Chronology of British History From the Late Iron Age to the End of the Roman Era

[Marcus Antonius]

c.320BC

The Greek navigator/geographer Pytheas conducts a partial exploration of the island of "Albion".

Albion (Ancient Greek: Ἀλβιών) is the oldest known name of the island of Great Britain. Today, it is still sometimes used poetically to refer to the island. The name for Scotland in the Celtic languages is related to Albion: Alba in Scottish Gaelic, Albain (genitive Alban) in Irish, Nalbin in Manx and Alban in Welsh, Cornish, and Breton. These names were later Latinised as Albania and Anglicised as Albany, which were once alternative names for Scotland.

Ἐν τούτῳ γε μὴν νῆσοι μέγισται τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι δύο, Βρεττανικαὶ λεγόμεναι, Ἀλβίων καὶ Ἰέρνη
"There are two very large islands in it, called the British Isles, Albion and Ierne" (Britain and Ireland).

The white cliff of Albion

According to the 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae ("The History of The Kings of Britain") by Geoffrey of Monmouth, the exiled Brutus of Troy was told by the goddess Diana;

Brutus! there lies beyond the Gallic bounds
An island which the western sea surrounds,
By giants once possessed, now few remain
To bar thy entrance, or obstruct thy reign.
To reach that happy shore thy sails employ
There fate decrees to raise a second Troy
And found an empire in thy royal line,
Which time shall ne'er destroy, nor bounds confine.

— Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain/Books 1, 11
After many adventures, Brutus and his fellow Trojans escape from Gaul and "set sail with a fair wind towards the promised island".

"The island was then called Albion, and inhabited by none but a few giants. Notwithstanding this, the pleasant situation of the places, the plenty of rivers abounding with fish, and the engaging prospect of its woods, made Brutus and his company very desirous to fix their habitation in it." After dividing up the island between themselves "at last Brutus called the island after his own name Britain, and his companions Britons; for by these means he desired to perpetuate the memory of his name". Geoffrey goes on to recount how the last of the giants are defeated, the largest one called Goëmagot is flung over a cliff by Corineus.

To be continued...

 

[Marcus Antonius]

1st C.BC

The Veneti, a Belgic maritime tribe, trade actively with Britain.

The Veneti were a seafaring Celtic people who lived in the Brittany peninsula (France), which in Roman times formed part of an area called Armorica. They gave their name to the modern city of Vannes.

A Veneti ship

Other ancient Celtic peoples historically attested in Armorica include the Redones, Curiosolitae, Osismii, Esubii and Namnetes.

The Veneti inhabited southern Armorica, along the Morbihan bay. They built their strongholds on coastal eminences, which were islands when the tide was in, and peninsulas when the tide was out. Their most notable city, and probably their capital, was Darioritum (now known as Gwened in Breton or Vannes in French), mentioned in Ptolemy's Geography.

The Veneti built their ships of oak with large transoms fixed by iron nails of a thumb's thickness. They navigated and powered their ships through the use of leather sails. This made their ships strong, sturdy and structurally sound, capable of withstanding the harsh conditions of the Atlantic.

Judging by Caesar's Bello Gallico the Veneti evidently had close relations with Iron Age Britain; he describes how the Veneti sail to Britain. They controlled the tin trade from mining in Cornwall and Devon. Caesar mentioned that they summoned military assistance from that island during the war of 56 BCE.


To be continued...

 

[Marcus Antonius]

56.BC

Julius Caesar campaigns against the Veneti and destroys almost all of their fleet.

In early spring of 56, the Atlantic seaboard tribes, most notably the wealthiest and most powerful of them – the Veneti of Brittany – who had surrendered to P. Crassus without a fight, were moved to assert their freedom. They were motivated specifically by some measures Crassus took to secure supplies, and seized various Roman supply officers to hold as hostages against the safe return of the hostages they had themselves handed over to Caesar the previous autumn. Caesar was still in northern Italy when he was apprised of these events, and sent back instructions to his senior officers to keep his legions in their winter camps until he arrived, but meanwhile to begin building ships on the Loire with which to engage the naval forces of the Veneti, for this maritime tribe could not be defeated by land alone. The settlements of the Veneti were sited for the most part on promontories and peninsulas, difficult of access by land, and some at times cut off by the tides. The Veneti dominated the trade between Gaul and Britain, and had a large fleet of warships on which they relied to defy the Romans.

