Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T10:39:58.859Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A. Plautius' Campaign in Britain: An Alternative Reading of the Narrative in Cassius Dio (60.19.5–21.2)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2010

J.G.F. Hind
J.G.F. Hind
Affiliation:
Moortown, Leeds
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Three aspects of Cassius Dio's account of the Claudian invasion of Britain are discussed. First, the convention, by which ancient historians routinely introduced their detailed narrative of military campaigns with a summary, allows the two first battles in the sequence to be eliminated as separate events. Secondly, the kings, Togodumnus in Cassius Dio and Cogidumnus in Tacitus' Agricola, are taken to be the same individual, who after defeat was reconciled to be Claudius' client-ruler. Thirdly, the argument is restated that the invasion took place through the harbours of West Sussex on a route suggested by the description given by Dio and by the evidence of place-names, known from the Geography of Ptolemy and the Antonine Itinerary.

Keywords

Roman invasion of BritainClaudiusAulus PlautiusCassius DioCaratacusCogidumnus/Cogidubnus
Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 38 , November 2007 , pp. 93 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © J.G.F. Hind 2007. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I should like to thank John Manley for his helpful comments on the topic in correspondence over several years and for reading this paper in draft. I am also grateful to the anonymous readers of Britannia for suggestions for improvement to the text and for items of recent bibliography. None of the above is necessarily to be held to agree with the views put forward here, and errors remaining are, of course, my own.

