- Chapter Eight -
Another obvious feature of provincial romanization is the road system, tying town
and country together and also linking frontier zones with civilian hinterlands.
According to Strabo (Geography IV.6. I I), the Gallic system was developed from scratch
under Agrippa, who was left in charge after Octavian's first visit to the area in 39-38
Be. It involved three major routes fanning out from Lugdunum, one west to the
Atlantic, another north-north-west to the Channel, and a third north-north-east to the
Rhine (Drinkwater 1983: 124-5). All three clearly provided a co-ordinated military net-
work for rapid communication and troop movement. A similar framework was devel-
oped in Britain, focused on the emerging centre at London, with major supply routes
leading north, north-west and south-west (Fulford 1989: 180). These roads formed the
basis for more localized networks in and around the emerging civitas centres.
Such roads encouraged economic growth, a process facilitated by the introduction
of Roman coinage as a medium of exchange and taxation and by the growth of the
new towns as market centres, clearly distinguished by their possession of fora and
occasional, subsidiary market buildings (macelLa), by the range of shops and work-
shops fronting their main streets and by the evidence for increasing specialization.
Through such channels, romanized goods and ideas passed into the socio-economic
network, which explains the widespread distribution of mass-produced pottery and
metal objects down the settlement hierarchy.
Romanization is also self-evident in other material objects, especially in terms of
religious interaction and art, the two often inextricably interlinked (Henig 1984).
Roman and native gods were widely found side by side, and frequently became
hybridized in both epigraphic and artistic terms (Figure 8.3). The artwork itself took
on new forms, providing new media and new symbols for the artists to work with.
Further indicators of romanization include the progressive adoption of the Latin
language (Evans 1987) - so clearly illustrated by the range of epigraphic material
from official inscriptions to simple graffiti and by the presence of writing implements
at a wide variety of sites - and perhaps also the progressive shift in the composition
of the diet reflected in the bone assemblages (King 1984).
Although such material symbols are often regarded as self-evident indicators of
romanization within the Celtic provinces, they do not actually 'speak for themselves'
about the nature of 'Romano-Celtic' interaction, nor about the processes of continuity
and change at work. Instead, the archaeological evidence has to be interpreted, a process
which very much depends upon an individual's perspective and the scale of
the analysis. One very common interpretation has been to emphasize the symbolic
importance of the presence of Mediterranean-style towns and villas and of the adoption
of Roman customs in art, religion, language, diet and clothing, as evidence of an under-
lying ideological unity linking the provincials (especially the elites) of Roman Britain
with their counterparts elsewhere, a unity which became more pronounced with time;
but one has to be aware that too simple an equation of the material evidence with accul-
turation to a Roman ideal risks obscuring significant regional trends, whereby the same
symbols may have been used in various subtle ways not just to demonstrate acceptance
of the new order but, more importantly, to reinforce existing socio-cultural traditions
and hierarchies. This emphasizes the importance of studying continuity and change at
a regional level, as the basis for a fuller understanding of Romano-Celtic interaction.
What follows will be primarily focused on southern Britain.