Londinium - London

Londinium, 150 AD,  as developed by the Roman occupation, by this time the provincial capital.   An earlier version had been once completely destroyed with massive casualties in the 60 AD Iceni ("Boudiccan") revolt.

The Romans appear to have chosen this place to establish a port, because a bridge across the Thames could be built here at a shallow spot where there was a pre-existing ford, and because it was a place that was tidal and could accommodate Roman shipping.
 Unlike many Roman settlements established on already existing Briton Celtic Oppida (La Tene type settlements), there does not appear to have been any previous Iron Age town here before the Claudian conquest of 43 AD.  

There are remnants of several Iron Age hillforts and enclosures within greater London today (eg, at Wimbledon and Epping Forest) of the Trinovantes or Catuellauni.  

Some Internet sites on Roman Londinium:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Londinium
 
https://www.thehistoryoflondon.co.uk/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-first-roman-town-of-londinium/

https://www.historyhit.com/roman-origins-of-london

https://www.heritagedaily.com/2020/06/londinium-roman-london/130635#google_vignette

Londinium was established by the Romans about 47 AD, was quickly rebuilt after the Iceni revolt in 60, and became the largest city in the military occupation.  It was enhanced with a forum (70 AD) (later replaced with a larger one (90-120 AD) with a basilica, baths (About 150 AD), an amphitheater (two main phases, ca. 70 and 120 AD) and was walled in 200 AD, about when it began its decline.
 
Londinium Forum with      Baths                        Amphitheatre
Basilicca at rear

<--- London Roman Wall – surviving section by Tower Hill gardens cross-section.

The Cripplegate Bastion, technically the rounded section at the right side of the image, added
during the Medieval period.

After the 5th century Roman withdrawal from Britain, the walls began to collapse due to lack of repairs.

They were restored in the late Anglo-Saxon period, a process generally thought to have begun under Alfred the Great after 886.

Repairs and enhancements continued throughout the medieval period. The wall largely defined the boundaries of the City of London until the later Middle Ages, when population rises and the development of towns around the city blurred the perimeter.
   Roman London was, from around 120 until 150, protected by a large fort, with a large garrison, that stood to its north-western side. The fort, now referred to as the Cripplegate Fort, was later incorporated into a complete city-wide defence, with its strengthened northern and western sides becoming part of the Wall which was built around 200. The incorporation of the fort's walls gave the walled area its distinctive shape in the north-west part of the city.

For travelers: Several opportunities exist for folks who want to walk along sections of the Roman Londinium walls.  Just search the Internet for "Londinium wall walk".

The first Roman capital of Britannia was Camulodunum, now Colchester, but it was inconveniently located, and Rome's logistics for its occupation landed at Londinium.  Londinium soon became the hub as military roads fanned out from both ends of its bridge.  As time passed administrative offices moved there and, by the second century, London was the de facto, then de jure Capital.

London Bridge (round black dot, center), was the only bridged crossing of the River Thames near London at the time. The next bridge upstream is at Pontes/Staines.



 From https://mappinglondon.co.uk/2013/londons-roman-roads/

The black triangles and circles show known Roman villas and other settlements, while the lines show the main Roman roads at the presumed height of the Roman occupation of Britain – dotted lines show where the road route is not known exactly at the time of the map’s production. The patterns of dots/circles show wooded areas. 

The eight roads shown, clockwise from the north, are:

  • Ermine Street (sometimes Erming Street), heading north to Lindum (Lincoln).
  • A track heading north-east from the Lea (at Stratford) through Epping Forest.
  • A road heading east to Caesaromagus (Chelmsford) and Camulodumum (Colchester). Starts at what is now Old Street, then Crosses Ermine Street at Shoreditch.
  • Watling Street, heading south-east to Rochester, Durovernum (Canterbury) and Dover.
  • A road heading south to Burgess Hill – little trace exists.
  • Stane Street (sometimes Stone Street), heading south-west to Chichester, via Alfoldean (quite near Horsham).
  • Portway, heading west starting along Farringdon Road and Oxford Street, then through Pontes (Staines) towards Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester).
  • Watling Street, heading north-west to Verulamium (St Albans). Starts on Park Lane/Marble Arch.  Runs both ways, across London.

