The Roman Empire became extremely strong in the 1st century BC. This Empire was the last and greatest civilization of the ancient world.At that time two thousand years ago the Celtic people were still living in tribes. And Roman society, of course, was very much different from the Celts in many ways.Romans first attacked Britain in 55–54 BC under Julius Caesar. But they really conquered Britain in the 1st century Anno Domini (AD) ['ænəu 'dɔmInaI], in 43 AD when the Roman Emperor Claudius decided to make Britain part of the Roman Empire. And Britain became one of its numerous provinces. They forced the population to pay tribute.The Romans kept their armies in Britain. They had the country under control. They drove their barbaric enemies, the Scots to the mountains of Ireland and the Picts to the mountains of the far north. To protect themselves from the attacks of the Picts, the Romans built the wall known as Hadrian’s Wall. Hadrian’s Wall (120 kilometres long and four metres high (see the map, p.20) was built by Emperor Hadrian and is well-known all over the world.But from the 3rd century the Scots, "the tattooed ones", from the mountains of Ireland and the Picts from present-day Scotland began to press Hadrian’s wall.As for the Britons, the Romans remained in control of Pretony (that is how they called Britain using its Greeco-Roman name) for nearly 400 years.The Britons (the descendants of the Celts) had given history a famous figure Boadicea [‚bouədI'si:ə] (orBoudicca [bu:'ðIkə]). There is a monument to this fearless queen in London opposite Big Ben. It depicts herself driving a war chariot with two daughters lying dead at her feet.Many Britons obeyed the Romans. And it became clear that nothing could stop the Romans, but some of them revolted and in 61 AD the Iceni [aI'sInI] tribe (which is now East Anglia) led by their queen, Boadicea, revolted. She destroyed their capital Londinium (London now) before the Romans defeated her. Boudicea thought that death would be better than captivity and, as it is written in the history books, first she gave poison to her daughters and, then took it herself. When the Roman soldiers found her she was already dead.To this time perhaps belongs the origin of London as a city. There was certainly a place of some kind known as London at the time of the invasion under Claudius. London attained its importance under the Roman rule.They left the country only in the second half of the 5th century because the Roman army was called back to fight in Gaul [gɔ:l] (France) where it defended the cou
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