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Hello about two thousand years ago

Tassitas noted that the climate is wretched. Herodian said the atmosphere in the country is always gloomy

Deo said they live in tents

Unclosed and unshored and share their women and the historian Strabo said on no account should the Romans make it part of the

Empire because it will never pay its way, but invade they did and Britain became part of the Roman Empire for almost 400 years

But what brought Romans to Britain? What made them stay?

Did they prove the commentators wrong and make Britain amount to something in the Empire?

Did the Romans come and go without much trace or do those four centuries still color our national life and character today?

With me to discuss the history myths and legacy of the Roman period in Britain

I Greg Wolf with us of ancient history at St Andrews University

Mary Beard reading classics at Cambridge University and Catherine Edwards lecturing classics and ancient history at Birkbeck College London University Greg Wolf

Caesar first set foot on British all in 55 BC and he launches another campaign the following year

What brings him to Britain?

Glory desire for glory to be the first Roman to cross the ocean to go beyond the big and circling river that runs around the city

The known world to the Roman's idea was that the world was surrounded by a river or a sea. That's right and Britain was beyond it

exactly

And so this was an amazing thing to do

It was an amazing thing to report back at Rome that you'd done

stomping around bits of Kent for a while and then getting back safely to Gaul as quick as you could

Isn't perhaps amazing in fact, but for Romans back home. It was extraordinary

...