From Wikipedia:
Londinium
A general outline of Roman London in late antiquity, with the modern banks of the Thames.[1] Discovered roads drawn as double lines; conjectural roads, single lines.


Location London, United Kingdom
Coordinates 51°30′45″N 0°05′26″W
Type Roman city
History
Founded 43 – 50 AD[2][3]
Periods Roman Empire

Londinium, also known as Roman London, was the capital of Roman Britain
during most of the period of Roman rule. Most twenty-first century historians think that it was first  a settlement
founded shortly after the  Claudian invasion of Britain, on the current site of the City of London, around 47–50 AD, but some defend an older view that the city originated in a defensive enclosure constructed during the Claudian invasion in 43 AD.  Its earliest securely-dated structure is a timber drain of 47 AD.

Archeology:  One of Londinium's many wooden drains, not the earliest 47 AD Drain but a later version, a more visible one that shows better how the drains were made.  Wood is often well preserved in London's drenched environment -- gravelly soil over hard clay, the reason so many drains were needed to move rainwater down to the Thames.  The Romans used wood for drains and wells, the abundance of which allows for a complete dendrochrology sequence.

Londinium sat at a key ford at the River Thames which turned the city into a road nexus and major port (which was built between 49 and 52 AD), serving as a major commercial centre in Roman Britain until its shrinkage during the 3rd and 4th centuries and final abandonment during the 5th century.

Following the foundation of the town in the mid-1st century, early Londinium occupied the relatively small area of 1.4 sq km (0.5 sq mi), roughly half the area of the modern City of London and equivalent to the size of present-day Hyde Park. In 60 or 61 AD, the rebellion of the Iceni under their queen, Boudica, compelled the Roman forces to abandon the settlement, which was then razed. Following the defeat of Boudica by the Roman governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, a military installation was established, and the city was rebuilt. It had probably largely recovered within about a decade. During the later decades of the 1st century, Londinium expanded rapidly, becoming Britannia's largest and most prosperous city, and it was provided with large public buildings such as a forum and amphitheatre. By the 2nd century, Londinium had grown to perhaps 30,000 or 60,000 people, almost certainly replacing  Camulodunum  (Colchester) as the provincial capital, and by the mid-2nd century Londinium was at its height. Its forum basilica was one of the largest structures north of the Alps when  Emperor Hadrian visited Londinium in 122.  Excavations have discovered evidence of a major fire that destroyed much of the city shortly thereafter, but the city was again rebuilt.  By the second half of the 2nd century, Londinium appears to have shrunk in both size and population.

Although Londinium remained important for the rest of the Roman period, no further expansion resulted.  Londinium supported a smaller but stable settlement population as archaeologists have found that much of the city after this date was covered in dark earth — the by-product of urban household waste, manure, ceramic tile, and non-farm debris of settlement occupation, which accumulated relatively undisturbed for centuries.  Some time between 190 and 225, the Romans built a defensive wall around the landward side of the city. The London Wall survived for another 1,600 years and broadly defined the perimeter of the old City of London

Location

The Londinium site guarded the bridgehead on the north bank of the Thames and a major road nexus shortly after the invasion. It was centred on Cornhill and the River Walbrook, but extended west to Ludgate Hill and east to Tower Hill.  Just prior to the Roman conquest, the area had been contested by the Catuvellauni based to the west and the Trinovantes based to the east; it bordered the realm of the Cantiaci on the south bank of the Thames.

The Roman city ultimately covered at least the area of the current  City of London, whose boundaries are largely defined by its former wall. Londinium's waterfront on the Thames ran from around Ludgate Hill in the west to the present site of the Tower in the east, around 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi).  The northern wall reached Bishopsgate and Cripplegate near the former site of the Museum of London, a course now marked by the street "London Wall". Cemeteries and suburbs existed outside the city proper. A round temple has been located west of the city, although its dedication remains unclear.

Substantial suburbs existed at St Martin-in-the-Fields in Westminster and around the southern end of the Thames bridge in Southwark, where excavations in 1988 and 2021 have revealed an elaborate building with fine mosaics and frescoed walls dating from 72 AD.  Inscriptions suggest a temple of Isis was located there.

Municipal Status

Londinium grew up as a vicus, a community of lower status than a town or a civilian settlement adjacent to and somewhat dependent on a fort.


