The Romans in London
By Charlie and Ruben Cedar class
The Romans came to England in AD43 and made a Ghost town and left in AD604 and left lots of artifacs in England
A statue of Boudica an enemy of the Romans.
The Romans in London
By Charlie and Ruben Cedar class
The Romans came to England in AD43 and made a Ghost town and left in AD604 and left lots of artifacs in England
A statue of Boudica an enemy of the Romans.
Gladiators
Gladiators were seen again in Guildhall Yard, City of London in July 2011. The shows by re-enactment group, Britannia, were staged for the Museum of London to celebrate the City of London's Roman past. The remains of the Roman amphitheatre lie below the Guildhall Art Gallery and, in Guildhall Yard itself, the position of the arena is marked out, making it an ideal place to stage the shows. The buildings that are now there are sitting on where the seating of the amphitheatre would have been.
A sanded arena was set up to allow the fighting to take place and two teams of gladiators battled it out. One team represented Londinium (Roman London) and the other, another major Roman town, Camulodunum (Roman Colchester). When asked whether they wanted the fallen gladiator spared or not, the audience were shown how to raise their hands up as fists but with the thumb stuck out sideways and to shout 'iugula' – 'Kill him!' when they wanted the gladiator to be condemned. It is often thought that is where the thumbs-up and thumbs-down sign came from. If they wanted the gladiator saved, they would wave their hands and shout 'Mitte' – 'Spare him!'. Although the audiences enjoyed these modern shows and shouted their support for their gladiators, it must be remembered that this was staged to be entertaining and did not involve any real injuries. The actual shows would have been very different
Boudica
Activities
Queen Boudica, a proud woman, expected to inherit half of the kingdom of her husband, Prasutagus, when he died. The Romans, however, decided to seize her land and possessions, flogged the queen and mistreated her daughters. Boudica and her tribe, looking for revenge, joined with another tribe, the Trinovantes, who also had reason to resent the Romans. At first, the tribes were very successful and caused great trouble and destroyed Colchester.
The British tribes stopped to celebrate and spent time looting rather than continuing to advance. This gave time for the governor to reach London with a small force of cavalry but there were not enough to defend London and he evacuated all those Londoners left and they headed towards St Albans along Watling Street. The British tribes spent several days in London burning the buildings and killing anyone who was left, mainly the elderly and sick.
The tribesmen moved on to attack St Albans and the Roman historian, Tacitus, recorded that some 70,000 people were killed in all three towns. We do not know where the final battle took place but the Britons were unable to escape having brought their families to watch in wagons and carts behind them. Many were killed. We do not know what happened to Boudica – she either poisoned herself or she fell ill and died. The queen was probably in her mid to late thirties when she died but her final resting place is unknown.
Boudica first destroyed Colchester. Some skulls found after Boudi Boudica attacked.
The London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre (LAARC) of the Museum of London houses all the archaeological material that has been excavated in Greater London over the last 50 years or longer. There have been hundreds of excavations which tell us about London from Prehistoric to 20th-century times. The material is recorded and, if thought to be important, it is brought from the excavation so that the archaeologists can look at it more closely
Medusa head on pendant.