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barrett, A.A. 1979: ‘The career of T. Claudius Cogidubnus’, Britannia 10, 227–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, A.A. 1981: ‘Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus and the Claudian conquest’, in Webster 1981, 124Google Scholar
Bird, D.G. 2000: ‘The Claudian invasion campaign reconsidered’, Oxford Journ. Arch. 19.1, 91–104Google Scholar
Bird, D.G. 2002: ‘The events of A.D. 43: further refections’, Britannia 33, 257–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birley, A.R. 1981: The Fasti of Roman Britain, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Birley, A.R. 2005: The Roman Government of Britain, OxfordCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, E.W. 1998: ‘How many rivers to cross?’ Britannia 29, 306–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, E.W. 2000: ‘Sentius Saturninus and the Roman invasion of Britain’, Britannia 31, 1–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, E.W. 2001: ‘The frst-century historians of Roman Britain’, Oxford Journ. Arch. 20.4, 415–28Google Scholar
Bogaers, J.E. 1979: ‘King Cogidubnus: another reading of RIB 91’, Britannia 10, 243–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boon, G.C. 1974: Silchester: The Roman Town of Calleva, LondonGoogle Scholar
Brandon, P. 2003: The Kent and Sussex Weald, ChichesterGoogle Scholar
Braund, D. 1984: Rome and the Friendly King, The Character of Client Kingship, LondonGoogle Scholar
Burn, A.R. 1953: ‘The battle of the Medway a.d. 43’, History 39, 105–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coates, R. 2005: ‘Cogidubnus revisited’, Antiq. Journ. 85, 359–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clifford, E. 1961: Bagendon - A Belgic Oppidum, CambridgeGoogle Scholar
Collingwood, R.G., and Myres, J.N.L. 1937: Roman Britain and the English Settlements (2nd edn), OxfordGoogle Scholar
Creighton, J. 2000: Coins and Power in Late Iron Age Britain, CambridgeCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Creighton, J. 2006: Britannia, The Creation of a Roman Province, London and New yorkGoogle Scholar
Cunliffe, B. 1973: The Regni, LondonGoogle Scholar
Cunliffe, B. 1998: Fishbourne Roman Palace, StroudGoogle Scholar
Dannell, G.B., and Irving, P. V. (eds) 2005: An Archaeological Miscellany: Papers in Honour of K.F. Hartley, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Davies, H.E.H. 1998: ‘Designing Roman roads’, Britannia 29, 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frere, S.S. 1999: Britannia (3rd edn), LondonGoogle Scholar
Frere, S.S., and Fulford, M. 2001: ‘The Roman invasion of a.d. 43’, Britannia 32, 445–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardiner, M. 1990: ‘The archaeology of the Weald — a survey and a review’, Sussex Arch. Collections 128, 33–53Google Scholar
Grainge, G. 2005: The Roman Invasions of Britain, StroudGoogle Scholar
Harrison, D. 2004: Discovering Arundel, Chichester and District, SeafordGoogle Scholar
Hawkes, C.F.C. 1961: ‘The Belgic Dobunni and the Roman invasion of 43’, in Clifford 1961, 56–62Google Scholar
Henig, M. 2002: The Heirs of King Verica — Culture and Politics in Roman Britain, StroudGoogle Scholar
Hind, J.G.F. 1989: ‘The Roman invasion of a.d. 43 – an alternative strategy for A. Plautius’, Britannia 20, 1–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hind, J.G.F. 1994: ‘Mithridates’, CAH X2, 161–4Google Scholar
Hobbs, R. 1996: British Iron Age Coins in the British Museum, LondonGoogle Scholar
Holder, A. 1896: Alt-Celtischer Sprachschatz, LeipzigGoogle Scholar
Huggins, R. 1986: Letter to The London Archaeologist 5 (7), 195Google Scholar
Hutchins, R. 1988: ‘Some pre-Roman sites at Cliffe’, Arch. Cant. 105, 289–90Google Scholar
Jones, B., and Mattingly, D. 1990: An Atlas of Roman Britain, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Manley, J. 2002: A.D.43 – The Roman Invasion of Britain. A Reassessment, StroudGoogle Scholar
Manley, J. 2003: ‘Fishbourne before the conquest’, Current Archaeology 187, 290–8Google Scholar
Manley, J., and Rudkin, D. 2005: ‘A pre-A.D. 43 ditch at Fishbourne Roman Palace, Chichester’, Britannia 36, 55–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Margary, I.D. 1948: Roman Ways in the Weald, LondonGoogle Scholar
Margary, I.D. 1967: Roman Roads in Britain, LondonGoogle Scholar
Mattingly, D. 2006: An Imperial Possession, Britain in the Roman Empire 54 B.C.–A.D. 409, LondonGoogle Scholar
Merrifeld, R. 1965: The Roman City of London, LondonGoogle Scholar
Millar, F. 1964: A Study of Cassius Dio, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Murgia, C.E. 1977: ‘The minor works of Tacitus: a study in textual criticism’, Class. Phil. 72, 313–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peddie, C. 2005: The Roman Invasion of Britain (2nd edn), StroudGoogle Scholar
Rivet, A.L.F., and Smith, C. 1979: The Place-Names of Roman Britain, LondonGoogle Scholar
Russell, M. 2006: Roman Sussex, StroudGoogle Scholar
Salway, P. 1981: Roman Britain, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Sands, P.C. 1908: The Client Princes of the Roman Empire Under the Republic (repr. New york 1975)Google Scholar
Sauer, et al. 2000: ‘Alchester, a Claudian “vexillation fortress”’, Arch. Journ. 157, 1–78Google Scholar
Sauer, E. 2002: ‘The Roman invasion of Britain (A.D. 43) in imperial perspective: a response to Frere and Fulford’, Oxford Journ. Arch. 21 (4), 333–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sussex Environment, Landscape and Society 1983: The Geography Editorial Committee, university of Sussex, Alan SuttonGoogle Scholar
Thornhill, P. 1976: ‘A lower Thames ford and the campaigns of 55 B.C. and A.D. 43’, Arch. Cant. 92, 119–28Google Scholar
Todd, M. (ed.) 2004: A Companion to Roman Britain, OxfordCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webster, G. 1980: The Roman Invasion of Britain (2nd edn 1993), LondonGoogle Scholar
Webster, G. 1981: Rome against Caratacus— The Roman Campaigns in Britain A.D. 48–58, LondonGoogle Scholar
Whatmough, J. 1950/1/1970: The Dialects of Ancient Gaul, CambridgeGoogle Scholar
Woodcock, G. 1967: William Cobbett — Rural Rides, LondonGoogle Scholar