Londinium soon became an important port for trade between Roman Britain and the Roman provinces on the continent. Tacitus wrote that at the time of the uprising of Boudica, "Londinium... though undistinguished by the name of 'colony', was much frequented by a number of merchants and trading vessels.
Imaginative view of port warehouses along the Thames

Depending on the time of its creation, the modesty of Londinium's first forum may have reflected its early elevation to city (municipium) status or may have reflected an administrative concession to a low-ranking but major Romano-British settlement. It had almost certainly been granted colony (colonia) status prior to the complete replanning of the city's street plan attending the erection of the great second forum with a basilicca around the year 120.

By this time, Britain's provincial administration had also almost certainly been moved to Londinium from Camulodunum (now Colchester in Essex). The precise date of this change is unknown, and no surviving source explicitly states that Londinium was "the capital of Britain," but there are several strong indications of this status: 2nd-century roofing tiles have been found marked by the "Procurator" or "Publican of the Province of Britain at Londinium", the remains of a governor's palace and tombstones belonging to the governor's staff have been discovered, and the city was well defended and armed, with a new military camp erected at the beginning of the 2nd century in a fort on the north-western edge of the city, despite being far from any frontier. Despite some corruption to the text, the list of bishops for the 314 Council of Arles indicates that either Restitutus or Adelphius came from Londinium. The city seems to have been the seat of the diocesan vicar (a civil, not a religious post) and one of the provincial governors following the Diocletian Reforms around 300 that spit Britania into more than one province; it had been renamed Augusta—a common epithet of provincial capitals—by 368.

Founding Londinium:

Unlike many cities of Roman Britain, Londinium was not placed on the site of a native settlement or oppidum.  Prior to the arrival of the Roman legions, the area was almost certainly lightly rolling open countryside traversed by numerous streams now underground. Ptolemy lists it as one of the cities of the Cantiaci, but Durovernu (Roman Canterbury) was their tribal capital (civitas). It is possible that the town was preceded by a short-lived Roman military camp, but the evidence is limited and this topic remains a matter of debate.

Archaeologist Lacey Wallace notes "Because no Late preRoman Iron Age settlements or significant domestic refuse have been found in London, despite extensive archaeological excavation, arguments for a purely Roman foundation of London are now common and not controversial.  The city's Latin name seems to have derived from an originally Brittonic one and significant pre-Roman finds in the Thames, especially the Battersea Shield (Chelsea Bridge, perhaps 4th-century BC) and the Wandsworth Shield (perhaps 1st-century BC), both assumed to be votive offerings deposited a couple of miles upstream of Londinium, suggest the general area was busy and significant. It has been suggested that the area was where several territories intersected.  There was probably a ford in that part of the river; other Roman and Celtic finds suggest this was perhaps where the opposed crossing that Julius Caesar described in 54 BC took place.

Londinium expanded around the point on the River Thames narrow enough for the construction of a Roman bridge but still deep enough to handle the era's seagoing ships.  Its placement on the Tideway permitted easier access for ships sailing upstream. The remains of a massive pier base for such a bridge were found in 1981 close by the modern  London Bridge.

Some Claudian-era camp ditches have been discovered, but archaeological excavations undertaken since the 1970s by the Department of Urban Archaeology at the Museum of London (now MOLAS) have suggested the early settlement was largely the product of private enterprise. A timber drain by the side of the main Roman road excavated at No 1 Poultry has been dated by dendrochronology to 47 AD.

Following its foundation in the mid-1st century, early Roman London occupied a relatively small area, about 350 acres (1.4 sq km) or roughly the area of present-day Hyde Park. Archaeologists have uncovered numerous goods imported from across the Roman Empire in this period, suggesting that early Roman London was a highly cosmopolitan community of merchants from across the empire and that local markets existed for such objects.

Decline of Londinium -- 2nd century and later:   Roman civilization as a whole reached its zenith during the mid-1st century, at around the same time that London was being established. While London matured and grew on the western extreme of the empire through the 2nd and 3rd centuries, it was protected from troubles in Rome and elsewhere, and occasionally prospered,

In the latter 2nd century a smallpox plague spread across the empire, killing between 10 and 25 percent of the population. With garrison towns decimated, the empire’s borders became vulnerable and barbarians invaded from the Germanic north. Greater resources required to provide military security necessitated higher taxes, which caused resentment.

