The rape of Britannia

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The following article is accompanied by excellent photos, so well worth clicking through to the original. But first, let me share a couple of my favourite quotes on how the PICTS dealt with the Roman incursions. The best, I think, is one which Tacitus attributed to Calgacus, a leader of the Caledonian tribes of Scotland, in response to the Roman Empire’s efforts to conquer Scotland, around 79 AD.


"In them is an arrogance which no submission or good behaviour can escape. Pillagers of the world, they have exhausted the land by their plunder and now they ransack the sea. A rich enemy excites their cupidity, a poor one their lust for power. To robbery, butchery and rapine they give the lying name of Government; they create a desolation and call it peace."

And, another informative speech from Calgacus, to his people, as he inspired them to unite to drive off the Romans.


"When I consider the origin of this war and the necessities of our position, I have a sure confidence that today, this union of yours will be the beginning of freedom to the whole of Britain. Slavery is unknown to all of us. We, the most renowned nation in Britain, dwelling in the very heart of the country, out of sight of the shores of the conquered, have even kept our eyes unpolluted by the defilement of slavery. We are the last people on earth and the last to be free. Our very remoteness in a land known only by rumour has protected us up till this day ... But now there is no people beyond us, nothing but tides and rocks and more deadly than these, the Romans, from whose oppression escape is vainly sought by obedience and submission. Our goods and fortunes they would collect for their tribute, our harvests for their granaries. They plunder, they butcher, they rape ... Which will you choose, to follow me into battle, or to submit to taxation, labour in the mines and all the other tribulations of slavery? Whether you are to endure these forever or take a quick revenge, this battle must decide. Since then you cannot hope for quarter, take courage
... Let us, then, a fresh and unconquered people, never likely to abuse our freedom, show forthwith at the very first onset what heroes Caledonia has in
reserve. the Roman army is held together by success and will be broken up
by disaster."

The rape of Britannia –TimesOnLine–Mary Beard, 30 January, 2008–(Mary Beard is a wickedly subversive commentator on both the modern and the ancient world. She is a professor in classics at Cambridge and classics editor of the TLS.)
I shall be rather sad if Britannia does indeed, as the Prime Minister plans,
disappear from British coins. After all, it’s part of the point of a
modern coin design that it should include some hoary old symbol that is
simultaneously easily recognisable and also not fully comprehensible
(or not comprehensible without a bit of research, anyway).
After all one of the Greek Euros has the Rape of Europa on it: a frisky bull, about to run off with -- and worse – an innocent young
maid. (Imagine what the New Labour moral police would have done with
that one.) And what on earth was that little bird on the old farthing. Was it a wren or a robin? And why?

Romans, as a symbol of their new province,
and used on British coins since the seventeenth century. If she goes, I
don’t hold out much hope, long term, for that nice bit of Virgil (decus et tutamen -- from Aeneid Book V) around the pound coin. I have a sneaking suspicion that Mr Brown isn’t much of a fan of Latin.

But while the traditionalists lament Britannia’s disappearance, they
might like to reflect on her first appearance in Roman art. As rape
victim of the doddery old emperor Claudius.

She
is first used on a coin under the emperor Hadrian in the second century
CE, sitting on her usual rock. But her premiere, so far as we know, was
on a large building put up in the town of Aphrodisias
(in modern Turkey, not all that far from Ephesus): the so called
“Sebasteion”, a building complex of temple and porticoes, probably
finished in the reign of the emperor Nero, and dedicated to Aphrodite
and the Roman emperors/gods (the ‘sebastoi’ in Greek).

It’s loaded with sculpture (in fact Aphrodisias, which is still being excavated, is the place where some of 
the best ancient sculpture has been discovered over the last few
decades). There are personifications of the tribes and peoples of the
Roman empire, scenes from myth (from Leda and the Swan to Orestes at
Delphi). And then there are more specifically Roman images. One panel
shows a heroically nude emperor Claudius shaking hands with his wife
(and murderess, if you believe the stories) Agrippina. Another (on the
right) has Agrippina crowning her son Nero with a laurel wreath.

Yet another is the Britannia panel (seen at the top). Claudius,
naked again apart from a bit of weaponry is about to do something very
nasty to a sprawling Britannia, whom he’s pulling back by her flowing
hair. She’s dressed in a tunic already falling away from her breasts,
and some little barbarian boots. We know it’s Claudius and Britannia
because there’s an inscription going with it that names them both.

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