The Roman Conquest of Britain — Claudius's Invasion
Claudius invaded Britain in 43 with four legions and needed the conquest more than the province. He had been made emperor two years earlier by the praetorian guard, who found him behind a curtain after murdering Caligula, and he was a scholar with a limp and a stammer whom the senate regarded as a joke and the army did not know. A military triumph was the one thing that would fix that, and Britain was the available war — Augustus had abandoned three planned invasions and Caligula's had ended with troops collecting seashells on the Channel beach. The pretext was a request for help from an exiled British king. Aulus Plautius landed in Kent with some 40,000 men, fought a two-day battle at the Medway, and then halted on the Thames and sent for the emperor as he had been instructed. Claudius arrived with elephants, spent sixteen days in the province, took the surrender of eleven kings at Colchester, and went home to a triumph and the title Britannicus for his son. The conquest proper took forty years and was never completed. Caratacus fought on in Wales until 51, Boudica's revolt in 60 destroyed three cities and killed tens of thousands, and the north and Wales were subdued over decades. Scotland was invaded, briefly held and abandoned. Britain remained a province for some 360 years, garrisoned by three legions — a heavy commitment for a territory whose revenues probably never covered it. The elephants are the detail that survives, and they are the whole strategy in one image. Claudius needed to be seen doing something an emperor did, and the invasion was arranged so that the decisive moment could not happen until he was present to have it.
- Year: 43 CE
- Category: Military