Battle of Morbihan

CAESAR’S SHIPS IN ARMORICA, 56 BC The scene shows two of Caesar’s ships in action against two Venetian ships in the Morbihan. The Venetians possessed square sailboats, 30-40m long and 10-12m wide, without oars. They were very high on the water, so the crews were protected against the Roman missiles. During the naval battle which took place at Lorient, with the fleet of Caesar fighting against 220 Venetian ships, the Romans managed to recover their initial disadvantage by cutting the halyards of their opponents with sharp hooks inserted in, and nailed to, long poles (dorydrepania); the leather sails fell, thus immobilizing the Veneti and allowing the Romans to board. The main ship is a Roman liburna, copied from the Aquileia Doric Frieze commemorating the Legion of Caesar participating in the campaign. The ship half-visible on the left is copied from the ‘Five’ of the Ostia relief, and shows her rowing system.

When Caesar arrived in Gaul in early spring, he divided his forces. He sent Labienus with a cavalry force into the land of the Treveri, to guard against Germans attempting to cross the Rhine. Crassus with a little over one legion and a strong contingent of cavalry was sent into Aquitania, to subjugate that part of Gaul. Sabinus with three legions was ordered to march against the tribes of northern Brittany and Normandy, to prevent them helping the Veneti. His aim was to prevent the ‘rebellion’ of the Veneti from spreading. Caesar himself with a little under four legions marched into the Venetic lands in southern Brittany, ordering young Decimus Brutus to take command of the warships he had ordered built, and to bring them to the coast of Venetia as soon as the fleet was ready.

Initially, Caesar campaigned by attacking the coastal strongholds of the Veneti one by one, using Roman siegecraft and the almost limitless work ethic of his legionaries to create a situation in which his men could get onto the walls and capture each stronghold. However, as each stronghold threatened to fall to the Romans, the Veneti would bring up their ships and evacuate the population and their possessions, rendering the Romans’ capture of the place pointless. Caesar soon realized that only with his fleet could he make decisive headway, and that he would have to suspend operations until the fleet was ready. The ships the Romans had built were essentially Mediterranean war galleys, the kind of ships they were familiar with. As well adapted as they were to Mediterranean conditions, however, these ships were not well suited to the huge waves and extreme tides of the Atlantic, and were held up for long by the weather. Finally, however, the weather became calm enough to allow them to sail to the south Brittany coast and confront the Veneti. It was an exceptionally ill-matched battle. The ships of the Veneti and their allies, some 220 strong, were of a very different sort from the Roman vessels: high decked, to withstand Atlantic waves, shallow bottomed, so as not to be stranded by low tides, and powered by sails rather than oars, as once again the Atlantic waves are not suited to rowing.

The Roman war galleys relied on ramming and boarding tactics, but their rams were ineffective against the strongly built and shallow-bottomed Venetic ships, while those ships’ high decks and manoeuvrability under sail prevented easy boarding. At first the Romans were at a loss to know how to proceed. However, they devised an ingenious device for cutting the rigging of the Gallic vessels: hooks mounted on the end of long poles, which could be used to snag the rigging on Venetic ships. Since the weather was calm, the Roman galleys could row up to a ship, snag its rigging with hooks, and then row away hard, pulling down the rigging and attached yards and sails. In this way, Venetic vessels were immobilized, and the Romans could then row alongside and, by the Roman marines’ superior fighting discipline, force their way aboard and capture the vessel. When a number of the Venetic ships had been captured in this way, the rest sought to sail away to the safety of harbour, but – providentially for the Romans – the wind died down, leaving the ships of the Veneti becalmed and easy pickings for the Roman galleys. Only a few Gallic ships escaped towards evening, when a breeze finally arose to give them some motive power.

This stunning naval victory ended the resistance of the Veneti. They surrendered, and Caesar decided to make an example of them, to discourage other ‘rebellions’. The councillors who had decided to fight the Romans were executed, and the general population were sold into slavery. Meanwhile, Sabinus had cleverly broken the resistance of the tribes of Normandy, and Crassus’s campaign in Aquitania had brought about the subjugation of that region.

To be continued...

 

[Marcus Antonius]

55.BC

Julius Caesar's first expedition into Cantium [Kent] with only two legions, ends inconclusively with the surrender of four Kentish kings.