Divisions grew between the eastern Greek-speaking and Latin-speaking western provinces of the empire. There was much in-fighting and rebellion during the first half of the 3rdcentury. In 260 the empire was over-run by Alamanni, Franks, and Goths from the north, Moors from the south and Persians from the east. Only Rome, the Italian peninsular and Britannia remained untouched. The Romans fought back but large areas of the empire were lost forever.

Britannia was not entirely immune from attack.  Franks, based in the lower Rhineland areas, began making raids on wealthy and vulnerable eastern Britannia and the Thames estuary.  Inland agricultural areas prospered, and large mansions were built or expanded, but people of wealth abandoned the areas around the coasts of East Anglia, the Thames Estuary, Kent, the south, and Severn Estuary where they were vulnerable from raids by the Franks or Irish.  Long-distance shipping in and out of Londinium was unlikely to have been affected but coastal shipping was probably in greater danger.  In the early 3rd century, about 150 years after their arrival, the Romans replaced Londinium’s defensive mound with a wall over three kilometres long, six and a half metres high and enclosing an area of 326 acres.

Londinium expanded rapidly during the 1st and early 2nd centuries when traders and financiers arrived to exploit the expanding new market of the province of Britannia. In the 120s Emperor Hadrian decreed that the borders of the empire should be fixed. Within the British Isles a wall was built across the province’s northern boundary and the empire never expanded to incorporate Scotland or Ireland. Without the momentum of expansion, and being a dead-end on the far western edge of civilised Europe, new merchants were thereafter less likely to come to Londinium. Instead they looked eastwards where there were distant markets with which to trade. The growth-rate of Londinium had slowed by the 3rd century and a long, slow decline began.

Trade was not the only factor in the stagnation and decline of Londinium. Although there is no documented evidence, the empire’s plague of the 170s must have reached Londinium due to the constant ships arriving at the port. The town’s population level fell at the end of 2nd century. By the beginning of the following century parts of the town that had previously been built on were being covered over for market gardening. The public bathhouse at Upper Thames Street was demolished, probably because it was no longer viable to keep it continually heated. There was clearly a serious and immediate threat in the late 3rd century because the defensive wall, which had until then encircled only the landward sides, was hastily extended along the riverside.

In or around 286 Marcus Carausius, the admiral in charge of the Channel Fleet, rebelled, seizing Britannia and parts of Gaul and isolating them from Rome for the next decade. Without official Roman coinage a mint was established in Londinium, with a number of the rebel coins being found on a ship that was sunk around that time in the area of what is now County Hall. The Londinium mint continued in operation until the early 4th century.
Augustus Maximian, head of the western part of the empire, appointed his deputy, Constantius, to organise a campaign of recovery of the provinces. In 293 he re-took the port of Boulogne, followed by the other parts of Gaul. As Constantius waited to re-take Britannia, Carausius was murdered by his finance minister Allectus, taking advantage of the political uncertainty, and declaring himself the new Emperor of Britannia. Finally, in 297 Constantius assembled two fleets of ships, one of which landed at Southampton and the other, sailing from the Rhine under his direct command, headed for Londinium.

Allectus had enlisted large numbers of Franks but they were more interested in looting Londinium than in fighting. As the citizens of Londinium feared the destruction of the town at the hands of the Franks, Constantius’s ships arrived. The citizens watched from the city walls as the Roman forces slaughtered the barbarians. Constantius celebrated victory by minting gold coins depicting him arriving on horseback at Londinium’s walls to be greeted by one its inhabitants, accompanied by a ship of his fleet. The accompanying legend states in Latin “Restorer of Eternal Light”. Although only a simplified illustration, it is the oldest-surviving image of London.

Londinium had been saved from the barbarian looters but then faced the wrath of the emperor for their support of the rebels. The magnificent basilica and forum were destroyed. Britannia was divided into four provinces, with Londinium as capital of only one quarter of the province, most likely as punishment.

As towns and rural areas in the western Continental part of the empire came under threat and were increasingly abandoned, Britannia became ever more important for the supply of goods and foodstuffs. When the thick forests of northern Europe were lost to the barbarians Britannia’s timber became a new export, easily transportable by water from Londinium. The great oak forest around Middlesex began to be thinned during the 4th century.

