Londinium: London in the Roman Empire

History of London #1

by John Robert Morris, Sarah Macready (final revisions)

History, nonfiction. This book explores highlights of the history of the city of London, from just before the Roman invasion of Britain to the early Medieval period called the "Age of Arthur". The text is based on the academic lecture series by Prof. John Morris, Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at University College, London, and was posthumously organized by Sarah Macready of the Institute of Archaeology, London University. Mostly text, with a few relevant maps, and a few black-and-white plates of Roman artifacts discovered in or around London.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, London, Roman

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

For most historians, the greatest single limitation to understanding the past is the availability of source material. Ultimately, our ability to decipher what came before is limited by the records at hand, a factor which can constrain even the best historian. This is particularly evident in John Morris' history of Roman London. A longtime historian of the Roman Empire and its aftermath in Britain, Morris draws upon the range of available archaeological and historical evidence to describe the first centuries of London's existence. With chapters on the development of the town, its governance, and the everyday habits of its inhabitants, he provides a good examination of life in Londinium and the role the city played in Rome's rule over Britain.

Yet Morris' command of the material cannot mask its thinness. Most of the first part of the book is devoted to providing a history of pre-Roman and Roman Britain, which, while useful, often loses relevancy and can feel a little like padding. Moreover, the absence of detailed evidence often forces Morris to resort to supposition, or inference from other Roman cities. This does not make it a bad book, but the age of the text (originally written in the early 1970s and revised after Morris' death) does beg for updating as new archaeological and historical evidence emerges which allows us to improve and refine our understanding of London's earliest inhabitants. Until then, we have Morris' fine, if dated study.

[Miriam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is more about the Roman empire than about London IN the Roman Empire. I respect Morris's academic honesty and his careful reasoning, but this book should probably be called "We don't really know much about London until way later, so here's some facts about what life was like in other parts of the Roman empire. Oh, and potsherds." But that's too long. The maps aren't very helpful. Some interesting connections between the Romans and the Victorians. And I often thought about how the U.S. is doomed because it's acting like the late Roman empire.

[Ezra Strong · Rating 2 out of 5]

The topic of Roman London is an intriguing one, but this book suffers both from the time period it was written in (and the information available at that time), as well as certain viewpoints perhaps more common then. As it stands, this is less a book filled with facts about London and more a talk about Rome and how great it was. While there are a number of references, many 'facts' or statements fail to be backed up by any evidence. I appreciate the efforts of the woman who did the final pass of editing on the manuscript (excising entire portions of speculation that had since been disproved, adding notes about more recent discoveries), there were still problems with the piece. There were multiple formatting errors in my copy and citations within the book would refer to dramatically incorrect pages. The maps are... not great, and very poorly located. Only rarely are they even close to the pages that might mention what they're displaying.
This one is a personal problem: the names. Some cities and areas I'm familiar with. But a lot of neighborhoods and streets and roads are not shown on the aforementioned maps, and are not part of my general knowledge of England. And since the names the author is using are to put a 'contemporary' reference point for his readers, they're hard for me to track down, because the contemporary point is now fifty years in the past and some of them have different names now. People are at least easier to keep track of for me from similar readings, but trying to follow which gate street he's talking about and which direction the stream is flowing gave me problems. I'll also complain here about his use of the words British (quickly used for any Romans or other empire folk living in Britain, instead of distinguishing the local peoples) and English (for the... Saxons, because we're not acknowledging the Angles at this point in time I guess).

Back to the premise of the book; because of the spotty and limited nature of evidence or documentation on London itself during the time frame, much of the book is limited to discussing what we know of Rome and Roman cities in general or in specific other instances, in Spain, for example. That's interesting, but not what I come to a book about Roman London for.

I'll include three quotes that annoyed me and give a taste of the author's viewpoints:
(Speaking of the advent of Rome in Britain)"Masters preferred to sell freedom to their slaves, and be quit of the cost of feeding and clothing them"
"The evident superiority of Greek and Roman civilization was rooted in freedom, in contrast with the autocratic empires of ancient Mesopotamia"
"If Britain had remained an offshore barbarian island, beyond the end of the Roman world, it risked conquest and subjection by the powers... for the whole of its future history, an impotent victim"
"The weakness of the archaeological evidence is made good by a great quantity of documentation... Most of it is utterly unlike the factual narrative of Roman... record...twisted to that end"

To put it bluntly, the backdrop for this entire piece is an author who seems convinced that Rome and the proceeds of it were some of the best things that ever happened to the world and they could do little wrong. Highly Hellenocentrist that discounts things like the sophistication and political autonomy that the Persian empire had prior to the advent of Rome, Roman slaves were pampered and better off than free 'barbarians', that Roman historians had no ulterior motives or twists to their writings, and without Rome, Britain would be a worthless peon fit only to be beaten down.

I cannot recommend this book. Unless you want a brief overview of the soil composition in southern Britain.

[Robert Monk · Rating 3 out of 5]

What to say about this book? Well, for most of it I found it really enjoyable. It isn't so much a pure history of Roman London, as it is a history of provincial cities during the Roman Empire. And that was fascinating. It talks about sources for civic organization in various other remote towns founded by the Romans (as London was), life in the provinces, how Roman culture spread through the conquered lands, and how all of this might have applied to London as well. It looks at written and archaeological material, trying to show how they can fit together. Basically, it talked about the Roman world from the second tier, you might say. A social history of the Western provinces. And I thought that was great. It pointed out the weaknesses in the record for London itself, but made educated guesses based on that material from other places, speculating that something similar probably happened in London. Totally fair.

Then came the last chapter.

Morris apparently did a lot of work on Arthur studies, and the last chapter consists of a mini-breakdown of that King Arthur stuff. And, hey, we all like King Arthur stories, don't we? Only Morris presents some extremely speculative theories based on very shaky sources as if they were well-established facts. He doesn't even mention the fact that Gildas, one of the few contemporary sources from sub-Roman Britain, doesn't ever mention Arthur. No contemporary source does. Which doesn't mean there's no historical basis for the dude, but not mentioning the fact makes the rest of Morris's speculations about Roman London look less reliable. What other stuff didn't he mention? It soured what had been an extremely interesting read.

[Denele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent in-depth look at the city founded by Roman conquerors of Britannia and meant to serve as their headquarters during the centuries of their occupation. The Western world was forever changed by the Empire's ability not only to conquer poorly organized and largely illiterate native tribes, but to incorporate those people into the advancements already possessed by Rome: the rule of law, literacy, the arts, and much more. Not that the native Britons had not already known of Rome before the founding of London. Trade had been ongoing for centuries with other western European Celtic tribes, and invasions of Britain dated back into prehistory. This book is full of detailed information documenting the process up to and including the withdrawal of Roman forces in the mid 5th century and includes a final chapter on the "Age of Arthur."

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

Certainly a thorough account of an interesting period in Roman history, though hardly an entertaining one. Definitely thoroughly researched and documented. Of course much has been done in Brit archaeology in the past 25 years that makes it a bit dated, but not much.

[Tracey]

Tim Root told me he really liked this book, about the early formation of London, when it began as a Roman settlement.