Aulus Plautius

Aulus Plautius commanded the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43 and was its first governor. He came from a senatorial family with imperial connections — a relative had married into the family of Augustus — and was consul in AD 29 and governor of Pannonia, where he was serving when Claudius chose him. Claudius needed a military success. He had come to the throne in AD 41 after Caligula's murder, owed it entirely to the praetorian guard, and had no reputation with the army. Plautius assembled four legions and auxiliaries, some forty thousand men, at Boulogne. The troops mutinied at the prospect of crossing the ocean beyond the known world, and were talked round by an imperial freedman, which they found so ridiculous that they agreed to go. He landed unopposed, probably at Richborough, and found the Britons dispersed. The decisive engagement was fought over two days at a river, generally taken to be the Medway, where auxiliaries who could swim in armour crossed and disabled the British chariot horses while the legions forced the crossing. Togodumnus was killed; Caratacus escaped west. Plautius then halted at the Thames and sent for Claudius, who arrived with elephants and the praetorian guard, took the surrender of Camulodunum in person, and left after sixteen days. Plautius governed for four years, pushing the frontier to the Fosse Way line from Exeter to Lincoln. He was granted an ovation on his return — the last given to anyone outside the imperial family. His wife was later tried before a family court for adopting a foreign superstition.

• Lived: 5 BCE – 60 CE
• Nationality: Roman
• Roles: general