Caesar claimed that, in the course of his conquest of Gaul, the Britons had supported the campaigns of the mainland Gauls against him, with fugitives from among the Gallic Belgae fleeing to Belgic settlements in Britain, and the Veneti of Armorica, who controlled seaborne trade to the island, calling in aid from their British allies to fight for them against Caesar in 56 BC. Strabo says that the Venetic rebellion in 56 BC had been intended to prevent Caesar from travelling to Britain and disrupting their commercial activity, suggesting that the possibility of a British expedition had already been considered by then.

In late summer, 55 BC, even though it was late in the campaigning season, Caesar decided to make an expedition to Britain. He summoned merchants who traded with the island, but they were unable or unwilling to give him any useful information about the inhabitants and their military tactics, or about harbours he could use, presumably not wanting to lose their monopoly on cross-channel trade. He sent a tribune, Gaius Volusenus, to scout the coast in a single warship. He probably examined the Kent coast between Hythe and Sandwich, but was unable to land, since he "did not dare leave his ship and entrust himself to the barbarians", and after five days returned to give Caesar what intelligence he had managed to gather.

By then, ambassadors from some of the British states, warned by merchants of the impending invasion, had arrived promising their submission. Caesar sent them back, along with his ally Commius, king of the Gallic Atrebates, to use their influence to win over as many other states as possible.

He gathered a fleet consisting of eighty transport ships, sufficient to carry two legions (Legio VII and Legio X), and an unknown number of warships under a quaestor, at an unnamed port in the territory of the Morini, almost certainly Portus Itius (Boulogne). Another eighteen transports of cavalry were to sail from a different port, probably Ambleteuse. These ships may have been triremes or biremes, or may have been adapted from Venetic designs Caesar had seen previously, or may even have been requisitioned from the Veneti and other coastal tribes. Clearly in a hurry, Caesar himself left a garrison at the port and set out "at the third watch" – well after midnight – on 23 August with the legions, leaving the cavalry to march to their ships, embark, and join him as soon as possible. In light of later events, this was either a tactical mistake or (along with the fact that the legions came over without baggage or heavy siege gear) confirms the invasion was not intended for complete conquest.

Caesar initially tried to land at Dubris (Dover), whose natural harbour had presumably been identified by Volusenus as a suitable landing place. However, when he came in sight of shore, the massed forces of the Britons gathered on the overlooking hills and cliffs dissuaded him from landing there, since the cliffs were so close to the shore that javelins could be thrown down from them onto anyone landing there. After waiting there at anchor "until the ninth hour" (about 3pm) waiting for his supply ships from the second port to come up and meanwhile convening a council of war, he ordered his subordinates to act on their own initiative and then sailed the fleet about 7 miles (11 kilometres) along the coast to an open beach. The first level beach area after Dover is at Walmer where a memorial is placed.

Walmer beach - possible location for Julius Caesar's first invasion of Britain in 55BC

Recent archaeology by the University of Leicester indicates that the possible landing beach was in Pegwell Bay on the Isle of Thanet, Kent, where artefacts and massive earthworks dating from this period have been exposed, although this area would not have been the first easy landing site seen after Dover. If Caesar had as large a fleet with him as has been suggested, then it is possible that the beaching of ships would have been spread out over a number of miles stretching from Walmer towards Pegwell Bay.

Having been tracked all the way along the coast by the British cavalry and chariots, the landing was opposed. To make matters worse, the loaded Roman ships were too low in the water to go close inshore and the troops had to disembark in deep water, all the while attacked by the enemy from the shallows. The troops were reluctant, but according to Caesar's account were led by the aquilifer (standard-bearer, whose name is not provided by Caesar) of the 10th legion who jumped in first as an example, shouting:

"Desilite 'milites, nisi vultis aquilam hostibus prodere. Ego, quod ad me attinet, in rem publicam et ad communis officium in mea"
"Leap, fellow soldiers, unless you wish to betray your eagle to the enemy. I, for my part, will perform my duty to the republic and to my general."

The British were eventually driven back with catapultae and slings fired from the warships into the exposed flank of their formation and the Romans managed to land and drive them off. The cavalry, delayed by adverse winds, still had not arrived, so the Britons could not be pursued and finished off, and Caesar could not enjoy what he calls, in his usual self-promoting style, his "accustomed success".

The Romans established a camp of which archaeological traces have been found, received ambassadors and had Commius, who had been arrested as soon as he had arrived in Britain, returned to them. Caesar claims he was negotiating from a position of strength and that the British leaders, blaming their attacks on him on the common people, were in only four days awed into giving hostages, some immediately, some as soon as they could be brought from inland, and disbanding their army. However, after his cavalry had come within sight of the beachhead but then been scattered and turned back to Gaul by storms, and with food running short, Caesar, a native of the Mediterranean, was taken by surprise by high British tides and a storm. His beached warships filled with water, and his transports, riding at anchor, were driven against each other. Some ships were wrecked, and many others were rendered unseaworthy by the loss of rigging or other vital equipment, threatening the return journey.

