Without discussing the matter both these books take ‘Roman Britain’ to mean the Roman aspects of British archaeology between about 50 b.c. and a.d. 425 and not, as I would have hoped, the total archaeology of the period. While there are extenuating circumstances for Hobbs and Jackson (H. and J.) the same cannot be said for Russell and Laycock (R. and L.) though the latter do mention the subject. Producing the British Museum book of Roman Britain involves a number of constraints, some helpful, some limiting. The authors of Roman Britain have taken full advantage of the material in their care, and the pictures freely available and have behaved themselves in as seemly a fashion as their institution would wish. Entitling a book UnRoman Britain arouses a number of expectations which ought to be fulfilled; while the authors have written an interesting book, the contents are not what it says on the label. Both books discuss and illustrate inscriptions and letters but neither helps the readers to understand the words for themselves. This makes the implicit statement that readers should take what they are given and not worry their heads about matters far above them. Especially in the Vindolanda letters a simple highlighted text with a transcription and then helpful crib might capture the interest of one reader in a hundred and if that happened it would all be worthwhile.

The British Museum collections offer almost unlimited scope for the discussion of the visible part of the Roman Britain iceberg but are probably not very strong on collections from almost featureless sites where very little ‘of interest’ was found. This has to affect the book for it is only sensible for the book to reflect the displays and the collections which contain some of the most remarkable and discussable material from Britain between 50 b.c. and a.d. 425. H. and J. behave themselves so well that I began to despair of finding enough disputed points to fill a review. While they do indeed cover all the expected ingredients, a glance at prehistory, the conquest, the military, language, trade, towns, villas, health, religion and The End, the usual views are expressed only for the final words of a section often to give a delicate twist to the interpretation. The ingredients may be fairly conventional, but the spices and condiments are up to date.

The few points on which I could disagree make thin pickings, though I am still looking for evidence of the spring at Lydney (131) around which the shrine was established. I am glad that on the Water Newton silver it is now firmly established that Innocentia and Viventia ‘presented’ the vessel, when I thought the verb had been mostly destroyed by plough damage, though I willingly agree this is a possible restoration of the damage. But I am worried about Gratian (a.d. 367–383) being elevated by his soldiers in Britain and wonder if the various late Constantines and Gratians have got muddled.

Turning to UnRoman Britain I have to substantiate my complaint that the title is not reflected in the contents. R. and L. set up a revolutionary stall — all this old-fashioned stuff about Roman Britain is wrong and out of date — excellent. The Romans get far too much attention, we need to concentrate on the unRoman parts, the Britons. Yes, yes, just what I have always thought, let's have a complementary picture to that presented by H. and J., a perfect pairing. Not a bit of it; the mixture as before with a new piquant sauce poured over it at the last moment — just like so many supermarket ready meals. Resistance or Alliance — otherwise The Conquest; A Roman Face for Britain — otherwise the establishment of towns, roads and villas; the Limits of Empire — here come those tired old Walls again; Rejecting Romanitas and Britannia, Rebel Empire — a sound history of the second, third and fourth centuries, using mainly Roman written sources; and then as the light of Romanitas does in fact die away the British animals come out to play. Yet plenty of information on the non-Roman inhabitants and sites of Scotland, Wales and Cornwall does exist if only it had been consulted.

This sounds as if I did not like the book which would be quite wrong. Once I had got over my disappointment that only about 11 pages (119–29) were devoted to the Britons, that is, people without obvious romanising tendencies, I enjoyed it because there was something on every page that I either disagreed with or wanted to argue about; the number of occasions when I could actually convict them of a clearly stated error was rather less. If the book had been available in the Old Days when students were given tutorials in small groups, read books and free-ranged in the library, this would have been a prime body for dissection, with each student being sent off to check out a contentious page. There are many statements which are questionable interpretations of other people's opinions such as the footnote attribution (194) to Ellen Swift of ‘a garrison of Pannonians at Winchester’. There are infelicities of phrasing as when (113) ‘a myriad of poorly attired women danced’ round the pool at Bignor. There are failures of reading such as Peter Guest's excellent study of the Hoxne coins which goes directly against the statement (186) on the clipping of coins that ‘there is no indication of it being used to make new coins’. Yes, there is. And we are told three times that Christianity became the state religion (77 and 154) or official imperial religion (178) when this is just not the case. H. and J. put it in the form that I prefer when they write about ‘Constantine's official recognition of Christianity’.

The British Museum refit of Roman Britain has worked well, R. and L. is an interesting if erratic read, but my hoped for book on The Britons of Britain (non-Romano) is still to be written.