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A. Plautius' Campaign in Britain: An Alternative Reading of the Narrative in Cassius Dio (60.19.5–21.2)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2010

J.G.F. Hind
J.G.F. Hind
Affiliation:
Moortown, Leeds
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Extract

Three aspects of Cassius Dio's account of the Claudian invasion of Britain are discussed. First, the convention, by which ancient historians routinely introduced their detailed narrative of military campaigns with a summary, allows the two first battles in the sequence to be eliminated as separate events. Secondly, the kings, Togodumnus in Cassius Dio and Cogidumnus in Tacitus' Agricola, are taken to be the same individual, who after defeat was reconciled to be Claudius' client-ruler. Thirdly, the argument is restated that the invasion took place through the harbours of West Sussex on a route suggested by the description given by Dio and by the evidence of place-names, known from the Geography of Ptolemy and the Antonine Itinerary.

Keywords

Roman invasion of BritainClaudiusAulus PlautiusCassius DioCaratacusCogidumnus/Cogidubnus
Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 38 , November 2007 , pp. 93 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © J.G.F. Hind 2007. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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Footnotes

*

I should like to thank John Manley for his helpful comments on the topic in correspondence over several years and for reading this paper in draft. I am also grateful to the anonymous readers of Britannia for suggestions for improvement to the text and for items of recent bibliography. None of the above is necessarily to be held to agree with the views put forward here, and errors remaining are, of course, my own.

References

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