By AD100 the Roman Empire stretched from Scotland to the Middle East ( almost 3000 miles )
Population: about 50 million people

How did the Romans control the Empire?

Organising the Empire

The legions
#about 30 in the Empire
#each legion was made up of 60 centries, each with 80 men called legionnaires
#centurions were in charge of centries
#each legion had 120 cavalry
#150000 legionnaires in total
#had to serve for 16 years
#had to be Roman citizen
#mostly were volunteers
#recruits came from the provinces where the legions were serving
#many were sons of ex-soldiers

Auxilia
#made up of conquered armies & friendly tribes
#served for 25 years
#were not Roman citizens but received citizenship at the end of their service
#many were volunteers
#armour & weapons similar to the legionnaires', but of inferior quality
#about 227000 Auxilia in the Empire, including some cavalry

Roman tactics

In AD61 Britain had been a Roman province for less than 20 years. The Romans hadn't conquered even half of Britain. What's more, the estimate that Britain could be controlled by just 1 legion proved to be bad miscalculation. 4 legions had been stationed & had been kept fairly busy. Suetonius, the governor of Britain, decided to conquer the Isles of Anglesey just off Wales. Many rebellious Britons, led by the Druid priests, were hiding there. Suetonius took 2 legions with him, this left the south of England almost bare of Roman troops.

Source 3- The Roman historian Tacitus describes why the Iceni tribe rebelled

Source 4- Tacitus describes why the Iceni's neighbours, the Trinovates, joined the rebellion

The Britons defeated the Romans' 9th legion. They attacked Colchester & completely destroyed it. The rebels did the same in London & St Albans.

Source 6- In his account of the rebellion, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote down the sort of things that he thought Boudicca would have said.

Source 9- From Tacitus' account of the rebellion

After the rebellion was put down, a new governor, Agricola, was sent to Britain. Agricola had been a young soldier in Suetonius' army at the time of the rebellion.

In eastern parts great towns existed before the Romans came. These towns were left to govern themselves & the local way of life was left untouched. But in western parts towns were almost unknown.

■ slightly less important: municipia
only Roman citizens could live in these towns & they governed themselves
their buildings were supposed to be like Rome’s & were meant to show the local tribes the advantages that came with Roman rule

Wroxeter was originally the site of an important fort, from AD48 to 90. The Romans used it as a base for their conquest of North Wales