaccuracies/accuracies of the play?

Hello Doctor,

A question I have is about the city of London, were the Roman's the ones who gave the city their special rights and privileges they retain to this day?

I do not know if you can anwser this. But perhaps you can since this is about Rome and Britian. Is it true that there existed maps that simply drew water where Scotland was, because they did not want Rome to know Scotland existed - simply because they did not want to bother with the Scots? I believe I've once seen one of these maps in a documentary. But it seems weird to me as well that we would have so detailed maps surviving from that time?

Hi Dr. Elliott, a question for you as Ambassador for the Museum of London (one of my favourite museums, must be said...)

What's your favourite archeological discovery from Londinium?

What do we know about the use of war animals during this time period from both Roman and British sides?

Were local animals used (whatever goes) or were they transported from far-flung countries (especially bred)?