Wow, it took me a bit of time to finish this great history book, despite its relatively short length. The text was a bit dry and very British in style, but it’s hard to make this subject exciting when there really isn't much hard evidence to go on. The first set of chapters are chronologically themed and focus on concrete evidence to support theories of how the early occupation of Britain proceeded. There are lots of references to coin hordes, pottery shards, and hill forts. There is not a whole lot of narrative or flowery language going on. I wouldn’t say this is an academic book strictly, but I wouldn’t recommend it for the casual reader. Fort occupation theories are bandied about for pages and pages. If you read a lot of history books in college and actually enjoyed them though then there is a good deal here for the average reader to learn.
The major idea presented in Britannia that really fascinated me was simply that the Roman Empire occupied Britain for over 400 years. That's a pretty big chunk of time compared to say, US History, which is only a mere 234 years. It astounds me that there were all these people lives going on through this whole time period, this whole culture, and all we know about them is based on some pottery shards and a few references in the Roman commentators who were rarely actually in Britain.
I was also fascinated by how often the ruling roman leadership made the trip out to the island to go campaigning. Traveling from modern day Italy out to Britain was no easy feat. The Caesars would travel for months just to sail over to Britain, this backwater barbarian land. It sounds weird, but I seriously wonder what was going through their heads when actually landed and looked around.
Another fascinating topic brought up is the Roman technological advances discovered by archeologists in Britain. Many of them are fairly surprising, given Britain’s remoteness to civilization during the time period: coin mints, sewers, plumbing, aqueducts, advanced kilns, hot bath houses, gladiator arenas,ect. Some of the structures are still perceivable, such as Hadrian and Antoine’s walls. In fact, a great deal of this book deals with how and why the walls were built and at what points in time were they occupied. A bit of this is somewhat tedious for the casual reader. A lot of discussion goes into Legion movements around the island. I was really hoping for more material on the legend of the Ninth Legion. But he barely spends any time on the subject.
It wasn't until the second to last chapter on the Romanization of Britain did Frere get into the evidence for everyday life in these small Romano/Celtic towns. In these pages, the reader learns about the Roman cults and how they merged with Celtic ideas and symbols. There is some information on Mithra and the Isis cults. There is also some information on the Christian influences in the fifth century. The final chapter regarding the fall of Roman Britain deals heavily with the established Christian communities and also the rebirth of the druidic/Celtic traditions that were repressed by the Romans.
Random Notes: I found myself looking up a great many town and place names. There are lots of different maps relative to the subject matter but not a general map that encompasses the whole island.
I also detected a bit of rivalry going on in the footnotes with other historians who pose more fanciful theories than Frere's conservative estimates and sharp objectivism.
The Folio Society edition of this book is printed on very high quality paper and there is a helpful little introduction by Professor Frere. There are also lots of aerial shots of fort locations that really illustrate some of the main points in the text.
Overall, if you can handle dry historian language than this is great, especially as a companion to reading Rosemary Sutcliff’s delightful young adult series following the Aquila family. I found myself going back to the Eagle of the Ninth and looking up place names and then comparing them to the information in Frere’s book. ( )