Britannia by Stuart Laycock

Author:Stuart Laycock
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780752487656
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2012-06-12T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

The Last of Rome

Whatever may or may not have happened in 367-369, the account by Ammianus of the so-called ‘Barbarian Conspiracy’ is significant in another way. It marks pretty much the end of any detailed information from Roman writers about events inside Britain. There is a reference in Claudian to unspecified measures taken by Stilicho to fortify Britain against Scots, Picts and Saxons.1 There is also coverage of the rebellions by Magnus Maximus and Constantine III, but the latter concentrates almost entirely on events once Maximus and Constantine reached the continent. Otherwise, there is virtually nothing until the final days of Roman rule. In 410 we have the famous Rescript of Honorius that has conventionally marked the end of Roman Britain. In this (if he is indeed referring to Britain, rather than a region in southern Italy, as sometimes suggested) he told the civitates of the island to look after their own defences. This is something that, as we have seen, at least a number of them had probably already been doing on some level since the late second century. It is even possible that the ending of Roman rule itself may have been the choice of the civitates, asserting their independence even more starkly, rather than of the Roman authorities. In a much-discussed passage Zosimus seems to claim that the British rose up and threw out the Romans:

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.