In many ways it is easier to recognize archaeologically the aftermath of the revolt than recognize it happening. Once again the sources do not agree, but there are several strands that can be made out. Suetonius (Nero 18) suggests that Nero considered abandoning Britain as a province. As we have already seen there are few indications when this would have become a consideration in his reign; many scholars think it unlikely to have happened before the death of his mother, when most of the real decisions were made by Agrippina, Burrus and Seneca, rather than by Nero (and as we have seen, Seneca had serious business interests in Britain). It is also difficult to place the event in the latter part of Nero’s reign, when the annexation of the Brigantian kingdom developed into a rapid push further north. The most likely scenario would place the event in the direct aftermath of the rebellion. Given the constant money problems of Nero’s reign, who spent large sums on building and on entertainment and games, finding the money to rebuild the infrastructure of a province, which had lost its two largest cities as well as a substantial part of the population, would have been difficult, especially as the tax revenue would have been depressed for several years to come.
However, the archaeology and historical sources agree that these considerations must have been a moment of doubt which was quickly overcome. Tacitus’ account of the rebellion continues with the description of Paullinus leading police operations in the area of the rebellious tribes. The situation was further exacerbated by famine. On the other hand Nero sent reinforcements from the Continent, consisting of 2,000 legionaries, eight cohorts of auxiliaries and 1,000 horsemen (Annals XIV, iv, 38). The mopping up operations appear to have taken some time, and to have been criticized or perhaps even countered by the actions of the new procurator Julius Classicianus. Tacitus blamed the situation on the private animosity of Classicianus and Paullinus, which resulted eventually in the despatch of an Imperial delegation to Britain, who made a favourable report of Suetonius’ actions. Suetonius was later in the year asked to hand over his command to Petronius Turpilianus, who took a more conciliatory part with regard to the province.
Suetonius Paullinus, now in Rome, was suitably rewarded for saving the province: there may have been a donative in his honour and in 66 he, or more likely his son, may have become consul; in 69 he was considered as one of the leading senators and a possible Emperor, and he survived the Civil Wars (Birley 2005, 51).
We know that Classicianus remained in Britain until his death at an unknown point in time: his gravestone was found built into London’s Roman Wall and is now on display in the British Museum. The fragmentary inscription reads:
DIS / [M]ANIBUS/[C IUL C F FAB ALPINI CLASSICIANI / … / … / … / PROC PROVINC BRIT[ANNIAE …] / IULIA INDI FILIA PACATA I[…… / UXOR F(ECIT). (Grasby & Tomlin, 2002)
The text suggests that Classicianus was originally from Eastern Gaul/Germany and appears to have been married to the daughter of Julius Indus. There is no way of knowing how common the name of Julius Indus was in the area, but one Julius Indus helped the Romans in 21 to diffuse the Gallic Sacrovir uprising, which had started as a tax revolt and protests against Roman mismanagement. If this were the same man, it might suggest that in the aftermath of the rebellion, it was decided to select as procurator a man that may have had a more understanding disposition towards the problems of the provincials. His new partner as governor was an equally interesting choice. Rather than choosing someone with substantial military experience, as had been the case since Ostorius Scapula, P. Petronius Turpilianus became governor, nothing of whom is known, except that he is most likely the nephew of the first governor Aulus Plautius (Birley 2005, 51f.). In 63 he was replaced by M. Trebellius Maximus, who may have had some experience in fighting, but again was not one of the renowned generals we saw before the uprising; Trebellius remains in Britain until 69.
Tacitus’ comments in the Agricola (Chapter 16) made it very clear that he disapproved of both governors for not being military minded, although there appeared to be some reluctant admission that in the aftermath of the rebellion a different approach was needed.
We do not know how long Classicianus served in Britain; the next procurator we know from the sources dates to the Flavian period. It seems thus that for the next ten years after the uprising, Rome may have decided on consolidation and rebuilding rather than expansion.
In addition, any attempts at expansion may have been curtailed by the removal of the legio XIV Gemina in 66/67 for a planned Eastern campaign by Nero. This may have also involved the removal of eight Batavian cohorts from Britain. The loss of c. 9,000–10,000 soldiers would thus not have left enough men for any significant campaigns.