Realising this and hoping to keep Caesar in Britain over the winter and thus starve him into submission, the Britons renewed the attack, ambushing one of the legions as it foraged near the Roman camp. The foraging party was relieved by the remainder of the Roman force and the Britons were again driven off, only to regroup after several days of storms with a larger force to attack the Roman camp. This attack was driven off fully, in a bloody rout, with improvised cavalry that Commius had gathered from pro-Roman Britons and a Roman scorched earth policy.

The British once again sent ambassadors and Caesar, although he doubled the number of hostages, realised he could not hold out any longer and dared not risk a stormy winter crossing. Caesar had set out late in the campaigning season and the winter was approaching, and so he allowed them to be delivered to him in Gaul, to which he returned with as many of the ships as could be repaired with flotsam from the wrecked ships. Even then, only two tribes felt sufficiently threatened by Caesar to actually send the hostages, and two of his transports were separated from the main body and made landfall elsewhere.

Caesar memorial plaque on Walmer beach

To be continued...

 

[Marcus Antonius]

54BC

Caesar's second British campaign, this time with four legions and a force of cavalry, concludes with the surrender of Cassivellaunus, warlord of the Britons.

A second invasion was planned in the winter of 55–54 for the summer of 54 BC. Cicero wrote letters to his friend Gaius Trebatius Testa and his brother Quintus, both of whom were serving in Caesar's army, expressing his excitement at the prospect. He urged Trebatius to capture him a war chariot, and asked Quintus to write him a description of the island. Trebatius, as it turned out, did not go to Britain, but Quintus did, and wrote him several letters from there – as did Caesar himself.Determined not to make the same mistakes as the previous year, Caesar gathered a larger force than on his previous expedition with five legions as opposed to two, plus two-thousand cavalry, carried in ships which he designed, with experience of Venetic shipbuilding technology, to be more suitable to a beach landing than those used in 55 BC being broader and lower for easier beaching. This time he names Portus Itius as the departure point. Labienus was left at Portus Itius to oversee regular food transports from there to the British beachhead. The military ships were joined by a flotilla of trading ships captained by Romans and provincials from across the empire, and local Gauls, hoping to cash in on the trading opportunities. It seems more likely that the figure Caesar quotes for the fleet (800 ships) include these traders and the troop-transports, rather than the troop-transports alone.

Caesar landed at the place he had identified as the best landing-place the previous year. The Britons did not oppose the landing, apparently, as Caesar states, intimidated by the size of the fleet, but equally this may have been a strategic ploy to give them time to gather their forces, or may reflect their lack of concern. Caesar continued through Kent. He met British tribes probably somewhere on the River Stour, but pushed them back to a hillfort, where they scattered. Unwilling to push his luck with night falling in unknown territory he made camp, only to find that his fleet had again suffered from bad weather. Forty ships at anchor in the Channel had been wrecked and others damaged by a storm and high tides. A temporary return to the coast was needed, where he sent word for more ships and his men spent 10 days and nights repairing those they could.

When Caesar returned to the Stour, he found the tribes had used the time to organise their resistance under Cassivellaunus, a powerful warrior king of (probably) the Catuvellauni tribe. After a few skirmishes, Cassivellaunus realised he couldn't defeat the Romans in pitched battle and again resorted to guerrilla tactics. He used chariots and superior knowledge of the territory to delay the Roman army on their march north, giving the British time to fortify the only fordable place on the River Thames. The British use of chariots was enough to frighten the Romans and impress Caesar, who described their tactics in the Gallic Wars:

"First they drive in all directions hurling spears. Generally they succeed in throwing the ranks of their opponents into confusion just with the terror caused by their galloping horses and the din of the wheels. They make their way through the squadrons of their own cavalry, then jump down from their chariots and fight on foot. Meanwhile, the chariot drivers withdraw a little way from the fighting and position the chariots in such a way that if their masters are hard-pressed by the enemy’s numbers, they have an easy means of retreat to their own lines. Thus, when they fight they have the mobility of cavalry and the staying power of infantry: and with daily training and practice they have become so efficient that even on steep slopes they can control their horses at full gallop, check and turn them in a moment, run along the pole, stand on the yoke, and get back into the chariot with incredible speed."

