Was there a Kingdom of Britain before Caesar?

**Megas Methuselah** · 07-02-2010, 19:22

WOW. What a great read.

**oudysseos** · 07-02-2010, 19:55

There is nothing in GSG's last post that I could really disagree with, except that anything said about Cassivellaunus is pretty speculative: Cunobelinus is a much better candidate - but he is too late for your purposes, I gather. You could use his soi-disant father, Tasciovanus, or what about Diviciacus of the Suessiones? According to Caesar, a cross-cannel potentate of the generation immediately preceding that of his and Cassivellaunus'. If we take the late period of Aylesford-Swarling development as being indicative of Belgic movement ( in some fashion ) into Britain, his career certainly seems plausible.

The word 'king' is not one I'm fond of in this context, although it is of course exactly the word that Cunobelinus uses on his coins. However, we know so little about early British religion and society that it is very hard to say how they viewed their leaders: were kings divinely appointed? This is what the Greek world had come to mean by king, after Alexander. It's totally possible that the grey area between the names of gods and chiefs (Bran/Brennus, Belin/Cunobelinus, many others) indicates that the people saw their kings as at least semi-divine or sacred: but there is no proof of that I am inclined to think that it's not true. My hunch (no more than that) is that it was not until Christianity brought in eastern notions of divine kingship that the western Celts recast their stories in the light of their new faith, and thus Geoffrey and his unbroken line of British Kings back to Noah (Shem? somebody like that).

Anyway, good luck with your mod. I'm afraid I can't be much help, as I find it hard even to devote time to my EBII obligations.

P.S. The Cunliffe book you're thinking of is probably The Ancient Celts. It and his other works are available on questia.com for what I think is a very low monthly cost. Highly recommended. There's also a very good book by Sabatino Moscati on there.

**MisterFred** · 07-03-2010, 04:56

I usually just lurk, but I just wanted to thank the heavy lifters for their discussion. It is enlightening.

**oudysseos** · 07-03-2010, 15:12

Actually, the first 'High King of All Britain' was Athelstan (ca. 925). Coincidentally, the most recent In Our Time podcast is about him.

**SlickNicaG69** · 07-05-2010, 14:33

Britain was then as Gaul was then: A bunch of Kings without Kingdoms.

**Gaius Sempronius Gracchus** · 07-05-2010, 17:53

Originally Posted by SlickNicaG69

Britain was then as Gaul was then: A bunch of Kings without Kingdoms.

Britain was then what Gaul was then, what Rome was then, what all polities were and have always been; factions within factions within factions.... One of Rome's great strengths was their political nouse. They knew how to work one faction against another, how to destabilise and fragment what could be strong enemies by the divisions within them.

**oudysseos** · 07-05-2010, 18:36

I agree - but I also think that one of Rome's greatest and most unique strengths was its liberal attitude towards citizenship. It seems so obvious to us now, but if you can put yourself into the mindset of someone from the 3rd BCE, it is a revolutionary idea that someone can become a citizen of a state other than that of their birthplace: this almost never happened in the Golden Age of Greece, for example (even the son of Pericles by Aspasia was not an Athenian until the law was amended). For another, there's Carthage: before the Punic Wars, Carthage's ager publicus was much larger and richer than Rome's, not to mention the huge fleet of warships and merchant vessels. But no matter how hard the Libyo-Phoenicians, Numidians, or Iberians fought for Carthage, the franchise never expanded, and thus there were never as many people with a deep vested interest in the state as there were for Rome.

**SlickNicaG69** · 07-11-2010, 17:06

Originally Posted by Gaius Sempronius Gracchus

Britain was then what Gaul was then, what Rome was then, what all polities were and have always been; factions within factions within factions.... One of Rome's great strengths was their political nouse. They knew how to work one faction against another, how to destabilise and fragment what could be strong enemies by the divisions within them.

The fact still remains that Rome's greatest strength was being able to demolish their enemy to the pulp of extinction, while at the same time taking over their lands through such methods as colonization - a rather new innovation for that time period. They not only defeated their enemies, they conquered them.

No British tribe was ever able to conquer anything; it was Rome that first conquered there.