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An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire Paperback – May 27, 2008

by David Mattingly (Author)

4.5 141 ratings

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Part of the Penguin History of Britain series, An Imperial Possession is the first major narrative history of Roman Britain for a generation. David Mattingly draws on a wealth of new findings and knowledge to cut through the myths and misunderstandings that so commonly surround our beliefs about this period. From the rebellious chiefs and druids who led native British resistance, to the experiences of the Roman military leaders in this remote, dangerous outpost of Europe, this book explores the reality of life in occupied Britain within the context of the shifting fortunes of the Roman Empire.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

? They came, they saw and they definitely conquered. David Mattingly has taken a refreshing look at what it meant for the Britons.?
?"The Times" (London)

They came, they saw and they definitely conquered. David Mattingly has taken a refreshing look at what it meant for the Britons.
"The Times" (London)

a They came, they saw and they definitely conquered. David Mattingly has taken a refreshing look at what it meant for the Britons.a
a"The Times" (London)

About the Author

David Mattingly is Professor of Roman Archaeology at the University of Leicester

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books; Illustrated edition (May 27, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 640 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0140148221
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140148220
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 1.1 x 7.7 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #231,182 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #164 in History Encyclopedias
- #250 in England History
- #290 in Ancient Roman History (Books)

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4.5 141 ratings

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Amazon Customer

Excellent Book on Roman Britain

Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2017

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Very good information on this period. Good use of maps. Detailed, 40+ page bibliographical essay, though no informative notes. Contains a detailed index that is lacking in many other books of this type. Recommended.

3 people found this helpful

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Dan

Excellent reading

Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2019

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An excellent, well-documented book. I recommend it to everybody interested in the early history of Britain.

One person found this helpful

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John the Reader

Challenging and satisfying reading..

Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2012

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Even with quite an extensive reading of British history and some previous knowledge of the Roman Occupation this was somewhat of a tough read, requiring study and reference to OS maps and other resource to follow the rich details and - to steal from Eric Newby - a cast of thousands like a Cecil B De Mille Hollywood epic. Because I want to know more of the famous II Legion Augusta, "The Engineers" and their life in Britain, I persevered and did enjoy that same depth of scholarship of David Mattingly's, that gave this reader such trouble in trying to keep up with the flow of this enormously well-researched history. The only residual criticism of the work is a reflection on those troubles of mine - the absence of maps that would have helped in the spatial placing of events in each chapter. There are maps and charts however - over 20 of them - but they are in specialist detail and did not help this particular reader in trying to grasp exactly where the specific action in the text occurred. Perhaps on a rereading which I already plan, things will become more interlinked.

There was also a tantalizing reference to the recently discovered trove of early Roman, and very human documents from the very region and legion of my interest, but sadly not much detail from those was used in this work. I understand that Guy de la Bedoyere's book, Roman Britain contains more from this source.

9 people found this helpful

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Michael Boyajian

A must have book on Roman Britain

Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2017

Over 500 pages of detailed facts on the Roman subjugation of Britain. A must have component to any collection of books on Roman Britain

One person found this helpful

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G B

Dry, academic, but with points of interest

Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2012

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Unlike some of the later volumes of the Penguin History of Britain, this is one for which there aren't a lot of written primary sources. As a result, it's difficult to construct any sort of nonfragmentary "narrative." We have some Roman writing (which may be unreliable and surely is biased) as well abundant-yet-patchy archaeological evidence. Additionally, the author has a very academic, jargony, quasi-scientific writing style that may bore lay readers. (Additionally, the kindle edition is a mess - tables are often cropped and unreadable.)

That said, it's probably worth reading if you're interested in this period, at least as a supplement. I'm not British, so I don't have a good sense of what goes for popular history of this period, but the author challenges the apparent romanticization of Britain's days as a Roman colony. Sometimes you get the feeling that he's challenging the conventional wisdom "just because", but I found this skepticism to be useful. I also found the book to be extremely detailed and informative; discussion of how different Britons (soldiers, townspeople, rural folk) lived during this period was quite thorough.

