I.

Introduction

Roman Britain, Britain under Roman rule, from around the time that the native Celts were finally subjugated by the mid-1st century ad to the early 5th century, when the Roman Empire had begun to break up, and Britain was no longer a part of the empire. The Roman conquest brought a profound change to daily life in Britain, in terms both of culture and of material goods: contact with the Roman world brought to Iron Age Britain the concept of the city and of citizenship, the villa system of farming, an extensive trade network reaching as far as the Mediterranean, a new pantheon of deities, the Latin language, and an introduction to Classical literature (see Latin Literature).