In 367 Britannia was invaded by an alliance of Picts, Irish, Franks and Saxons. Forces under the command of the Spanish Count Theodosius were sent by the Emperor Valentinian to restore order. He quickly recovered Londinium where he spent the winter months before regaining the rest of the country during the following Spring. New defences were added to Londinium’s wall in the form of bastions that held catapults.

In the 380s a Spanish Roman general in Britannia rebelled and declared independence from the empire. He led the army in Britannia to the Continent, where he took Gaul, Spain and much of Italy before his defeat in 388. The Roman army was never to return in force, although the provinces needed further temporary defence when the Irish, Picts and Saxons invaded once again at the very end of the 4th century.

During the 4th and 5th centuries sea levels throughout Europe rose, causing problems in all low-lying coastal areas.  Londinium and the lower Lea valley became prone to flooding from time to time and Ermine Street, the main road leading directly north out of the town, occasionally became impassable.

Britannia was by then no longer governed directly from Rome and much of the government administration was either dealt with from Trier or devolved to capitals of the smaller provinces into which Britannia had been divided. The town’s population gradually dwindled, concentrated along the riverside. Many buildings were no longer occupied and earth was laid over derelict structures so that the land could be used for farming. Even into the Middle Ages half of the land within the city walls was still being farmed as fields, orchards and gardens.

Barbarian attacks were becoming more threatening to Britannia and the population appealed to the Emperor Honorius for help. But Rome itself was under immediate threat from the Visigoths, who briefly entered the city in 410, carrying away much of its valuable possessions. After the Visigoths had already left Rome Honorius replied to the British that he was unable to help them at that moment and authorised them to take care of their own defences. No doubt he was optimistically expecting to send troops at a later time but in reality Britannia was no longer a province of the great empire to which it had been part for three and a half centuries.

Roman Londinium continued to be occupied but its population gradually dwindled until it could no longer cope with decay, and the remains of the city was eventually abandoned. In about 429 Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, visited the town and reported that life continued as normal. During the early part of the century tiles were still being produced and therefore houses maintained to some extent. At least one house was occupied in 440 and still receiving supplies from the Mediterranean. Yet by the end of that century Londinium seems to have been deserted, and remained so for over 400 years until re-established by the Saxon King Alfred of Wessex who also restored the walls.

Roman Ruins in modern London:

Remains of the steam room of the Roman baths at Billingsgate in London.  The pillars of stacked terracotta tiles supported a heated floor.  The walls had terracotta pipes surrounding the room through which heated air from the hypocaust furnace at the foreground left corner.  It's conjectured that it may have used coal for fuel.   
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London Mithraeum:  The first excavations took pace in 1954 during the demolition of a WW II bomb site.  Renewed excavations with more modern methods and technologies was undertaken by the Museum of London and thousands of artifacts and tons of animal bones from ritual meals were recovered.
mm

London Mithraeum with a modern representation of a missing tauroctony, bull-slaying, sculpture.  Secret rites associated with Mithraism would be performed on the platform in front of the sculpture.  Some sources say that the rite of initiation included a repetition of the bull-slaying with the bull's blood showering over the initiates.  Mithraism was a male only Mystery Religion and was particularly popular in the Roman military ranks.  Its main rival was Christianity which, after the conversion of Emperor Constantine I, the Great, became the official religion of the Empire.  Christianity grew faster, with the fiancial support of rich Roman widows.
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Amphitheater 
 
No Roman city worthy of its name (e.g., not Londinium) would be without an Amphitheatre (the word means two theatrons facing each other).  The one in Londinium was built starting about 70 AD.  It was rediscovered in 1988 when construction digging started for a new art gallery on the site of London's Old Guildhall.  The dig revealed parts of the Roman Amphitheatre including the outer wall, an entrance tunnel, and part of the arena, which are now preserved and viewable from  the basement of the Guildhall Art Gallery, open free to the public.  Unfortunately the touristy lighting scheme makes photography difficult. 


