The Real Lives of Roman Britain
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- $32.99
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- $32.99
Publisher Description
The Britain of the Roman Occupation is, in a way, an age that is dark to us. While the main events from 55 BC to AD 410 are little disputed, and the archaeological remains of villas, forts, walls, and cities explain a great deal, we lack a clear sense of individual lives. This book is the first to infuse the story of Britannia with a beating heart, the first to describe in detail who its inhabitants were and their place in our history.
A lifelong specialist in Romano-British history, Guy de la Bédoyère is the first to recover the period exclusively as a human experience. He focuses not on military campaigns and imperial politics but on individual, personal stories. Roman Britain is revealed as a place where the ambitious scramble for power and prestige, the devout seek solace and security through religion, men and women eke out existences in a provincial frontier land. De la Bédoyère introduces Fortunata the slave girl, Emeritus the frustrated centurion, the grieving father Quintus Corellius Fortis, and the brilliant metal worker Boduogenus, among numerous others. Through a wide array of records and artifacts, the author introduces the colorful cast of immigrants who arrived during the Roman era while offering an unusual glimpse of indigenous Britons, until now nearly invisible in histories of Roman Britain.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this alternately fascinating and wearisome chronicle of Roman-occupied Britain, historian de la B doy re (Roman Britain: A New History) offers a new angle on the period, revealing the ways that ordinary people not just emperors and their kin lived in these days. From 55 B.C.E. to 410 C.E., Rome ruled the majority of the island of Great Britain, bringing with it Roman styles of government, religion, and culture. To uncover Rome's influence on the lives of these individuals, de la B doy re examines such figures as the Romano-British poet Silvius Bonus; the Aldgate-Pulborough Potter, known only because of his production of Samian pottery; and several persons who left public records of their existence as Britons through various acts of tribute, such as making a dedication to a god or goddess at a local shrine. De la B doy re ranges widely over various elements of culture in Roman Britain, addressing religion, death, and architecture such as the making and ownership of villas as well as the eventual demise of the Roman Empire, which enabled Britain to stand outside the shadow of Rome by the early fifth century C.E. Those interested in the sometimes repetitive minutiae of Rome or Britain's history should find this volume worthwhile.
