User:JoshuaHac/Wales in the Roman era

[Feedback from Dr Austen - I completely agree with your choice to focus on re-writing this invasion and conquest section, since there were lots of issues - and the new section on Wales prior to the invasion is a really nice addition of important context. Your peer reviewer has already made some excellent points in terms of small details to tidy up in your next round of drafting, so I won't repeat those again, but I have added in a couple of extra thoughts below in brackets throughout the body of the text. If I was going to suggest something else to add, it might be nice to include a section on the key archaeological sites of the Welsh regions that relate to the Roman occupation? Remember you don't have to cover everything, but probably worth mentioning in some way? Good job!]

Edit of section "Invasion and conquest":

Invasion and conquest[edit]

Main article: Roman conquest of Britain

BE CONSISTENT WITH DATING FORMATTING - STICK WITH [DATE]AD (e.g. 60AD) throughout.

While historians do generally have a degree of certainty about it, we are still not entirely sure about which parts of Britain were being invaded until the conquest of Anglesey in 60AD. Before this time, scholars make educated theories about where exactly the Romans were invading. This confusion stems from the fact that our only written source for the time is Tacitus. [Rephrase - There is uncertainty regarding which parts of Wales were invaded by the Romans prior to the conquest of Anglesey in 60AD. This uncertainty stems from a lack of written source material, with Tacitus as the only written source documenting this period - keep references.]

Tacitus records that a tribe had attacked a Roman ally in Britain. According to Tacitus, the tribe that was responsible for this incursion was the 'Decangi', scholars associate this tribe with the Welsh Deceangli. The Romans responded swiftly, imposing restrictions upon all of the suspected tribes. They then began to move against the Deceangli. The Roman conquest of this tribe is predicted to have been between the years AD 48 or 49.

A picture of a statue of Publius Ostorius Scapula from Bath, England.

Shortly following after this, the Romans campaigned against the Silures tribe of south-eastern Wales, which according to scholars, must have had previous encounters with the Roman army. Because of this tribes Due to the Silures' ferocity and insubordination, the Romans built a legionary fortress to suppress them. The Silures (and later the Ordovices) were lead by Caratacus, a king who fled South-eastern England. Under Caratacus' rule, the Welsh fought the Romans in a pitched battle which resulted in the loss of all the Ordovician territory. This defeat was not crushing, and Caratacus continued to fight the Romans, defeating two auxiliary cohorts. Caratacus fled to the Brigantes, but the Queen [NAME THE QUEEN AND PROVIDE LINK TO PAGE] was loyal to the Romans, handing him over in 51 AD. While dealing with all of these problems, in 52 AD, Scapula died [NEED TO EXPLAIN WHO SCAPULA IS BRIEFLY]. This death gave the Silures some time before Scapula's successor, Didius Gallus, would arrive. In that time, the Silures defeated a Roman legion led by Manlius Valens.

In AD 54, the emperor Claudius died and was succeeded by Nero. This caused the situation in Britain to change, and Rome began to focus more on consolidating their power in Britain instead of expanding their territory. This is evidenced from the archaeological record, which finds vexillation fortresses (small Roman forts) at the time of Nero's succession.

After a short period of relative inaction, Quintus Veranius became governor of Britain and decided it was time to conquer the rest of the British Isles. Veranius began to campaign against the Silures, but in 58 AD he died, one year after he was appointed to Britain. Suetonius Paulinus was then appointed his successor. It would appear that Veranius had some success in his campaigns because Paulinus began to shift north (suggesting that there was no notable opposition in the south). Paulinus was quite successful in his conquest of northern Wales, and it would seem by 60 AD that he had pushed all the way to the Irish Sea because he was preparing for a conquest of Anglesey.[CITATION?]

Anglesey was swelling with migrants fleeing from the Romans, and it had become a stronghold for the Druids [not sure this sentence on the Druids fits with the rest of the paragraph - perhaps remove?]. Despite the Romans initial fear and superstition of Anglesey, they were able to achieve victory and subdue the Welsh tribes. However, this victory was short lived and a massive British rebellion led by Boudica erupted in the east and interrupted the consolidation of Wales.

It was not until 74 AD that Julius Frontinus resumed the campaigns against Wales. By the end of his term in 77 AD, he had subdued most of Wales.

There was only one tribe who was Only one tribe was left mostly intact throughout the conquest - the Demetae. This tribe did not oppose Rome, and developed peacefully , isolated from its neighbors and the Roman Empire. The Demetae were the only pre-Roman Welsh tribe to emerge from Roman rule with their tribal name intact

Creation of new section:

Wales Before the Roman Conquest.

Archaeologists generally agree that the majority of the British Isles were inhabited by Celts before the Roman invasion. The Romans do not distinguish between the Welsh tribes and all of the other British tribes. The people inhabiting Wales were not notably different from the people inhabiting the rest of the British Isles. [remove - too speculative].

Northern Wales and southern Wales have some notable cultural differences before the Roman invasion, and should not be considered one entity. Southern Wales was advancing along with the rest of Britain throughout the Iron Age, whereas the Northern parts of Wales were conservative and slower to advance. Along with their technological advancement, from the fifth to the first century BC, southern Wales became more heavily and densely populated. With that being said, Southern Wales had more in common with the north than it did with the rest of Britain, and they saw little outside influence up until the Roman conquest.

Hill forts are one of the most common sites found throughout Iron-Age Wales, and this is what archaeologists mostly rely on for most of their evidence. Nevertheless, due to the relative lack of archaeological activity, survey groupings of these forts throughout Wales can be uneven or misleading. [This paragraph and the following paragraph appear a little repetitive - condense/merge into a single paragraph]

Modern scholars theorize that Wales before the Roman conquest was similar to the rest of Iron Age Britain, however, this is still debated due to the sparsity of evidence. For the most part, the regions archaeological legacy consists of burials and hill forts, Wales (along with more distant parts of Britain) gradually stopped making pottery throughout the Iron Age. (which usually helps archaeologists explore the distant past). However, this is not to say that there was no trade within the region; evidenced by archaeological assemblages (such as the Wilburton complex) suggest that there was trade throughout all of Britain, connecting with Ireland and Northern France.

(I also intend to add more variation to the sources)