Found







Under the Saxon Medieval Church of All Hallows by the Tower is a small museum that houses, among a wealth of Roman, Saxon, and "other" artifacts, what has aptly been described as an undistinguished Roman Londinium floor -- not mosaic or inlay or anything special, just neatly arrayed small cobbles, enough to prove that Romans were there.  I'd love to see what might be under that floor.










Also in the crypt is what sometimes is said to be a 
Roman arch.  It fits the definition of the Roman  architectural TYPE of arch: it is semi-circular at the top with straight sides, so it is Roman.  But as for who built the arch, it looks Saxon:  the rounded section appears to be made of "Roman Brick", but the layings of the bricks, their angles, are off.  The mortar between the bricks could easily be dated, but the guide wasn't able to tell me if tests had ever been applied.


Artifacts 
Found in 2013 at a site once occupied by a Londinium cemetery and initially thought to be a recent garden decoration, this Roman eagle with captive snake made of Cotswald limestone was soon identified as an authentic, very well carved and preserved 1st or 2nd century Londinium artifact.  It stands a little more than two feet high.  The eagle's broken off (look closely) right wing has not been reattached, but rather it and the eagle rest together in a purpose-built frame in the Museum of London. 

The symbolism is understood as the struggle of good, the eagle, against evil, the snake.  In Roman mythology the image of an eagle represents Jupiter (a name derived from "Zeus Pater") This Eagle/snake theme is common in funerary contexts and an important Roman cemetery is known to have been located on the site. It is believed by archaeologists that this statue once stood in a niche a rich mausoleum, the foundations of one were also uncovered during excavation. The lack of weathering on the statue corroborates this theory, as does the absence of detail on the back of the sculpture; suggesting it once sat it an alcove.

The piece was described by National Geographic as "the finest piece of Roman sculpture ever found in London".  Link:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/eagle-serpent-limestone-sculpture-discovery-roman-london-science-archaeology

  .
A set of metal banquet utensils found at the bottom of a Roman well in Londinium, now in the Museum of London.  The Museum's collection of Roman artifacts runs to tens of thousands.  the BritishMuseum, also in London, has many thousand additional pieces, although not in a separate "Londinium Collection".  Both museums have searchable Internet data bases, but although all artifacts seem to have informational listings, not all are photographed.  Oxford's Ashmolian also has no separate Londinium Collection, but, again, has many artifacts


The third century "Bucklersby Pavement" mosaic was discovered in central London in 1869.  The Museum of London,where it now resides (display pictured) calls it one of the most important relics from Londinium.

The upper image is a drawing that appeared in a London newspaper while the mosaic was being excavated.  The discovery of the "Pavement" caused great excitement. 
Replica versions of the Bucklersby Pave-ment are found at a few locations including the site of the London Mithraeum and the Purbeck House Hotel. The Pavement was originally found near the Mithraeum site.  The Hotel, in Swanage, England, was built as a private residence by George Burt, whose company worked on the construction of Queen Victoria Street, London, where the original Pavement was unearthed.
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A more recently discovered (2022) 1st or 2nd century mosaic is thought to be the floor of a triclinium, a dining room, in a mansio, a high end temporary residence for official government travelers or curiers.


A triclinium could accommodate three 
wide reclining couches on three sides of the room.  On each couch three persons would lay sideways to eat.  Overeating or drinking to excess or drinking unwatered wine was considered declasse.
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It is sometimes said that not much of Roman Londinium has survived.  Tell that to anyone
who has ever tried to build a skyscraper in central London. 

When you dig a foundation for any structure, you have to take out an amount of dirt that has the same weight as the structure and its expected contents and sink piles to keep it all from slipping sideways.  If building-plus-contents weight us more than the extracted weight, the building will compress what is left under it and sink.  If there is not enough weight to replace what was extracted, it could be even worse: what is below your structure might decompress and pop your building upward.  Add heavy contents quickly.  (I know this stuff because Dad's company specialized in remediating the ups and downs of building weight miscalculations.)

The point that interests us, however, is that Londinium, by itself, sat where the "City of London", AKA the "Square mile", AKA the  London "Financial District" sits today.  "Londinium Plus", was where Roman Londinium spread outward before it began to shrink backtoward the end of the 2nd century.  Experience shows that you can't start to extract soil or to break down an old structure to build a new one without attracting archeologists (nowadays, usually from the Museum of London).  Londinium is down there.







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