The fortification of the Thames was not enough to prevent the Romans crossing it. One second century Macedonian author, Polyaenus, suggests that Caesar used an elephant to scare away the tribes. Caesar himself makes no reference to an elephant, merely stating that 'the soldiers advanced with such speed and such ardour...that the enemy could not sustain the attack of the legions and of the horse, and quitted the banks, and committed themselves to flight'. The point was proved, though: the tribes fought best in small numbers using the land to their advantage, and open battle should be avoided.

British tribal life was fraught with internal conflicts and rivalries. Cassivellaunus had recently conquered the Trinovantes, in what is now Essex, forcing their prince, Mandubracius, into exile. Mandubracius, sensing a powerful potential ally in Caesar, approached Caesar and agreed a peace in return for his restoration to the Trinovantes under the protection of Rome. The Trinovantes would send 40 hostages to Rome and grain for the army, as well as providing much needed information. Five other tribes, seeing the protection given to the Trinovantes against violence and pillage, followed suit, also providing provisions and information, including the location of Cassivellaunus' stronghold. A siege was laid and, after a diversionary attack on the Roman's beachhead failed, Cassivellaunus surrendered.

Cassivellaunus was a historical British tribal chief who led the defence against Julius Caesar's second expedition to Britain in 54 BC.

With trouble brewing on the Gaulish front, Caesar left without fulfilling the conquest (if he ever meant to), but with treasure and treaties from a few tribal chiefs, as well as the British hostages. Caesar's acknowledged reason for the invasion, to prevent the Britons from helping the Gauls, succeeded: there is no further reference to the British fighting in their defence.


To be continued...

 

[Marcus Antonius]

52BC

Commius the Atrebatian, Caesar's Gaulish confidante, attempts to relieve his countryman Vercingatorix during the siege of Alesia. He is repulsed by the besieging Roman legions and flees to southern Britain to escape the retribution of Caesar.

Following Julius Caesar's victory over the Belgic tribes on the Sambre in 57 BC, he appointed his ally Commius as leader of the Atrebates tribe.

Britain posed a backdoor threat to Caesar's conquest of Gaul, where he had spent eight years campaigning. Prior to his first expedition to Britain in 55 BC, Commius was dispatched by Caesar with a message to the leaders of the Celts of Britain warning them not to resist him. However, Caesar's envoy was captured and put in chains on arrival on the island. Commius, King of the Atrebates, was later returned to the Romans as part of the negotiations after Caesar landed in Britain.

Commius accompanied Julius Caesar on his second expedition to Britain and was present at the surrender of the Celtic leader Cassivellaunus after he was besieged by Caesar at his stronghold, believed to be at Devil's Dyke, to the south-east side of Wheathampstead in Hertfordshire. Commius negotiated Cassivellaunus' surrender to the Romans. Although the expedition to Britain had proved successful it was inconclusive and Caesar returned to quell discontent in Gaul, where a poor harvest had caused much unrest.

After Caesar's return to Gaul, he subdued the Menapii tribe, in the Rhine delta and Commius was given command in the area, at the head of a cavalry force. He was granted the lands of the Morini and his kingdom was granted exemption from taxation. During the winter of 53 BC, the legate Titus Labienus, Caesar's second in command, who was left in control of Gaul while Caesar spent the winter in Italy, suspected that Commius had conspired with the Gaulish tribes against the Romans. Labienus sent a tribune, Gaius Volusenus Quadratus, to summon Commius to a meeting where it was planned to execute him in return for what was viewed as his treachery. Commius escaped from the trap with a severe head wound and vowed he would never again ally with the treacherous Romans.

Commius next appears in 52 BC, when the Atrebates joined the revolt of Vercingetorix, chief of the Arverni tribe, who came to power in Gaul 52 BC. Commius was one of the leaders of the army that attempted to relieve Vercingetorix who was being besieged by Caesar at Alesia.

Reconstruction of the rampart of the circumvallation at Alesia (France).

Caesar built a fortification around the Alesia, a further outer fortification was constructed against the expected relief armies, the result was a doughnut-shaped fortification surrounding the city. The relief however, arrived in insufficient numbers, estimates range from a force of 80,000 to 250,000 men. Vercingetorix, inside the city, was cut off from the relief force and the attacks initially did not meet with success. Eventually a weak point in the fortifications was discovered and the combined forces of the rebels on the inside and the outside almost made a breakthrough. Only when Caesar personally led the last reserves into battle was he finally victorious.

