Londinium

Мыслевцев А.С.

Londinium was the Roman town on the Thames that emerged soon after the conquest of Britain in the mid-first century AD. Its importance came from the river, crossing point, roads, trade, harbour and administrative links with the province. Unlike older Celtic centres, Londinium was above all a new Roman town: it grew from a military and commercial node and then became one of the principal centres of Britain.

The Bloomberg tablets are a central part of this history, but not the whole article. They reveal the early written culture of the town; walls, roads, waterfronts, workshops, coins, pottery and shrines show Londinium as an urban organism.

A Town on the Thames

Londinium arose in a favourable location: movement along the Thames and the road links between south-eastern Britain, inland regions and ports could be controlled from here. The early town was timber-built and vulnerable, yet it quickly gained regular streets, markets, warehouses, quays and craft districts. After Boudica's revolt in AD 60/61, the town was destroyed and then rebuilt.

In the second century Londinium acquired a more stable urban form: forum and basilica, town wall, baths, temples, workshops, houses and harbour. It was not a military fortress, but it constantly depended on army supply and provincial administration.

The Bloomberg Tablets

The tablet assemblage was found during excavations beneath the new Bloomberg headquarters in the City of London. It is the largest and earliest collection of Roman waxed writing tablets from Britain. The wooden tablets were normally coated with wax and written on with a stylus; the wax disappeared, but scratched letter traces survived on the wood.

The tablets record names, debts, deliveries, receipts, legal and commercial formulae, school exercises and everyday literacy. They show Londinium not as an abstract "Roman town", but as a place of specific people: merchants, debtors, witnesses, scribes, craftsmen, women, enslaved people and freed persons.

Streets, Harbour and Craft

Early Londinium was tied to water. Waterfronts, timber quays, bank revetments and warehouses show that the Thames was road, market and boundary at the same time. Cargoes, building material, pottery, food and people arrived by river. Streets connected the harbour with the forum, workshops, residential quarters and roads into the province.

Urban archaeology provides many small objects: shoes, brooches, styli, vessels, coins, seals, tools, amulets and dress fittings. Such objects matter as an assemblage: they show which habits and crafts took root in Roman Britain already in the first and second centuries AD.

Archaeological Sources

Londinium is studied through several kinds of evidence. The tablets provide writing and named people. Timber waterfront structures show building technique in wet ground. Pottery and amphorae reveal trade links. Coins help date layers and show monetary circulation. The town wall, baths, Mithraeum, amphitheatre and cemeteries show public spaces, cult and memory of the dead.

Evidence from later London should not be transferred automatically to the early town. First-century Londinium, the town after Boudica's revolt, the walled second-century town and the late Roman centre are different states of the same place.

Forum, Wall and Cult

Forum and basilica show Londinium as an administrative centre. Law, trade, announcements, contracts and the presence of authority met there. Even when large buildings survive only as foundations, drains, pits and wall lines, they allow the scale of public space and the connection with provincial administration to be reconstructed.

The town wall of the second and third centuries changed the appearance of Londinium. It defended the town, but also marked its status. Within and around it archaeologists find traces of baths, workshops, houses, warehouses and cult places. The Mithraeum is especially important as an example of an eastern cult in a Roman urban setting: religion in Londinium was not a single system, but a combination of household, local, military and imperial practices.

Names and Society

The tablets are valuable because they bring names to the surface. Latin, Celtic and mixed names appear, along with offices, statuses, witnesses and participants in transactions. These documents show early Londinium as a multilingual and socially mixed environment. Roman citizens, provincials, enslaved people, freed persons, merchants and people involved in supply operated side by side.

The archaeology of the town confirms this through objects of different origins. Imported pottery, local products, coins, shoes, ornaments and tools show how quickly Roman habits joined a local environment. Londinium was not a copy of Rome; it was a Roman town in Britain with its own economy, climate, materials and population.

Short Chronology

• AD 43: Roman conquest of Britain.
• AD 47-50s: early Londinium developed near the crossing and harbour.
• AD 60/61: Boudica's revolt; Londinium was destroyed.
• Late 1st-2nd century AD: rebuilding, trade growth, forum, baths, roads and a stronger urban structure.
• 2nd-3rd centuries AD: construction and development of the town wall, changes in districts and public buildings.
• 4th century AD: the late Roman town remained important, but changed with the crises of the empire.

Related Topics

• Roman archaeological sources
• The Roman Empire
• Roman society
• Roman names
• Roman streets
• The Roman army

Literature

• Tomlin R. S. O. Roman London's First Voices: Writing Tablets from the Bloomberg Excavations, 2010-14. MOLA Monograph 72. London, 2016.
• Perring D. Roman London. London: Routledge.
• Wallace L. The Origin of Roman London. Cambridge University Press.
• Watson B. Roman London: Recent Archaeological Work. Journal of Roman Archaeology.
• Bateman N., Cowan C., Wroe-Brown R. London's Roman Amphitheatre. MOLA Monograph.
• Marsden P. Roman London. Thames and Hudson.
• Wikimedia Commons: 2016 Museum of London, scale model Londinium, c 100 AD.jpg; Fortunata's contract.jpg; Bronze sandal roman.jpg. - Wikimedia Commons: Map Londinium 400 AD-en.svg; Londinium Roman Wall; London (Londinium) - Billingsgate Roman Bathhouse; Roman amphitheatre on the Guildhall Yard; Archaeological finds at Temple of Mithras.