Archaeologically this picture of careful rebuilding and consolidation can be further refined. The burnt cities were rebuilt on the same site, but in Colchester the area around the fortress itself appears to have changed dramatically: the British site of Sheepen stopped being an industrial settlement and became a sanctuary, while occupation at the Stanway cemetery and at the fringes of Gosbecks appears to have ceased. The biggest change was the reimposition of a stone wall around the refounded colonia, which accompanied the refortication of substantial parts of the Iron Age site (Crummy 1997, 85–90). More recent work suggests that this may have been a long drawn-out process, running alongside the piecemeal reconstruction of the town (Crummy 2003, 44–52).
In London the redevelopment was slow; many sites were not redeveloped until the 70s, possibly reflecting the different status of London as an unplanned town as opposed to Colchester, the first colonia of the province. However, finds of military equipment in the post-Boudiccan levels show that there is now a military presence in the town, and at Regis House the post-Boudiccan work on the waterfront used scale armour and parts of a leather tent in the infill of the new quay, with a stamp on one of the timbers naming the coh Thracum as original owners. In addition, a permanent military installation was deemed necessary: on Cornhill at Plantation Place a ditched enclosure and timber base for a rampart have been identified, most likely associated with a fort (Howe & Lakin 2004, 48f).
The strongest evidence for change comes, unsurprisingly, from Norfolk, where very few of the Iron Age settlements survived into the Flavian period. Saham Toney was abandoned; the sacred area at Fison Way in Thetford was destroyed, although the place itself continued to be used as a place of (ritual?) deposition intermittently into Late Antiquity. There are a number of new forts in Norfolk, most of which are close to the Iron Age sites, such as the one mentioned above near Saham Toney, but also at Threxton and Horstead. According to John Davies, military finds and ditches running parallel to the later town defences might even suggest a short-term legionary fortress or campaign base under Caistor St Edmund. Over the next generation, the focus of the civitas moved from the western oppida in the Breckland to the new civitas capital at Venta Icenorum/Caistor St Edmund (Davies & Robinson 2009, 73).
Consolidation and rebuilding in the 60s did not, however, equate to no change in the location of forts and fortresses within the province. With the redeployment of troops into Norfolk and other areas north of the Thames, the landscape of Roman occupation was changing, leading to the redeployment of legions. The first new fortress to be occupied appears to have been Lincoln, whose pottery suggests the start of occupation around 60/61 (Jones 2002, 31–36).
Further changes occurred when the legio XIV Gemina and the auxiliaries were withdrawn around 67. The removal of such a large part of the garrison forced a rethink of the pattern of occupation. So far one legion and auxiliaries had been concentrated in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, possibly supervizing the situation in the Brigantian territories.
Two more legions and associated auxiliaries were stationed in the Welsh Marches, in Wroxeter and Usk in Wales. The fourth legion was stationed in Exeter supervizing the southwest of the province. All legions except this last one had taken part in the Boudiccan uprising, and while Tacitus lays the blame for this absence at the door of the camp prefect of the legio XX Valeria Victrix, it cannot have been missed that the location was more remote than the others and thus harder to reach.
When the legio XIV Gemina was withdrawn from Wroxeter, it clearly had to be replaced, as the Welsh situation was not yet resolved, thus the legion was moved from Usk to Wroxeter and the Exeter legion was moved in stages across the Bristol Channel to Gloucester and later to Caerleon. The result was the gradual military evacuation of the Southwest; by the mid 80s very little military remained in the South of England.
