4.14 Europe: 0 to a.d. 100  (Page 4/5)

The netherlands and belgium

The Batavi of the Netherlands were allied with the Romans until A.D. 70 when a chieftain called Civilis revolted, building a line of forts along the southern bank of the Rhine to mark off his own empire. The Frisians stayed in the north in a "no-man's land". (Ref. 175 )

British isles

Rome conquered Britain in this century but it was not easy. It took about four decades to completely Romanize England after the A.D. 43 invasion by the army of Claudius, using four Roman legions (out of 29 in the entire empire), each legion containing about 5,600 men. (Ref. 18 ) Boadicea (or Boudicca), a widowed queen of the Iceni tribe became a famous heroine by leading her tribe against the Romans in East Anglia as she moved against various Romanized towns in A.D. 61 and massacred all, a total of about 70,000 people, including 30,000 to 40,000 in London alone. She was finally defeated in a terrible battle by Suetonius, who had only 10,000 fully armed men against some 80,000 Britons, but these included women and children. Emperor Claudius finally managed to have eleven British kings surrender to him at Colchester.

At this period the Celtic Britons still followed their Druid philosophers in a religion that apparently involved human sacrifices. The Celts had three groups of learned men:

• Bards, who composed and preserved poetry and music
• Vates, who were priests responsible for carrying out sacrifices to the gods
• Druids, who studied natural science and philosophy

Perhaps it was in this century that the Picts finally grouped themselves in two dominant tribes; one in the north to be called in the next century "Caledonii" by the Romans, and secondly a southern tribe of the south, later called "Maeatae". The Roman historian, Tacitus, says that in this century the Romans fought a great battle of Mons Grampius

Early Celtic Ireland had not writing until the 4th century C.E., and the early history that descended orally through the centuries contains so much myth and legend in the sagas that it is difficult to separate fact from fiction. Apparently in old Celtic fashion, young men of upper class were considered to be men at 16 or 17, in essence "knights", and they had to demonstrate their maturity by raiding enemy territory for cattle and human heads. It is said that the men of Ulster did not keep the skulls of victims as trophies but only their brains, formed into little balls with gypsum. The men liked to sit, eat and drink together in large banquet halls, with the women looking on from a balcony above. Ireland had five main areas, each called a "fifth"- Ulster in the north, Munster in the south, Con- naught in between on the Atlantic side and Mide and Leinster on the east side. (Ref. 91 )