Latin and followed many Roman customs; although they
made Iberia an independent kingdom, for diplomatic matters
they acknowledged loyalty to the Roman emperor in Con-
stantinople. Th e Visigoths were Arian Christians, meaning
they downplayed the divinity of Jesus Christ, a practice that
led to confl icts with the Roman Catholic Iberians, who be-
lieved in the divinity of Jesus Christ. In 486 c.e. King Alaric
(r. 484–507) established the nation’s capital in Toledo.
BRITAIN AND IRELAND
Th e Celtic peoples of Britain and Ireland were known to the
Romans as fi erce savages. When Julius Caesar fi rst led Ro-
man troops to Britain, they were met by nearly naked war-
riors who waded into the ocean toward the Romans’ ships
to do battle. Th ey were no match for the discipline and su-
perior armaments of the Romans and were scattered. What
Caesar later discovered was a land of petty kingdoms with
fairly stable governments. He was even able to establish trade
agreements that survived until the Roman emperor Claudius
(r. 41–54 c.e.) invaded in 43 c.e.
When Claudius invaded Britain, the governments of
southern Britain were used to trading with Romans, and a few
of the small kingdoms allied themselves with Rome, believing
that they would benefi t from a close relationship with the Ro-
mans. Th e Romans viewed the Britons as savages and treated
them as such. In particular, human sacrifi ce in religious ritu-
als as practiced by the Druids was appalling to the Romans,
who tried to end it. Th e Romans became cruel overlords, even
maltreating their allies. Among these allies was the kingdom
of Iceni. In 61 c.e. the Roman soldiers raped two Icenian girls,
an act that outraged Queen Boudicca and her subjects.
Boudicca was a sorceress as well as a leader, and when she
painted herself in her war colors, she was said to be terrify-
ing. She led a revolt against the Romans that nearly expelled
the Romans from Britain. A Roman legion was wiped out in
one ambush. Roman settlements were sacked. Th e Romans
were driven out of Londinium. When Boudicca’s army faced
that of the Roman governor Suetonius Paulinus, it probably
outnumbered his forces more than 20 to one. However, the
traditional Celtic fi ghting style of the Britons, which empha-
sized individual heroism, proved to be their undoing, because
they attacked in an uncoordinated mass, and the Romans
responded with discipline, skill, and cool effi ciency. Th e Ro-
mans killed between 60,000 and 80,000 British warriors and
drove the rest to fl ight. Boudicca followed Celtic tradition by
committing suicide rather than being captured.
Aft er that time the Romanized Britons always retained
some independence in dress, customs, and tastes from Rome,
though they loved Roman-style country villas. In 410 c.e. the
Roman emperor Honorius (r. 395–423 c.e.) told the Britons
that he could not help defend them. Little is truly known
about what events actually followed because the few written
records that have survived are short on names and dates. Ger-
manic tribes invaded Britain. Th e Roman governor or per-
haps a regional king may have asked Germanic mercenaries
to help defend Britain from other Germans, possibly in ex-
change for land. Th e mercenaries turned on their employers,
taking slaves, looting, and killing.
In the last years of the Roman Empire governorships
were divided between a political governor and a military
one, called a dux bellorum. Th e dux bellorum of Britain in
the mid-400s c.e. may have been the original King Arthur, a
man nicknamed Ars, meaning “bear” in the local dialect. His
true name is much debated and is probably permanently lost.
Th ere is some archaeological support for one of the achieve-
ments attributed to him. Ancient chroniclers say that he de-
feated the Anglo-Saxons in a great battle around 460 c.e. and
that thereaft er were about 50 years of peace. Th is peaceful
period seems to have occurred.GREECE
BY CHRISTOPHER BLACKWELL
In antiquity there was no single nation known as “Greece” or
even “Hellas,” as the modern Greeks call their own country.
Hellas was an abstract idea, and the “Greek world” described
by the historian Herodotus in the fi ft h century b.c.e. encom-
passed “all those people speaking the same language, sharing
the same customs, and worshipping the same gods.” In the
time of Herodotus this Greek world included the Balkan Pen-
insula, where the modern nation of Hellas (Greece) is today,
and settlements in Sicily, on the coast of Italy, in southern
France, along the north coast of Africa, on the west coast of
what is now Turkey, and around the Black Sea in what is now
southern Russia. In this area and at diff erent times individual
cities governed themselves, came together under alliances and
confederacies, and enjoyed a variety of forms of government,
including monarchy, oligarchy, tyranny, and democracy.
We have evidence from mythology, poetry, and archae-
ology for empires during the Bronze Age (3000–1100 b.c.e.),
which faded before the historical period, the period for which
we have written accounts. During the so-called Archaic Pe-
riod (600–480 b.c.e.) a succession of dynasties of tyrants
arose in assorted cities. Th ese dynasties tended to give way
to various forms of democracy during the Classical Period
(49 0 –323 b.c.e.). Th e latter period came to an end with the
fi rst true “empire” of historical Greece, the rule of the Mace-
donians Philip (r. 359–336 b.c.e.) and Alexander the Great (r.
336–323 b.c.e.). Aft er Alexander’s death Macedonian Greeks
set up dynasties that ruled portions of the eastern Mediter-
ranean world, in European Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt,
until these regions came under the power of Rome.BRONZE AGE CIVILIZATIONS
When Sir Arthur Evans excavated the island of Crete in the
late 19th century, he uncovered the remains of a rich civili-
zation dating from the third and second millennia b.c.e. He
found large, sprawling palaces, elaborately decorated with
wall paintings—scenes of dancing, games, and marine life.
He also noted that these palaces lacked defensive walls. Fromempires and dynasties: Greece 409