Why the Cumbrians hated the Romans
Today's children learn about underfloor heating, wine and mosaics. But Roman Cumbria was a land-grab by a violent, contemptuous, selfish military machine.
Every year teachers tell about four million primary school pupils that the Roman invasion of Britain in 43 AD gave the population a whole range of advantages.
They got proper houses, underfloor heating, sewage systems, literacy, new words, miles, feet and inches, coins and, er, rabbits. “Overall we owe a lot to the Romans,” a video accompanying the Key Stage Two history lesson declares.
But this is a travesty of the truth about British lives in the north of England two thousand years ago. The people who inhabited what is now Cumbria and part of Dumfriesshire, the Carvetii tribe, felt quite different emotions about the forcible occupation of the region. It was not awe, admiration or gratitude - but hatred.
In 78 AD, Cumbria was conquered by a ruthlessly efficient Roman general called Gnaeus Julius Agricola. He captured and sealed off villages on the edge of the uplands as his forces moved north, thus isolating the rebellious hill dwellers from the rich agricultural plain. Within a few years of the takeover, it became clear that many of the Carvetii elite figured that they had something to gain from collaborating with their new overlords, and we will look at the evidence for that in a minute.
But the reaction of the broad mass of the Carvetii to the Roman occupation was starkly different to, for example, that of the tribes in the south of England. Early in the invasion the Romans drew a diagonal line on their military maps that extended roughly from Lincoln to Exeter. To the south and east lay the main lowland areas with the best farmland.
Several of the British tribes who lived there had invited the Romans into the country in the first place. Imperial commanders deemed these pro-Roman people capable of being “civilised”. Gradually during the 367 years of Roman occupation the upper class inhabitants of the prosperous southeast triangle began to look distinctly Mediterranean.
But the Carvetii people in Cumbria responded quite differently. One reason for this is that the Romans disrupted Carvetii traditions far more violently than any other part of England. Another is that the invaders made far less effort than they had in the south to share the wealth of the Empire with Cumbrian people.
If we could ask them today, Roman commanders might excuse these omissions by saying the north was a war zone under constant attack from Scottish tribes and internal insurrection, therefore defence had to take priority over diplomacy.
That is why the invaders had to build a vast amount of repressive infrastructure to keep the Cumbrian Celts down. They constructed upwards of twenty-seven massive forts in the county including along the Stanegate line and down the Solway Coast at Beckfoot, Maryport, Burrow Walls (near Workington), Moresby (near Whitehaven) and in the interior, for example at Derventio near Cockermouth, Hardnott in Eskdale, Ambleside and a formidable grid of military roads linking them together.
The failure of Romanisation in Cumbria is illustrated by one stark statistic. Conquered people in the south built 1,500 Roman-style villas in imitation of their oppressors’ culture, with mosaics, wall paintings and gardens during the occupation. None was built in Cumbria.
We also know the Romans treated the locals with contempt. A wooden tablet discovered at Vindolanda fort on Hadrian’s Wall, bore a derogatory message describing the tribesmen as Brittunculi or “wretched little Brits.”
Archaeology shows that the Carvetii were tough people living hard lives and they carved a modest living from scarce fertile farmland.
Before the Roman invasion, Carvetii society was highly structured with six basic classes but, despite that hierarchical structure, the land was held communally. The tribe lived in roundhouses surrounded by enclosures and fields. They were governed by a collective philosophy with farmers helping each other out, particularly at harvest time.
Close inspection the map of Cumbria reveals that the invaders almost invariably slapped their forts down on the lowest, flattest and most productive farmland, evicting farming families as they went.
Each fort occupied at least 185 acres and that was before the builders added the outlying “territoria” zones – areas cordoned off for requirements such as horse pasture, woodlots, water sources, stone quarries, mines, exercise fields and attached villages. In total the Carvetii lost 300,000 acres of precious agricultural land to fort building, not including the forts along the Cumbrian section of Hadrian’s Wall.
The irony is that Cumbria’s economy boomed for long periods under Roman occupation - but hardly any of the wealth generated trickled down to the native Carvetii. Apart from a few glass beads and other cheap trinkets, no Roman items of any value have been found in the homes of the Cumbrian Carvetii families.
Every Roman fort in Cumbria, such as the large one at Derventio in Papcastle, developed a vicus settlement where the (often unofficial) wives and children of the soldiers lived, military workshops operated and a civilian market traded. Independent dealers flocked to these markets to sell goods and services to the well-paid legionaries, ranging from metal horse tack to glass vessels, perfume to fine shoes, beer to brothels.
Craftspeople such as stone masons and jewellers set up shop in vici to serve local demand. It was a lucrative business - a regular garrison soldier earned twice as much as an ordinary unskilled Carvetii man. But, apart from a few Cumbrians doing unskilled labour, almost all the traders were immigrants. Fewer than one in six were locals.
The records show one rich Greek merchant called Flavius Antigonus Papias, based in Carlisle, dominated local vicus trade. Another civilian trader was Ateco based at the Old Carlisle fort between Caldbeck and Wigton. A further cause of tension was that many local women evidently viewed the well-washed soldiers as better marriage material than the local men. Many Roman soldiers retired close to the garrison where they served and married local women.
The Roman Empire was based on slavery. Carvetii warriors were taken as prisoners of during the northern invasion and, later, criminals and debtors ended up on chain gangs. The captives were set to work building major projects such as the new road system spanning the fells. Given the evidence from elsewhere in the Empire, it is unlikely the Romans would have attempted to construct the vast Cumbrian highway network using exclusively paid labour. During their bondage, slaves had no rights and no independent identity. Upwards of one in ten of the indigenous Carvetii may have served time in slavery, although it was normal after a period for slaves to be declared freemen as a reward for good service.
The Carvetii were a people singularly unlikely to respond well to this kind of treatment. Here’s why…
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This is a short extract from a new book called Secrets of the Lost Kingdom. You can buy the book at The New Bookshop, Main Street, Cockermouth, at the Moon & Sixpence cafe in Cockermouth and Keswick, Bookends in Keswick and Carlisle, and Sam Read in Grasmere.
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https://www.bookscumbria.com/product/cumbrian-books/history/secrets-of-the-lost-kingdom/