If you're like me, you'll conclude that reading this volume is like eating brussels sprouts - it's good for you, but you won't have much fun doing it.

19 people found this helpful

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John E. Mack

Very Thorough, Very Careful, Very Learned, Very Boring

Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2014

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This is really not a history of Roman Britain. It is an archeological assessment of Britain under the Roman occupation from the days of Julius Caesar to the withdrawal of the Roman legions in the early fifth century. Other than a brief summation of the narratives of Caesar and Tacitus, there is almost narrative of the events which happened in Britain during this period of time. This is probably because we know almost nothing about them. Consider: there is exactly one surviving reference to the "Saxon shore" in any surviving document. Yet ruins of Rome's extensive fortifications dot the coast of southeast England. Did "Saxon shore" refer to Saxon raiders or Saxon settlers, or both? Were the forts to protect against raiders or to hold down the local population? If the latter, the subsequent history of Anglo Saxon conquest would take a very different turn from the traditional narrative. But we don't really have much beside speculation to determine why the Saxon shore got its name.

Mattingly spends more time on an analysis of Roman coins and inscriptions in the various regions of Britain than he does on anything that happened there between 100 A.D. and 410 A.D., again probably because of the lack of evidence. But if a historian is unable to give a narrative account of his subject, he at least should take a crack at the big questions that archeology and the barebones records we do have might help to answer. For example: (1) Why did Rome invest such a disproportionately large portion of its military presence on this apparently marginal province? (2) What benefit to Rome justified such an investment? (3) Why did Rome leave such a light footprint on the Celtic (and Germanic?) population of Britain when it left such a lasting imprint on the conquered provinces of Gaul and Iberia? (4) Why did the Latin Language take hold on the Celtic populations on what is now France and Spain and yet have virtually no effect on the Celtic languages of post-Roman Britain? (5) Why do we know so little about the narrative history of Roman Britain when it was occupied over four centuries by hundreds of thousands of literate Romans and played such a large part in the civil disturbances of the empire? (6) What changes in the demographics of "Celtic" Britain took place during the years of Roman occupation? (7) Why did the civilization of Celtic Britain collapse so quickly and so completely when Rome withdrew her legions? (8) Why was there almost no residual Roman presence after the legions were withdrawn, unlike Gaul and Iberia?

Mattingly has little to say about most of these questions, probably because he is such a "hard fact" wonk that he does not want to speculate where he cannot be reasonably certain. He is extremely good on the "little fact" front, however. He goes into great detail about what he know about Roman villas, Celtic round houses, regional variations in Roman occupational practices and governmental models. He must have told us everything that is currently known about finds of coins, inscriptions, documents, land use, and fortifications. All of this is informative and Mattingly is to be commended for his careful and thorough compendium of the physical remains of the occupation. Yet one could wish he would be a little more daring and tell us what he thought happened in the four centuries of Roman rule rather than what he knows about the visible remnants of that rule.

41 people found this helpful

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HMS Warspite

Roman Britain...

Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2024

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The Roman invasion around the beginning of the Christian era brought vast changes to Britain. Imperial rule seems only to have lasted a few hundred years but changed the trajectory of the British Isles. Historian David Mattingly cautiously explores the clues in this entry to the Penguin History of Britain.

The author is careful not to exceed the limited surviving clues about Roman Britain. Those looking for a thrilling blood and thunder narrative may therefore be disappointed. On the hand, the Roman changes to Britain were significant. This reviewer was especially interested in the author's narrative on the limited but surprisingly extended Roman intrusions into what became Scotland and Ireland. The text includes a small number of maps and graphics. Recommended to students of the history of Britain.

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Cliente Kindle

Fantastic Book!

