The Last Days of Roman Rule

Theodosius was the last man to be sole ruler of the whole Roman Empire in both its eastern and western sections, with Constantinople and Rome as capitals. His son, Honorius, became western emperor in 395, and his twenty-eight year reign saw its collapse and dissolution. In Britain, where barbarian raids again resumed, there was one final backlash by the empire, when Honorius' general, Flavius Stilicho - not a Roman but a Vandal in imperial service - made or sent a shock expedition in 398, defeating Saxons, Picts and Scots. But Stilicho, faced with irruptions on every side, fatally disabled the defences of Britannia in 401-2 by withdrawing garrison troops to fight elsewhere. The rump of troops stationed on the island, aware of their own inability to cope, elected a succession of obscure figures as their chief or 'emperor': the last of these took the name Constantine III and attempted to join up with the Roman forces in Gaul and head off the vast numbers of Vandals. Alans and Suevians who had crossed the frozen Rhine at the end of 406, and were spreading into Gaul, and who, it was feared, would cross the Straits of Dover into Britain. Constantine III was successful for a time, but in 411 was defeated and executed by Honorius.

The death-throes of the western empire went on for some time, but already Roman government and rule in Britain were, if not non-existent, at least wholly ineffective. Town development had ceased decades before. Army deserters, self-liberated slaves, escaped criminals, ruined shopkeepers wandered in bands, raiding villas, seeking food, wine, buried treasures. In response to the anarchy which had settled on the land, a contemporary wiiter, Zosimus, recorded that the inhabitants of Britain revolted from Roman rule and expelled their Roman governors: The Britons took up arms and, braving danger for their own independence, freed their cities from the barbarians threatening them.

Thus ended almost four centuries of Roman imperial rule, a time-span equivalent to that from the Union of the Crowns to the present day. For the moment, the Picts, Scots and Saxons were held at bay. The Britons were in control of their land, as they had been until Claudius' invasion. But they were not the same people as in An 43 . This was especially true of those who by family and wealth were the natural leaders of the society: they were by now inescapably Romano-British. Christian, civilised, used to generations of peace and good order, accustomed to defer to the agents of their world's superpower, they faced a profoundly uncertain future.