Vercingetorix throwing down his weapons at the feet of julius caesar

Vercingetorix was taken prisoner by the Romans and executed after being publicly displayed in Caesar's triumph, probably strangled in prison. Following the fall of Alesia, Commius joined a revolt by the Belgian Bellovaci tribe led by Correus and succesfully persuaded some 500 Germans to support them, but this too was defeated and Commius, having survived the ambush in which Correus met his end, sought refuge with his German allies.

In 51 BC he conducted a guerrilla campaign against the Romans. Marcus Antonius , a legionary legate at the time, ordered Volusenus to oppose him with cavalry. When the two clashed, Volusenus, although he suffered a spear-wound to the thigh, emerged victorious. Commius escaped the conflict and convinced that further resistance was futile, sued for peace, he offered hostages for his good faith and promised to no longer oppose Caesar, on the condition that he never again had to meet a Roman. Marcus Antonius accepted his petition, bringing an end to the last serious resistance to Roman rule in Gaul.

Pursued by Caesar, Commius fled to Britain, however, when he reached the English Channel the tide was out, leaving his ships stranded on the flats. Commius ordered the sails raised anyway. Caesar, following from a distance, was decieved into assuming the ships were afloat and abandoned the pursuit.

Commius had established himself as king of the Atrebates in Britain by around 30 BC, the Atrebates occupied the territory to the south of the River Thames that included present day Hampshire and Sussex. He issued coins depicting a stylized, triple-tailed Celtic horse, from Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester). Coins with his name continued to be issued until around 20 BC.

Tincomarus, Eppillus and Verica, are later named on their coins as sons of Commius. From about 25 BC Commius appears to have ruled in collaboration with his son Tincomarus. After his death Tincomarus appears to have ruled the northern part of the kingdom from Calleva, while Eppillus ruled the southern part from Noviomagus (Chichester). Tincomarus was expelled by his subjects in around 8 AD and fled to Rome as a refugee and Eppillus became the sole ruler of the Atrebates. Verica succeeded him about 15 AD, Caratacus, King of the Catuvellauni tribe conquered the kingdom of the Atrebates some time after 40 AD.

To be continued...

 

[Marcus Antonius]

44 BC

Julius Caesar assassinated by Brutus and Cassius [et al] in the theatre of Pompey in Rome. Civil war ensues.

15 March 44 BC

GAIVS JULIVS CAESAR

Julius Caesar, the”dictator for life”of the Roman Empire, is murdered by his own senators at a meeting in a hall next to Pompey’s Theatre. The conspiracy against Caesar encompassed as many as sixty noblemen, including Caesar’s own protege, Marcus Brutus.

MARCVS BRVTVS, (The Younger)

Caesar was scheduled to leave Rome to fight in a war on March 18 and had appointed loyal members of his army to rule the Empire in his absence. The Republican senators, already chafing at having to abide by Caesar’s decrees, were particularly angry about the prospect of taking orders from Caesar’s underlings. Cassius Longinus started the plot against the dictator, quickly getting his brother-in-law Marcus Brutus to join.

GIAVS CASSIVS LONGINVS

SERVILIVS CASCA

Caesar should have been well aware that many of the senators hated him, but he dismissed his security force not long before his assassination. Reportedly, Caesar was handed a warning note as he entered the senate meeting that day but did not read it. After he entered the hall, Caesar was surrounded by senators holding daggers. Servilius Casca struck the first blow, hitting Caesar in the neck and drawing blood. The other senators all joined in, stabbing him repeatedly about the head.

Marcus Brutus wounded Caesar in the groin and Caesar is said to have remarked in Greek, “You, too, my child?” In the aftermath of the assassination, Marcus Antonius attempted to carry out Caesar’s legacy. However, Caesar’s will left Octavian in charge as his adopted son. Cassius and Brutus tried to rally a Republican army and Brutus even issued coins celebrating the assassination, known as the Ides of March.

To be continued...

 

[Marcus Antonius]

43 BC

Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus [Octavian], great-nephew and adopted heir of Caesar, forms an alliance with Caesar's second in command, Marcus Antonius [Mark Antony], and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus the popular champion of the Roman legions. Together, the second triumvirate pursue and destroy the assassins of Caesar.

