Roman Britain / by R.G. Collingwood.

  • R. G. Collingwood
Date:
1924
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Roman Britain / by R.G. Collingwood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    51/112 page 47
    London is the quiet little county town of Silchester. It was a county town in the sense that it was the centre of a tribe—4 Calleva of the Atrebates ’—a market town for the neighbouring parts of Berkshire and Hampshire, and a centre of local government. For the country districts of Britain were governed not by a Roman NORTH GATE civil service but by their own native chief men, the successors of the pre-Roman landed aristocracy, formed into local councils and administering what must have been a mixture of Roman law and local custom. These councils were called by Latin names and no doubt did their business in Latin; but they were not Romans from Italy administering a ‘ district5 of alien Britons. They were Britons themselves, and not only Britons but Atrebates, for even the old tribes were preserved intact and bore the official title of
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