ICENI UPRISING

Emperor Claudius completes a full invasion of Britain, with the purpose of conquering the entire region. Including four Roman legions – the 2nd Augusta, 9th Hispana, 14th Gemina and the 20th Valeria Victrix – the invasion forces land on the south-east coast, likely Richborough. Though British tribes attempt to repel the Romans, the conquest is swift and the Trinovantes capital of Camulodunum (Colchester) is taken and later turned into a major Roman power base in the region.

CLAUDIUS CONQUERS

With Rome’s army now reaching as far as north Wales, Boudicca of the Iceni, in Norfolk, revolts. She razes the Roman capital of Camulodunum, before marching further south and sacking Londinium and later Verulamium (St Albans). She is defeated by the Roman governor Suetonius Paulinus, somewhere along Watling Street, between St Albans and Wroxeter.

Previously protected only by a series of fortifications, the northern border with Caledonia is reinforced with a new defensive wall on the Tyne-solway line. The wall, covering 118km and named after the Emperor Hadrian, defines the northernmost border of Roman Britain, and the northernmost limits of the Roman Empire. A series of forts are built further south of the wall with auxiliary garrisons to support the frontier.

A breakaway kingdom is led by a mutinous naval commander named Carausius, centred on Britain and northern Gaul. The revolt is eventually crushed and the territory reconquered by Constantius Chlorus, the father of Constantine the Great (who is later declared emperor at Eboracum in 306 CE).

Statue of Boudicca, the leader of the Iceni uprising against Roman rule

An illustration depicting how Hadrian’s Wall may have looked in Roman times

A depiction of the Roman fleet being seized during the Carausian revolt, led by the Roman naval commander Carausius