In October of 43 BCE Lepidus and Antony met Octavian near Bononia to form a triumvirate - a Constitutional Commission - with power similar to that of a consul. While regular daily functions of the government would continue as usual, their sole purpose was to restore stability to the Republic. This new authority allowed them to enact laws without the approval of the Roman Senate. The triumvirate was formally recognized by the Senate in the Lex Titia in November of 43 BCE, granting the trio supreme authority for five years (until January 1, 37 BCE), and assigning them the important task of hunting down the conspirators, especially Brutus and Cassius. Concerning the conspirators, the three had little intention of granting clemency to anyone and a public decree was soon issued, condemning 300 senators and over 2,000 Roman knights or equites. Executioners were sent out. Many of those on the enemies list chose to flee the city, abandoning all of their property. The sale of the seized property was then used to fund the hunt.

Marcus Aemilius Lepidus

Marcus Antonius

Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus

Although not directly involved in the assassination of Caesar, one of the names slated for execution was that of Cicero. Some believe Octavian had tried to keep his name off the list, but his writings (his Philippics condemning Marcus Antonius) had not won him any favors. Cicero had always lived by a personal code - the greatest good was to live in service to the state and oppose anyone who threatened it. He firmly believed Antonius was an enemy of the state and should have been killed alongside Caesar. Antonius was never one to be in a forgiving mood and especially not one to overlook Cicero’s outspokenness. Cicero became one of the first victims of the triumvirate. He was caught attempting to escape from his villa outside Naples. His hands which had written the derogatory essays were symbolically cut off while his head was decapitated and sent to Rome where it was nailed to the speaker’s platform in the Forum. Besides Cicero, another significant conspirator to die was Decimus who failed in his attempt to join Brutus in Macedonia. It was Decimus who had convinced the ill Caesar to appear at the Temple of Pompey where he would be assassinated. After being captured in Gaul and beheaded, his head was sent to Antonius.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus

With many of the people on the enemies list eliminated, the trio turned their attention to Brutus, Cassius and Sextus Pompey. In June of 42 BCE Brutus and Cassius met at Sardis in Western Anatolia. With Lepidus in Sicily, Octavian and Antonius crossed the Adriatic Sea and met the two conspirators at Philippi in eastern Macedonia to do battle. With Octavian ill, Antonius easily won; Cassius, fearing capture, had himself decapitated but Brutus would have him secretly buried. Brutus escaped only to later commit suicide. Sextus Pompey, son of the legendary commander Pompey, had originally been outlawed under the Lex Pedia. He escaped to Sicily, eventually making a pact with the triumvirate. Later, Octavian reconsidered the pact, believing Pompey had betrayed him, and had the young commander captured and executed.

Sextus Pompeius Magnus Pius

To be continued...

 

[Marcus Antonius]

36 BC

Lepidus falls from favour and the second triumvirate dissolves; but being Pontifex Maximus and thus head of all Roman religion, his person is sacrosanct and he is allowed simply to retire from public life. Octavian and Mark Antony agree to divide the Roman world between them; Octavian consolidates Caesar's gains in Gaul and the west whilst Antony continues his own campaigns in the East.

Despite continued victories in the east, the days of the triumvirate were numbered. In 37 BC Lepidus was kept out of the renewal of the coalition. Although he had helped against Pompey, his continued failure in battle led to his banishment by Octavian to Circei the following year. Suetonius wrote,

"Lepidus, the third member of the triumvirate, whom Augustus had summoned from Africa to his support, thought himself so important as the commander of twenty legions that...he violently demanded the highest place in the government. Augustus deprived him of his legions and, though successfully pleading for his life, Lepidus spent what was left of it in permanent exile at Circei."

With Lepidus in exile, the empire was equally divided between Octavian and Marcus Antonius - Octavian in the west and Antony in the east. This division would spell the end of the partnership. Antonius met Cleopatra VII of Egypt, the former lover of Caesar; their love would lead to war.

Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator


As with the surviving members of the first triumvirate, Mark Antony and Octavian would eventually rekindle their mutual dislike. Much of this discontent was centered on Cleopatra. After the death of Antonius’s first wife Fulvia, he married Octavian’s sister Octavia. Now, Antonius’s attentions were centered away from Octavia and on the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. He believed her money would help fund a war against Octavian. Afterwards, Alexandria would be the new capital, replacing Rome. Octavian had never been very fond of Cleopatra, mostly due to her relationship with Caesar and the birth of his son Caesarion. He viewed Antonius as having become incompetent and lovesick, questioning the queen’s influence on him. So, instead of a war against Antonius, Octavian had the Senate declare war on Cleopatra.