This period of comparative quiet ended at the close of the decade. Nero’s reign deteriorated into anarchy and eventually the Emperor is helped to commit suicide. Without a male heir the Julio-Claudian dynasty was at an end and the Roman Empire descended rapidly into Civil War, and Britain with it. The fullest account of what happened during the following two years comes from Tacitus’ other historical work, the Histories. Written before the Annals, it covered the period from the death of Nero to the death of Domitian, although the surviving parts break off in the middle of Book 5, Chapter 70. As it is difficult to understand the references to Britain by themselves in these years, it is perhaps useful to summarize the events as they develop. Overall Tacitus states that Britain was the province displaying most loyalty during the year 69 (also known as the Year of the Four Emperors) and remaining calmest (Hist. I, 9), but this is clearly only in comparison with other provinces such as the Germanies, which saw rapid political and military changes throughout the year. In fact, Tacitus’ more detailed account, which follows the introduction to the Histories, shows clearly that Britain was very much concerned with the events on the Continent. Britain’s involvement in the Civil Wars began with the removal of the legio XIV Gemina and its associated auxiliaries (probably eight cohorts of Batavians) in 66/67: it was originally meant to accompany Nero on a planned Armenian campaign, but an uprising in Gaul by a certain Vindex led to its redeployment in Gaul. At the beginning of 69 the legio XIV Gemina had separated from its Batavian cohorts, which were now stationed in the territory of the Lingones (a large civitas based around Langres in France), and were increasingly considered a security risk, as their loyalty was divided between the Roman Empire (their employer) and the Batavian leader Julius Civilis, who had been sentenced to death by the Roman administration. During the oath-taking ceremonies of the Roman army on 1 January 69 the governor of Lower Germany, Vitellius, emerged as the candidate for Emperor of the Rhine armies, in direct opposition to the other declared candidate for the throne: Galba. Following the declarations of the two Germanic provinces for Vitellius, the other north-western provinces followed rapidly: Raetia, Gallia Belgica, Gallia Lugdunensis and Britannia (Tac. Hist. I, 59). This decision appears to have escalated a general deterioration of the relationship between the legionary legates of Britain, led by the legate of legio XX, Roscius Coelius on the one side, and Trebellius Maximus, who is accused of greed and ‘miserliness’ (sordes), and leading the legions into poverty (this part is also mentioned in the Agricola, chapter 16) on the other hand. Trebellius accused Roscius Coelius of mutiny, but found himself without support either in the legions, or the auxiliaries, with the result that he had to flee to Vitellius, while the province was administered by a committee of the legionary legates. The support of Britain meant the gain of substantial resources of manpower and finance for Vitellius (Hist. I, 61) allowing him to send three substantial forces against Otho in Italy, who had replaced Galba as the other contender for the throne. On 15/16 April Vitellius’ generals defeated Otho’s troops in a large battle at Bedriacum, in which legio XIV Gemina was involved. Otho committed suicide soon after, leaving Vitellius in sole command of the Empire. Parallel to these events Vitellius had continued to raise troops in Gaul and Britain, including an 8,000 strong force, which was detached from the British army. This is the numerical equivalent of another legion and substantial auxiliary forces, and would have resulted in the size of the Roman army in Britain being nearly halved in comparison to its strength in 65.
Legio XIV, which had fought on Otho’s side and was apparently ransacking Northern Italy in the aftermath of the battle, was ordered back to Britain, although without the Batavian cohorts, who remained with Vitellius (Hist. II, 66). Tacitus implies that this happened to rid Northern Italy of the rioting soldiery, and was no doubt an easy solution to removing from the scene a legion which did not support Vitellius, but it might have also been seen as a useful remedy to the understaffed and thus possibly threatened garrison in Britain.
The legion was accompanied on the latter part of its journey by Vettius Bolanus, chosen by Vitellius in Lyon to replace the disgraced Trebellius Maximus as governor (Hist. I, 65). Vettius Bolanus is described by Tacitus as chosen ‘e praesentibus’, which can be translated as ‘from his entourage’. Unlike his predecessors Vettius Bolanus is a man with considerable military background, and with him we see a return to the appointment of experienced military men as was the case before the Boudiccan uprising. He had been in 62 one of the legates and possibly the second in command of Corbulo during the Armenian campaigns (Tac. Annals 15,3; Statius, Silvae 5.2.31ff), during which he had been in charge of the second arm of the pincer movement that attacked the kingdom; after this in the mid-60s he appears to have been a governor in Macedonia for a year.
We do not know when the legion and the new governor arrived in the province. In the Agricola, Tacitus characterizes his governorship as ‘not troubling Britain with enforcing discipline, while the Civil War continued’. Apparently the army continued to be as mutinous as before, but Vettius Bolanus appears to have been more popular with them. The developing situation cannot have been easy for Vettius Bolanus: on 1 July 69 Vespasian (the fourth Emperor within the year, and the same man that had helped to conquer Britain under Aulus Plautius 25 years earlier) had been declared Emperor in Alexandria, and quickly took steps to improve his situation. With many of the Balkan legions declaring for him, the Civil War had reached its next phase, and Vettius Bolanus was controlling a large province with three understrength legions, one of which was of doubtful loyalty. The latter, legio XIV Gemina, appears to have been targeted by Vespasian, as formerly loyal to Otho and thus likely to change its allegiance to him (Hist. II, 86). When Vitellius asked for more auxiliary troops in preparation for the unavoidable battle between the armies of himself and Vespasian, Vettius Bolanus (as well as his colleague in Germany) prevaricated, because ‘Britain was never quiet and both men were of doubtful allegiance’ (Hist. II, 97).
