- Celts and Romans -
agreed that the initial conquest would have been disruptive - a large army had to
be supplied, crops and assets had been destroyed and people killed, existing social
networks and administrative systems had been dislocated, especially after the
Boudican revolt - there is a growing consensus that many aspects of the iron-age
embedded economy could have been retained after AD 43 even within an obviously
less embedded Roman system. Reciprocal exchange, for instance, is unlikely to have
changed overnight; and once the surviving elite became fully responsible for local
self-government and the collection of taxes, this would have strengthened rather than
diminished their stranglehold on the redistribution ties within society. At this level,
it can perhaps be argued that Rome merely added an extra tier of tribute and
obligation onto the old redistributive hierarchy.
That said, iron-age agriculture and embedded economic systems could hardly
have continued totally unchanged, largely because so many new opportunities were
available to those with an eye to profit. Thus even in the first century, and progres-
sively in the second, there were several areas of potential romanization which must
have helped to stimulate change and to dis embed the native economies of the south
and east. These included: (i) the activities of the state and the army in encouraging
and expanding exchange outside the social sphere; (ii) the introduction of imperial
currency and its key roles in the collection of taxes and in the development of market
exchange; (iii) the appearance of foreign traders and entrepreneurs with money
to invest in the development of the extractive and productive industries; (iv) the
establishment of model centres like the colonia at Colchester and the development of
the trading port and centre at London; (v) the promotion and development of a series
of administrative urban centres which created demand and opened up new markets.
Such agents of change have often been seen as fundamental to the process whereby
Britain was absorbed into the Roman world, but there is an emerging consensus that
their impact must be qualified in the face of greater provincial conservatism arising
from the continued power and influence of the native elite upon whom Rome relied
so heavily (Millett 1990).
Indeed it is becoming clear that the integration of local communities into
the Roman world order and the process of romanization was heavily dependent
upon the cultural attitude and sympathy of the native elites, both those who survived
the conquest and those who emerged in its wake. Such elites were vital to the process
of Roman management, since the imperial system was dependent upon them taking
up the reins of local government, focused henceforth on new administrative
centres within individual civitates. These elites in the Celtic west had a tradition of
competition for status within society, coupled with conspicuous consumption and
display, which is well attested by the classical sources. It is also emphasized by the
way in which the leaders maintained control over access to prestige goods arriving
from the Continent, by the coins they minted and by the prestige items they
commissioned, many with deliberate martial overtones. This competitive instinct
was harnessed by Rome and effectively redirected at the development of the adminis-
trative centres, by providing the elite with an alternative stage upon which to act
out their status-building activities and with a new medium of architectural display
for reinforcing their traditional position in the social hierarchy (Drinkwater 1983:
190; King 1990: 64-6; Millett 1991); an additional incentive included the possibility
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