The Rise and Fall of Roman London
The Ancients
History Hit
4.7 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 2 October 2022
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 43 AD, the Romans set up temporary forts along the banks of a river to wait for their Emperor, Claudius, to march onto the enemy capital of Camulodunum (Colchester), and eventually conquer Britain. The river was the River Thames. At the time, it was an area of marshy low-lying land, mostly composed of little islands. A far cry from the wall enclaved mercantile seat of authority it would become.
In today’s episode, Tristan is joined by Professor Dominc Perring, Director of the UCL Centre for Applied Archaeology, to discuss what the archaeology and history can tell us about the rise and fall of Roman Britain’s capital, Londinium.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes your host. And in today's podcast, |
| 0:10.4 | well, we are talking once again with Mr. Roman London with Professor Dominic Perring. |
| 0:17.3 | This time about the rise and fall of this incredible ancient city. We're going to be looking |
| 0:23.0 | into its Roman archaeology in detail today because we recorded this as part of a special |
| 0:29.0 | live event at the London Mithrayam a couple of months back. And here is the podcast version of that. |
| 0:37.2 | Sit back, relax, enjoy because Dominic is such a wonderful speaker and in this episode, |
| 0:43.1 | he talks you through centuries of London's Roman history from its rise in the first century |
| 0:49.4 | to its demise in the early fifth century. So I hope you enjoy without further ado to talk all about |
| 0:55.3 | the rise and fall of Roman London. Here's Dominic. |
| 1:03.1 | Welcome to the London Mithrayam in central London to talk all about the rise and fall of Roman |
| 1:08.8 | London. And with me today we've got Mr. Roman London, the legend himself, Dr. Dominic Perring. How |
| 1:14.8 | are you Dominic? I'm good. I'm good. And thank you for the intro. You're more than welcome. Now as |
| 1:19.8 | mentioned, we are doing this live from just above the London Mithrayam. In the story of Roman London, |
| 1:26.4 | this is really one of those great hidden gems of Roman London. We're near the Bank of England, |
| 1:31.7 | we're at the centre of modern London, the city, but it's also very close to the centre, a lot of |
| 1:36.4 | the Roman city, and we're above the ancient wallbrook river with all its modern exotic archaeological |
| 1:41.9 | finds in it and dug into those the temper of Mithras. And you mentioned the archaeological finds. |
| 1:45.8 | Just before we go on to that, you might be able to hear some drumming in the back. We'll call it |
| 1:49.5 | atmospheric. Basically some people decided to turn up and are currently doing some drumming. Hopefully |
| 1:53.5 | they'll be over soon. But we've got this wall of objects behind us too. And Dominic, these are also |
| 1:58.8 | a collection of some really extraordinary Roman London artifacts. These excavations that took place |
| 2:03.8 | to rebuild, as it were the Roman Mithrayam. Roman Mithrayam was found in 1954 by Professor Grimes |
... |
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