Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to lesson six of the Roman Britain unit.

In this lesson, we are going to be learning about how did the Romans change Britain? Let's have a look at the agenda now.

The first thing we're going to look at today is why did the Romans build roads? Secondly, we'll look at how did the Romans keep their towns and cities clean? And then lastly, we'll look at how did the Romans govern Britain? And when we say govern Britain, we mean how did the Romans control Britain? I'd like to take us back to the timeline.

So again, here is the timeline that we've looked at in previous lessons.

It shows us where the Roman Empire fits in history, compared to where we are approximately now, but we're going to zoom in again because this timeline actually shows us the approximate entire period of time that the Romans were in Britain.

So from the year that they invaded, can you remember what year they invaded? What's that 43 CE you say? Well done.

Absolutely right.

So it begins then the Roman Britain era, and it lasted to approximately 383 CE, when the Romans started to leave Britain.

And it's this entire Roman Britain period that we're looking at today because throughout that time, the Romans introduced humongous changes to our country, many of which we still see today.

So before we get started with the lesson, you will need the following things.

Exercise book or paper, a pencil or a pen, and, of course, our historian brains.

So pause the video now to get those things, and then when you're ready, we'll get started with the learning.

So let's have a look at now, why did the Romans build roads? And actually the Romans are very, very famous for building lots of roads across their entire Empire.

And before the Romans arrived, there were very few roads in Britain.

And the roads that did exist, were in very poor condition.

So the Romans built many, many roads across Britain so that they could move their troops, which is another way of saying, soldiers, quickly and easily across the country.

And if you look on the map on the screen, you can see lots of the different roads across Britain that the Romans built.

Many of those roads have obviously now been built over with new roads, and motorways across the country.

And one thing that the Romans did in particular, was that they try to construct or build their roads to be as straight as possible.

Why do you think that the Romans would want really straight roads? Just have a think yourself for a moment.

Well, the reason is, is that when you have a straight road, it is much easier to travel.

Easier and quicker 'cause if you have lots of winding roads, it slows you down, and makes your journey a little bit more difficult.

So the Romans built lots of roads so they could move troops quickly and easily, and they built straight roads to make their journeys as easily as possible.

Based on the information that we've just gone through, you're now going to complete the following task.

For each of these sentences, write down what the missing words are.

When you're ready, pause the video, and then resume once you're finished.

Okay.

How did you find that? We'll go through it together, and if you got them right, give yourself a little tick, if you got it wrong this time, just correct it and maybe write down the correct answer in a different coloured pen.

So sentence A, there were few something in Britain before the Romans arrived.

There were few roads in Britain before the Romans arrived, and that's a really key point because the introduction of roads is a very big change, even though, I know it's a boring old road, that actually is a big change, and it makes Britain a country that is far easier to travel around.

Sentence B, the Romans built roads so that they could move their troops more something, and something.

What did you get for that one? Hmm.

How would this help moving their troops? Let's have a look.

So they could move their troops more quickly and easily.

Quick and easy is what the Romans wanted, so that they could respond to maybe tribes who were revolting, and so they could just generally have an easier time moving about the country.

And then sentence C, the Romans tried to build something roads to make journeys faster.

Hmm.

What kind of road will make a journey faster? What's that you say? Absolutely right.

Straight roads.

The Romans tried to build nice straight roads to make journeys faster.

Let's move on now to the second part of the lesson.

In this second part of the lesson, we are going to look at how did the Romans keep their towns and cities clean? And this was important to the Romans.

They really liked to keep things clean, and so I just want you to put your historical thinking cap on now.

Imagine you're a Roman governor, and you're thinking, "Oh, how are we going to keep all our new lovely Roman towns clean?" What's something that's really important for those towns and cities to have to stay clean? Hmm.

Just think for yourself for a moment.

Hmm.

You might be thinking that one of the most important things for those towns and cities to be able to have is water, and you're absolutely right.

But the problem in Roman Britain, or before the Romans arrived, it was that it wasn't as if all these people in towns and cities and villages could just turn on a tap.

To have water, you had to live near a water source, and so the way in which the Romans ensured or made sure that their towns and cities had access to water was by constructing something called an aqueduct or aqueducts.

And there's a picture of an aqueduct here on the right side of your screen.

Now, these were large stone structures that supply towns with water from springs, rivers, and lakes.

And the way that they would work is that they're almost like a bridge.

So if you look at the top of that aqueduct, the water would flow or travel along there, to the town or city, so that people had a constant supply of water, which number one, keeps you hydrated, very important but number two, very important if you want to keep your town nice and clean.

So this was a big change for Britain.

They had not used aqueducts before, and the amazing thing about aqueducts is you can still see many of them across the world now, and if you think back to Lesson number one, one of the things that we looked at was an aqueduct that still exists that the Romans built in France.

Now, another way that the Romans tried to keep their towns nice and clean was by constructing underground drains.

So an underground drain, they were like the sewer systems, and these would be built in town, cities, and also forts, and they were used to take away dirty water and sewage so that the Romans and the people of Britain now, would have nice and clean towns because the sewage, and dirty water and things like that, they're flowing away from their settlements.

So the two key ways that the Romans kept their towns and cities clean, what? By building aqueducts that transport water into the towns, and also building the underground drains that would carry dirty water and sewage away from their towns.

Based on that information, you're now going to complete the following task.