Reviewed in Brazil on March 6, 2024

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wonderful Book!

stormymonday

A useful correction to some of the recent Panglossian studies of the benefits of Roman rule.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 11, 2023

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Views on Ancient Rome have changed down the centuries as each society looks at it attempting to see a reflection of itself. Recently there has been a further makeover of Roman Britain led by a lot of wish fulfilment in modern studies about the supposed advantages of being in a multicultural and multiethnic empire. Unfortunately a lot of this tends to ignore the fact that the Roman Empire was built and maintained by the use of force often deployed ruthlessly against rebels and peoples on the frontier. Rome was by any standards a militarised society with at least one soldier for each 200-300 inhabitants of the Empire. In provinces like Britain with an occupying army of 3 legions and numerous auxiliary units there was an occupying force of about 40,000 troops policing a population of approximately 3.5 million people or a ratio of 1 soldier to every 87 of the population. It was a much more heavily policed society than most of the 19th century European colonial empires.

One of the reasons troops were so numerous in Roman Britain is that it was never fully subjugated. Unrest and rebellions in the northern frontier zone was always likely to spill over into the rest of the island. There is a tendency for historians to gloss over all revolts after the Boudiccan rebellion but it is known from Fronto there was a major revolt in Hadrians reign, followed by further campaigns on the frontier under the Antonines and Septimius Severus. Britain even became semi detached from the empire under usurpers such as Carausius before being reintegrated by Constantius and again by Theodosius. If Zosimus is to be believed the Roman administration was finally ejected under Honorius because the inhabitants of the island decided they could defend themselves better than Rome could.

Given these facts one wonders why the Romans spent so much manpower and money maintaining its grip on the province. Presumably the only reasons were to prevent the over concentration of forces on the Rhine frontier, to protect northern Gaul and because the resources and taxes that could be extracted from Britain covered the cost of the whole operation.

This all suggests that although Roman rule lasted nearly 4 centuries it was the cost benefit analysis rather than a desire culturally and politically assimilate the province fully into the Empire which drove the occupation. Britain always sat on the margins and the local population appear never to have been fully integrated which is why even members of the Romano British elite are largely notable by their absence from positions of authority within the Empire or seats in the Senate. This is in marked contrast to provinces such as Gaul, Spain and Africa. The rather shallow depth of Romanisation can be seen in the fact it left so little in the way of immediate cultural legacy particularly in the language of the population. Britain had been a mish mash of warring tribal societies before the Romans came and that is what it became again in the 5th and 6th centuries. In fact one might argue that the society only became re Romanised again when Christianity was reintroduced by Irish and Roman missionaries and that if one wants to see the cultural legacy of Rome it is in ecclesiastical writings and Norman church architecture. Maybe Gibbon was right about that legacy.

3 people found this helpful

Robert Widdowson

Good Resources, Irritating Intro

Reviewed in Canada on March 7, 2020

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I'm very pleased with the book. It explains the Roman occupation of the Britain in a clear, understandable prose. Lots of good information on the era, explained well.

One caveat. It's very much a product of its times, however. The ideological theoretical approach of post-colonislism certainly informs the author. So, theres a long (and tedious) introduction which is intended to educate us as to why we need to regard the Romans as imperialists and the Britons as the oppressed. It's actually very amusing, to hear a smart person explain the obvious by using overly complex words and abstruse ideas. He basically states: Oppressors oppress their subject and, consequently, subjects experience the oppression as oppressive. No kidding, Captain Obvious!! Most of us regular folk get the reality of the stronger versus the weaker easily enough. We dont need an appeal to anthropological, sociological, or political, theory to get the corrosive effect of domination! Indeed, the very people who get this most readily are regular folk, who must navigate a world where the more powerful govern their lives, in big ways and small!

6 people found this helpful

Juan Miguel Mendoza Perez

great!

Reviewed in Spain on April 15, 2019

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Good book!

gabriella

an imperial possession ...

Reviewed in Italy on May 13, 2018

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un ottimo libro accademico sulla conquista della Britannia da parte dei Romani ma da un punto di vista post-imperialista e post colonialista. Molto documentato, molto accurato, ben argomentato, assolutamente interessante sia sul piano di una reinterpretazione dei fatti (basata sul privilegiare le fonti archeologiche) sia su quello dei problemi di metodo storiografico. In inglese e per lettori (anche non specialisti, ha un buon andamento narrativo) che abbiano un interesse specifico per l'argomento.

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