Brutish Britons

SIR – Peter Saunders’ spirited condemnation of the Romans and defence of the “civilised farmers” of the non-barbarian Celts in Britain (Letters, January 30) overlooked a few unpalatable realties.

The Romans may have been opportunistic, brutal and exploitative, but they overturned a tribal system that was just as evil in its own way. The tribal elite spent their lives fomenting territorial disputes and wars, ruthlessly exploiting their populations to fund, and die in, those wars. Their people’s productive output was harvested mercilessly to pay for the luxury products they imported from the Roman world and showcased in their tombs. Egalitarian? Rhubarb. They shamelessly adopted Roman symbols of power when it suited them and ran to the Romans for support in their endless wars; indeed, that was why Claudius invaded in AD 43.

It was no wonder then that, after the Boudican revolt was crushed, there was no further resistance in lowland Britain, which did not even need to be placed under permanent garrison. The ordinary Britons were far too busy enjoying the comforts denied them by their leaders, and selling some of their own people to the Romans as slaves.

If we are going to be woke about the Romans, let’s not be simultaneously soppy and sentimental about the Britons – who, incidentally, were never once referred to in antiquity as Celts. That was a term dreamt up by the Victorians, creating the fantasy of a homogenous people that Mr Saunders has fallen for.

Guy de la Bédoyère

Grantham, Lincolnshire