Stuart Laycock was an aid worker in Bosnia during the civil war. He sees similarities between what he saw in the Balkans in the 1990s and the end of Roman Britain. ‘Rubbish piled up in the streets, bodies were buried in town centres, mass manufacturing ceased, people lived in the shells of formerly rich buildings lighting fires on fine floors, and roads were blocked. If the effects were similar, maybe the causes of the decline were too.’ For the Roman province of Britannia, he argues, read Tito’s Yugoslavia: a conglomerate of separate ethnic entities glued together by a strong, centralised state. Think of Catuvellauni, Iceni, and Brigantes as Serbs, Croats, and Bosnian Muslims. Britannia, like twentieth-century Yugoslavia, was a fragile artefact, and in the crisis years of the late fourth and early fifth centuries, as the imperial power entered its terminal crisis, it splintered into tribal fragments.
L.’s argument about how Roman Britain ended is constructed on massive foundations. The first half of the book offers an extended discussion of the underlying tribal character of the province. First, using a conventional mix of literary references, coin evidence, and physical geography, he defends the traditional picture of the tribes of late Iron Age Britain. Then, he takes three key conflicts in the history of Britannia and argues that each is best understood as tribal in character — the Boudiccan Revolt of a.d. 60–61, the ‘Northern Emergency’ of a.d. 155–211, and the ‘Barbarian Conspiracy’ of a.d. 367–369.
What I like about this argument is the confidence and conviction with which L. advances a strong ‘grand narrative’, in contrast to the tedious litanies of post-processual jargon that have come to dominate so much recent writing on Roman Britain. At the very least, he has provided a powerful corrective to over-simplified accounts of the breakdown of Roman Britain: that tribalism was a major factor now seems certain. But, in advancing his grand narrative, he ends up offering a mono-causal account. In criticising this, however, I want to stress my admiration for the basic argument, the evidence marshalled in its support, and the verve with which it has been advanced.
That the Boudiccan Revolt, the ‘Northern Emergency’, and the ‘Barbarian Conspiracy’ had tribal dimensions seems reasonable. L. uses the evidence of literary references, coin designs, and the reoccupation of northern forts, for example, to argue that the entire period a.d. 155–211 was characterised by chronic insecurity in Brigantia. Furthermore, a clear pattern of late Antonine fires and coin hoarding, coupled with the widespread construction of earth-and-timber fortifications around towns at this time, implies that much of southern Britain was under threat. The problem is that this evidence does not allow us to distinguish between tribal conflict and anti-colonial revolt. Elements of both seem likely.
This, in fact, is what the recent events cited as parallels by L. also imply. In Iraq, for example, divisions between Kurds, Sunnis, and Shias were deliberately fostered by the imperial power; much of the sectarian killing was carried out by US-backed militias. In contrast, many Iraqi resistance groups argued for national unity against foreign occupation; the Mehdi Army, for example, the most powerful of the Shia militias, consistently opposed sectarian attacks on Sunnis. If we are going to compare Roman Britain with the modern world, we have to ensure that we have a rounded understanding of the parallels we cite. ‘Tribalism’, in and of itself, is not an explanation: we need analysis of the socio-economic roots and political dynamics of ethnic conflict.
Nonetheless, on L.’s evidence, we must surely allow a much stronger tribal dimension in our interpretations of events in Roman Britain. Of special value is his detailed study of late Roman belt-fittings. Using traditional typological analysis, L. has shown convincingly that the distribution of distinctive forms of belt-fitting in the late fourth and fifth centuries shadows many of the tribal territories of late Iron Age and Roman Britain. His argument that the much-vaunted ‘Theodosian Reorganisation’ focused on the creation of tribal militias, and that these militias then formed the basis for the splintering of Britannia into ethnic fragments as the central power withdrew, is compelling, especially when he is able to show, along the line of the Wansdyke for example, that earthworks, burnt villas, dumped bodies, and coin hoarding correspond with tribal boundaries. This in turn contributes substantial new elements to our existing framework for understanding the subsequent transition to Anglo-Saxon England.
Stuart Laycock’s new study is a refreshing and dynamic contribution to the continuing debate about the end of Roman Britain.
