A crucial event in the formation of the culture and identity of Britain occurred 1600 years ago - or did it? While tradition has it that the Roman occupation of Britain ended in AD 410, events surrounding this year need to be seen in the context of longer processes of change and of the problems that beset archaeological and historical evidence from this period. This lecture will consider the key question of who and what was 'Roman' in 4th century Britain as a prelude to thinking about what exactly changed in the early 5th century, and why.
Continuing excavations in the Iron Age and Roman town of Calleva (Silchester, Hampshire) are producing plentiful evidence of the changing character of the settlement before and during the first generations of the Roman occupation of southern Britain. The lecture will explore these changes and their implications for the inhabitants' relations with the new regime.
The lecture will highlight the importance of the Museum's unique collection of Roman writing-tablets from the fort of Vindolanda near Hadrian's Wall.
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Roman Society, we look at how archaeological discoveries over the last 100 years have changed our picture of Roman Britain.
Archaeologists and classicists are interested in two different sorts of survival from the Roman world - artefacts and texts. It's when the two sorts of evidence are combined that we may hope to get interesting results. This lecture starts from an engraved bronze chest in the British Museum, and moves from there to the texts of Ovid's Fasti and Catullus' poem 64, with the hope of revealing something we didn't know about Roman show business. Ariadne's aria was probably sung by an actress who had just taken her clothes off on stage.
Gallery Talks at the British Museum for Roman Society members to celebrate the Centenary
Thorsten Opper: Portrait and Society in the Roman World
Richard Hobbs: The End of Roman Britain at the British Museum
Sam Moorhead: Hundreds of Thousands: a century of coin finds in Roman Britain
Paul Roberts: "Rome in a Room": The Wolfson Gallery of the Roman Empire
Ralph Jackson: Roman Britain at the British Museum – a century of sensations
Meet at the Information Desk in the Great Court at 6pm.