The history of Roman Britain has always been - perhaps predictably - more about Britain than about Rome. For those committed to our island story, the Romans, after all, are something of an embarrassment, as invaders and occupiers who brutally suppressed native independence movements. Even if conquest can be glossed with more comfortable ideas of civilisation, there is still the nagging problem of the Dark Ages: the inability of the British to maintain good order once the legions had been withdrawn. It was several centuries before towns were rebuilt, roads straightened and the hot water reconnected - and longer still before the locals started taking regular baths again.

LRB 11 February 2010 | PDF Download