In the decisive second battle of Bedriacum on 24/25 October 69, the vexillation of the British legions, according to some accounts (which Tacitus appears to doubt) took part in the centre of the battle line on the Vitellian side. The Flavian side eventually won after heavy and confused fighting, and the news of the battle led to a tidal wave of new support for Vespasian, including in Britain, where the legio II Augusta, Vespasian’s old legion, appears to have led the change in loyalty, although some reluctance made itself felt in the other legions, especially, Tacitus tells us (Hist. III, 44), as Vitellius had been responsible for many promotions.
After the battle the survivors appear to have returned to the province. However, by then the Batavian cohorts had started their own uprising in Germany. In general the situation in the autumn and winter months of 69/70 appears to have been troublesome and confused in many western provinces. In the chapters following the second battle at Bedriacum in the Histories (III, 45–48), Tacitus reviews the various provincial uprisings that had their origin in the Civil War and the fact that the legions were elsewhere employed. Moving from East to West he quickly gives the origin and history to date of uprisings in Britain, Germany, Dacia and Pontus. Only for Dacia and Pontus are we given any indication on the resolution of the problem, as this was addressed by Mucian and Vespasian personally. In fact, in the city of Rome rumours circulated that the legions in Moesia and Pannonia were surrounded by the enemy; similar rumours abounded also about Britain (Hist. IV, 54).
However during the suppression of the Batavian uprising in 70, Britain was able to send a legion (the much-travelled legio XIV) to help Petillius Cerialis; and we hear next of this legion and the legio II Adiutrix fighting together against the Batavians near Castra Vetera in Lower Germany. After this battle the legio XIV Gemina was moved to Upper Germany and at some unknown time later the legio II Adiutrix arrived in Britain, bringing the garrison once again up to four legions.
In the meantime the Roman army in Britain was contending with their own unrest in the province (Hist. III, 45): Venutius, husband of Cartimandua apparently induced the Britons to exploit the situation of the Civil War to their own advantage. His motivating factor was seemingly his hatred of all things Roman as well as personal hatred of his former queen and wife Cartimandua. The latter had great influence and wealth, not least because of her handing over of Caratacus to the Romans. At this point she seems to have rejected her husband Venutius in favour of his armour bearer Vellocatus. The result was major unrest in their household, which escalated when Venutius involved support from outside the kingdom, and thus started a civil war among the Brigantes. In the end the Romans had to rescue Cartimandua. Tacitus ends with the terse statement: ‘regnum Venutio, bellum nobis relictum’. (Venutius was left with the kingdom, we with war).
The passage is highly problematic as it duplicates one from the Annals, which appears to refer to the governorship of Didius Gallus in the late 50s, already mentioned in previous chapters. Both passages include details that are unique. Thus, in the Annals, Cartimandua takes the family of Venutius hostage; in the Histories we hear the name of the new husband, Vellocatus, armour bearer of Venutius. On the other hand both accounts mention the marital strife escalating into civil war and the eventual rescue of the queen by the Roman army.
Without any further independent information, it is impossible to resolve the relationship between these two accounts. Depending which reconstruction or reading of the sources is preferred, interpretations vary: some, especially older accounts prefer to think of the two events as separate, and thus include a possible remarriage between Venutius and Cartimandua, which is not mentioned in the sources. This has the advantage of not having to criticize Tacitus’ account, but on the other hand, creates a very improbable scenario, where the Roman Empire have had to extricate the queen once and then allowed the same scenario to repeat itself on its own doorstep, a fact that many scholars deem unlikely.