Curia Julia front

Curia Julia interior

The Curia Julia is the third named Curia, or Senate House, in the ancient city of Rome. It was built in 44 BC, when Julius Caesar replaced Faustus Cornelius Sulla's reconstructed Curia Cornelia, which itself had replaced the Curia Hostilia. Caesar did so to redesign both spaces within the Comitium and the Roman Forum. The alterations within the Comitium reduced the prominence of the Senate and cleared the original space. The work, however, was interrupted by Caesar's assassination at the Theatre of Pompey, where the Senate had been meeting temporarily while the work was completed. The project was eventually finished by Caesar's successor, Augustus Caesar, in 29 BC

To be continued...

 

[Marcus Antonius]

34 BC

Disturbances in Britain prompt Octavian to gather forces for a punitive expedition, but his first planned campaign fails to sail, diverted by uprisings in Dalmatia.

The central and northern area of the region of Dalmatia engaged in piracy and raided north-eastern Italy. In response to this, Octavian conducted a series of campaigns in Illyricum.
From 35–33 BC Octavian undertook military campaigns in the region. He defeated the Iapydes, the northernmost tribe of Dalmatia. He then pushed into southern Pannonia and seized the city of Segesta (which later, as a Roman town, was called Siscia). He then turned on the Dalmatians and captured Promona (to the south of modern Knin, Croatia) on the coast, the main city of the Liburnians, which had been seized by the Dalmatians. After that he took the Dalmatian cities of Sunodium and Setovia. He then moved on the Derbani, who sued for peace. He also destroyed the settlements on the islands of Melite (Mljet) and Melaina Corcyra (Korčula), and deprived the Liburnians of their ships, because all were involved in piracy. Octavian's lieutenants conducted various other operations in the region. Octavian temporarily restored Roman authority in Dalmatia and pushed into southern Pannonia, which had never before been reached by Roman armies.

To be continued...

 

[Marcus Antonius]

31 BC

At Verulamium [St. Albans] in Britain, Tasciovanus of the Catuvellauni established his capital as a powerful trading center.

Pre-Roman Celtic tribes of Britain and Ireland


Tasciovanus was the son of Addedomaros, whom he succeeded c.20BC, and the father of Cunobelin and Epaticcus. He was the first Catuvellaunian monarch to issue inscribed coins, bearing the Verulamium mint marks. He was also the first to renew hostilities towards the Trinovantes, flouting the long-standing agreement between Caesar and his own grandfather Cassivellaunus. Between 10 and 15BC he issued a series of coins bearing the mint mark Camulodunum, indicating that for a time at least, he took possession of the Trinovantian capital, but it appears that he withdrew following the advent of Augustus in Gaul. His later coin issues bear the title rigon, usually translated as 'king'. If this is the case, it is probable that Tasciovanus did not have a treaty with Rome, otherwise he would have used the Latin title Rex.

To be continued...

 

[Marcus Antonius]

31 BC

Marcus Antonius is defeated at Actium by the forces of Octavian, who then assumes sole leadership of the Roman state.

BATTLE OF ACTIUM

In 31 BCE the two forces met. Antonius’s plan was to trap Octavian and his fleet at Actium on the Ambracian Gulf on the western coast of Greece. The plan proved to be seriously flawed. Aside from the fact that Antonius was not a capable naval commander, many of his officers were unhappy with Cleopatra’s appearance and input at council meetings. This was contrary to their Roman belief concerning a woman’s role in politics (while women were recognized as citizens in Rome they were not permitted to participate in governmental affairs). To this conviction Octavian employed a unique propaganda campaign to sway Antonius’s staff, questioning her influence on Antonius’s decision making. He emerged indecisive and morale was low, desertions high.

Roman warship at the Battle of Actium. Mediterranean, 31BC

Despite outnumbering Octavian, the plan was a complete failure. Antonius and Cleopatra were trapped and supplies were short and winter was coming. Their narrow escape brought Antonius to Libya and Cleopatra to Egypt. The hope was to raise additional troops, but like their earlier plan, this, too, failed. Suicide was the only recourse for Antonius, and when an attempt to reach a compromise with Octavian failed, Cleopatra took her life. Octavian would eventually return to Rome a hero. The Senate rewarded him with a new title and a new name. He was Augustus, the first emperor of the new Roman Empire. He would assume authority far beyond the intent of the Senate, and as the emperor, Augustus would set the stage for all of those who followed him.

Meeting between Cleopatra and Octavian after Battle of Actium


To be continued...