Modern echoes of Roman Britain

Robin Fleming’s “Britain After Rome” begins with a sketch of our pre-410 AD history as a colony of the Roman Empire.

For a couple of centuries we had a disproportionately large share of Rome’s imperial legions. To support it there were massive imports of basic supplies but also a privately-run trade in luxuries carried (for free?) in the same ships. Towns sprang up, complete with public amenities such as baths and basilica.

Then in the third century the Empire had increasing problems with barbarian tribes on its borders. The armed forces in Britain were scaled back and redeployed on the Continent. Less wine and olive oil here, more beer and butter; less foreign pottery, more locally made Samian ware.

Things stabilised in the fourth century but did not return to the prosperity of old times. Towns withered and their population declined; the baths and basilica available to the better sort of Romano-British ceased to operate.

But disparity in wealth grew. Fine big villas were built, some within the areas vacated in the towns. A fortunate minority had private bathing pools in their mansions, and reception rooms designed to impress visitors and business associates with their classical mosaics, pictures and fabrics. This was the age of bureaucrats and administrators, living in a bubble protected from the great unwashed outside.

Until the Empire fell.

“History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.”