150
That some Britons managed to acquire these social competences is clear. The
epigrammatist Martial celebrated, much to his surprise, the Romanness of a
woman of British stock, one Claudia Rufi na, resident in Rome (Mart. Epig.
11.53). Binding the emergent oligarchy of the Empire together is but one
facet of this process. The development of the concept of ‘humanity’ cre-
ated not only cohesion, but also division. By defi ning what is human, you
by implication defi ne what is not human or is sub-human, and the twentieth
century was full of examples of the extremes of action that can follow from
such ideologies, legitimising violence on perceived inferiors. It is diffi cult to
know how divided Iron Age communities in southern Britain were before
the Caesarian and Claudian adventures, but by the mid Roman period the
distinctions within society had made the difference between honestiores and
humiliores, the crucial status indicator, rather than the award of citizenship. By
adopting the traits of humanitas the local aristocracy gained the moral title to
rule over their less educated subordinates (Woolf 1998: 74).
This reaffi rmed their right to rule in their own eyes and in the eyes of the
Governor. However, it is interesting that the locales for the display of this
social structure, the forum and other buildings, largely seem to have developed
within a framework making explicit reference to the past, legit im ating the
power of the aristocracy not just in terms of the new Roman hegemony,
but also in terms of ancestral rights. At Verulamium, the St Michael’s enclos-
ure looked up towards the Folly Lane temple/burial. At Calleva the forum
pointed towards another temenos enclosure, where a royal grave may lie next to
the largest Romano-Celtic temple in Britain. Venta Icenorum had a road cut-
ting across the street grid from the forum directly to an out-of-town temenos
with a massive monumental entrance, where another off-set temple lay. The
pattern becomes seductive, and in each case veneration can be seen continu-
ing into the third century. As we saw above (p. 45), the positions of governors
and kings were not too dissimilar to each other, and the claim to be descended
from a king, like descent from a former governor (and ex-consul), was some-
thing to be proud of. Collectively the forum and temenos gave architectural
form to the political structure, situating the community within its imperial and
historical setting.
What is peculiar is to fi nd this relative similarity of practice. In the Late
Iron Age the archaeological evidence reveals widespread differences between
East Anglia, the Thames valley and central-southern England; and yet here
we fi nd common strategies being employed across this area. Variability is
giving way to similarity, but how is this shared practice being forged? The
relationship between fora and signifi cant burials is certainly not a common
element in Roman towns, so this, per se, is not the source of the adoption of
this idea. Perhaps a solution can be found in the emergence of new institu-
tions in the early Roman period, which developed and enhanced a sense of
commonality amongst the aristocracy that may not have existed before in
southern Britain. Meetings such as the Provincial Council will have drawn
THE MEMORY OF KINGS