Roman Town

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es being awarded land there, the vast majority of the population was still Celtic. Despite the population still being largely Celtic, Britain changed immeasurably during the four centuries of Roman rule. Iron Age tribal centres were redesigned as Roman towns, with regular street-grids, forums (market squares), basilicas (assembly rooms), temples, theatres, bathhouses, amphitheatres, shopping malls and hotels. These towns can be broadly grouped in two categories. Civitates, or "public towns”, were formally laid out on a grid plan, and their role in imperial administration occasioned the construction of public buildings. The much more numerous category of vici, or "small towns”, grew on informal plans, often round a camp or at a ford or crossroads; …show more content…

They were named Britannia Superior (the South) and Britannia Inferior (the North), and were governed by York (the North) and London (the South). The Romans introduced a system of government whereby the whole country was governed by one capital town or city. In Roman Britain this was initially Camulodunum (modern day Colchester) but later became Londinium (modern day London) due to its strong mercantile connections. The different forms of municipal organisation in Britannia were known as civitas (which were subdivided, amongst other forms, into colonies such as York, Colchester, Gloucester and Lincoln and municipalities such as Verulamium), and were each governed by a senate of local landowners, whether Britannic or Roman, who elected magistrates concerning judicial and civic affairs. The various civitas sent representatives to a yearly provincial council in order to profess loyalty to the Roman state, to send direct petitions to the Emperor in times of extraordinary need, and to worship the imperial cult. Though during their occupation of Britain the Romans founded a number of important settlements, many of these towns suffered attrition in the later fourth century, when public building ceased and some were abandoned. Though place names survived the deurbanisation of the Sub-Roman and early Anglo-Saxon periods, archaeology shows that a bare handful of Roman towns were continuously

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