Answer the following questions in full sentences.

And question number one is how did the Romans supply their towns with water? And question number two, how did the Romans keep their towns clean? When you're ready, pause the video to complete your task, and resume once you're finished.

And if you're wondering how to get started with your sentences, there are some sentence starters here that could help you out.

Okay.

Nicely done.

Let's go through those answers together now.

So question number one, how did the Romans supply their towns with water? Here's what I wrote, and if you wrote something similar, give yourself a big tick on your piece of paper.

So the Romans supplied their towns with water by building aqueducts, of course, to carry water from springs, rivers or lakes.

So, obviously, the key thing there is make sure you've got building aqueducts to carry water, but if you've added the fact that that water comes from springs, rivers or lakes, nice one.

Very happy history teacher right now.

Question number two.

How did the Romans keep their towns clean? Here's what I wrote.

The Romans kept their towns clean by building underground drains to take away dirty water and sewage.

And so those are two big changes that the Romans introduced to Britain that have helped keep towns and cities clean, ever since then.

Let's move on to the next part of the lesson.

In this final part of the lesson, we're going to look at how did the Romans govern Britain? And by that, we mean how did the Romans control Britain? This is really important because when the Romans arrived, not everyone in Britain was particularly happy that they were there.

So it was important for the Romans to be able to control the population so they wouldn't have too many rebellions, like Boudica's rebellion.

Let's have a look at some of those changes now.

So the first big change that the Romans introduced in order to control Britain was through taxes.

Taxes are a certain amount of money that you have to pay either an organisation or a person regularly.

So when the Romans first arrived, they didn't end up fighting with all of the tribes.

Some of the tribes took one look at the Romans and thought, " Whoa, have you heard about their tactics? Have you seen how well equipped they are? They just decided not to fight, and they surrendered.

What the Romans chose to do with many of those tribes that surrendered was that they allowed them, or they allowed their kings to stay in charge of their areas, but they had to pay taxes.

So they didn't fight them, that's avoided a nice conflict but they did have to pay this regular amount of money.

However, the Romans made them promise that once they died, the land that they owned, would become the property of the Romans.

Interesting approach, huh? Then next big change that the Romans introduced, was through the introduction of a position or a job called the Governors.

And you may remember, in our previous lesson we discussed a governor.

The governor's job was to oversee the Roman areas or Roman provinces of Britain, and they had a number of different responsibilities or things that they were in charge of.

Number one, they were in charge of the Roman military in their area but they also had other things like they would oversee the construction of roads, and they would work with the tribal kings to sort of keep them on side and also make sure that they were paying their taxes on time, and in the correct amount.

The third key thing or a third key change that was introduced to control Britain was through the town councils.

So town councils were created to sort of oversee and control things at a local town level.

And they had two key responsibilities.

They would collect the actual taxes, and then pass that money up to the governors, and also, they were put in place to try and help when people were arguing in the areas around their town.

So if people were arguing over whose land belong to who or who's resources belong to who, the town councils would help settle those disputes.

So the three key things taxes, governors, and town councils are all introduced to keep control of Britain.

Based on that information, we're going to complete the final task.

Answer the following questions in full sentences.

Question number one, why do you think a tribal King would promise to pay taxes and leave their land to the Romans? So remember, the tribal kings promised to pay taxes, and promised that when they died, they would leave their land to the Romans.

Why do you think they would do that? Question number two, why would the Romans let the tribal kings stay in charge in stead of fighting all of them to take their land? Hmm.

Tough questions that, but I'm very confident you're going to be able to do this.

So when you're ready, pause the video to complete your task, and resume once you're finished.

And if you're struggling to get started on this, don't worry.

I've put some sentence starters on the screen to help get you started with your answers.

Okay.

Let's go through those answers together now, and I appreciate, I understand those questions are quite tough, but I'm very confident, you are an excellent historian.

So question number one.

Why do you think a tribal King would promise to pay taxes and leave their land to the Romans? Here's what I came up with.

The tribal King promised to pay taxes because if they did not pay taxes, they would have to fight the Romans who had a superior army.

Okay? So my opinion is that they just didn't want to end up in a fight with the Romans because after having seen what happened to many other tribes, it almost seemed like certain death.

Okay? So give yourself a tick if you wrote something similar.

Maybe you've written something slightly different, as long as you can justify that with historical facts, then it could be right.

Number two, why would the Romans let the tribal kings stay in charge instead of fighting all of them to take their land? Here's what I came up with.

The Romans let the tribal kings stay in charge because they would get regular taxes and eventually receive the land when the Kings died.

So it's actually quite clever, but cruel of the Romans, they were getting regular money from those tribal kings, and they would get the land when the Kings died anyway, so it avoids getting into a conflict, they get lots of money, and eventually, they'll receive the land.

So again, well done if you've got something very similar.

I know that was quite a challenging task.

So good job, and well done for everything that you've learned.

That brings us to the end of this lesson.

Well done on all the fantastic learning once again, there are just two things that you need to do now.

Write down three key things that you'll remember from the lesson.

That's going to be really beneficial in helping solidify the knowledge in your brain, and then number two, complete the exit quiz.

Again, it's going to be really helpful in solidifying knowledge and you're going to be able to see all the amazing progress that you're making on Roman Britain.

Have a great day, and I look forward to teaching you again soon.