What the Romans Did for Us

In his Child’s History of England Dickens was consistently severe on the abuse of power. The Romans, who ruled here from the first century to the start of the fifth, did not escape his censure. He admitted they had exercised a degree of civilising influence, but in his judgment the most civilising influence in their time had been Christianity, for it exposed the frauds of Britain’s indigenous pagan elite, the Druids.

Five hundred years had passed, since Julius Caesar’s first invasion of the Island, when the Romans departed from it for ever. In the course of that time, although they had been the cause of terrible fighting and bloodshed, they had done much to improve the condition of the Britons. They had made great military roads; they had built forts; they had taught them how to dress, and arm themselves, much better than they had ever known how to do before they had refined the whole British way of living.* Agricola had built a great wall of earth, more than seventy miles long, extending from Newcastle to beyond Carlisle, for the purpose of keeping out the Picts and Scots; Hadrian had strengthened it; Severus, finding it much in want of repair, had built it afresh of stone.*

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* Tacitus, who watched this with interest since Agricola, Britain’s Roman governor, was his father-in-law, believed that the unwary British paid a high price for this civilisation: see Brought to their Knees. American historian D. H. Montgomery was similarly unimpressed by Rome’s claims: see ‘They Make a Desert and Call it Peace’ and Rome, Ruin and Revenue.

* Although Agricola, who led the conquest of Britannia, did erect signal posts and forts (with their accompanying earthworks) along the line of what later became the Roman Wall, modern historians give the credit for the wall itself wholly to Emperor Hadrian, who officially announced its construction during his visit to Britain in 122, though plans had been in the works since shortly after his accession in 117. The wall was at least six years in the making, the only such frontier defence the Romans ever built throughout all their wide dominions.

Précis

Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 45 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 35 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: about, although, because, despite, if, just, not, whereas.

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