Other theories suggest that one is a duplicate of the other and that for some reason Tacitus accidentally misplaced the Cartimandua story. In this scenario the account of 51/57 is in the wrong place, and should really only be discussed in the context of the Histories in 69. A third theory suggests that both accounts are correct and refer to the same incident, but the Annals’ account which provides more detail, was put in the wrong place. In both cases, there would only be one intervention by the Romans, and in both cases probably in 69. But equally the questions remain, why would you have the earlier account, and why was Didius Gallus so clearly associated with the events?
The final scenario is sometimes referred to as the ‘flashback’ theory and suggests that we have indeed two Roman interventions, one in the governorship of Didius Gallus, while the second intervention is the long-term result of events nearly twenty years earlier. The main problem with this theory is that it has to be decided at which point the flashback ends. Did the couple fall out and was Cartimandua rescued and propped up for the next seventeen years by Roman power, until Venutius decided to attack again? Alternatively, did Cartimandua need ‘extracting’ in the late 50s and did Rome decide to leave Venutius in command of the kingdom, while its forces were committed elsewhere? This would thus explain Tacitus’ punch line of ‘Venutius was left with the kingdom, we with war’.
The problem is further aggravated by the fact that we possibly do not have the whole account of this intervention. As it stands, Hist. III, 45 deals with the state of play of the Roman Empire directly after the Second Battle of Cremona, and we know that Tacitus committed a considerable amount of space in books 4 and 5 to the resolution of the Germanic War (better known as the Batavian uprising) that he described next. This might suggest that further details about Venutius were meant to be forthcoming at a later stage, but are now lost, together with the rest of the Histories.
As it stands the situation is not resolvable by interpreting historical sources, as not enough detail exists in these two short passages. Can archaeology contribute to the solution of this problem? It has long ago been claimed that the Iron Age site Stanwick near Scotch Corner may have been the site of Venutius’ last stand (Wheeler 1954). However, while modern excavations have confirmed that Stanwick was a high status site with numerous Roman imports in the Late Pre Roman Iron Age, there is little to suggest that the site was subjected to a siege (Haselgrove et al 1990) and it should be kept in mind that neither of the two Tacitean references mentions the storming of a settlement.
Thus while it is possible that Stanwick formed at some point (one of ?) the power centre(s) of the Brigantes, there is no direct link with the rescue missions described in the Tacitean accounts. Furthermore, there are a number of camps known both in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, i.e. at the south-eastern border of the Brigantes territory as well as in North Yorkshire and Cumbria that have in the past been cited as possible evidence for the involvement of the Roman army in Brigantia. However, Roman camps in northern England (as elsewhere) rarely produce finds in any quantity and the small amount of dateable material led the RCHME in their volume on the Roman camps to refrain from associating any camps to any historical events (Welfare & Swan 1995, 24f.). On the other hand we have seen that earlier campaigns in the South, especially during the conquest period have next to no marching camps associated with them at all. So the absence of camps dateable either to the late 50s or 69/70 is not necessarily a proof that no rescue mission was undertaken in either period. Once again, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
It should also be noted that neither of the sources mentions explicitly the integration of Brigantian territory into the Roman province, thus perhaps adding in the past to the perception that the entire area north of Chester and the Humber only became part of the Roman Empire a decade later. Here, however, we do now have a series of archaeological sites that argue against so late a date. The best known is no doubt Carlisle, where dendro-dates from the first timber fort date the felling of the trees to 72, thus documenting that by this point at the latest, the area was considered under Roman control. On the east side of the Pennines, Peter Wilson (2009) has recently reviewed the evidence of new discoveries and singled out a series of sites with possible military occupation evidence of the pre-Flavian period, including possibly York fortress, as well as a number of forts including Roecliffe near Aldborough, the later Brigantian civitas capital. If this interpretation can be further substantiated, it may point to a period of consolidation on the eastern flank of the Brigantes that predates any military intervention in 69. Forts, unlike camps, as we have discussed before, suggest areas under Roman control, rather than areas of active campaigning, but if the Romans were able to push their military installations that far into Brigantian territory before 69, it might suggest interesting possibilities, including that Venutius had been perceived as a threat long before the trouble in 69 and that the Romans may have been preparing for the eventual intervention for some time. It has to be admitted that the latter sentence is at the moment a hypothesis that needs confirming or refuting through future work and should in no way be considered a proposition for a new orthodoxy.