Lesson video

Hello, welcome to lesson four of Roman Britain.

Now we've been learning some really fascinating stuff so far.

We've looked at what was the Roman Empire? Who was Julius Caesar? And what was life like in Britain in 43 CE? Today, we are going to be learning all about how the Romans conquered Britain.

And by that we mean, how did the Romans take over Britain by force? Let's have a look at the agenda now.

The first thing we're going to look at in today's lesson is why did Claudius want to invade Britain? And we'll explore who Claudius is in a minute.

Secondly, we'll look at what were the differences between the Roman and Celtic armies? And lastly, we'll look at how did the Romans build new towns and cities? Now, as always, you will need three things for this lesson.

You will need an exercise book or paper, a pencil or a pen and of course, that historical brain of yours.

So, pause the video now to get those things and then resume once you're ready to get started learning.

We're now going to explore why did Claudius want to invade Britain.

And the first thing I'd like to do is take us back to our timeline.

So remember, this is where the Roman Empire fits into a superhuman history, and we can see whereabouts we are now compared to the Roman Empire, which each of those blocks representing 500 years.

What we're going to do now is magically zoom in on that timeline.

And now this doesn't show us the entire Roman period, but it shows us a specific part of the Roman period.

And so we can see that each of these blocks now represent 50 years.

And so we can see when Julius Caesar becomes dictator.

And now we can also see that approximately a hundred years later is when the Roman invasion of Britain begins.

Can you remember the specific year? That's right, it was 43 CE.

So, I know you've been wondering who is this guy, Claudius? Well, Claudius was the new emperor of Rome.

And an emperor is the title given to the person who is in charge and controls an empire.

So Claudius becomes emperor approximately 100 years after Julius Caesar had to become the dictator of Rome.

Now Claudius, like many of the Roman emperors, he wanted to expand the empire and he also wanted to prove himself as a leader.

And you may remember there had been several failed attempts at invading Britain in 55 BCE and 54 BCE.

So, Claudius is determined to take over Britain, grow the empire, and really prove that he is an exceptional or excellent emperor.

And so in 43 CE, Rome invades Britain again, except this time they aren't defeated.

In fact, they easily defeat the tribes that are in Britain and many of the other tribes quickly surrender because they know they are not able to defeat the Roman armies or the Roman legions.

A quick task for you now to complete based upon what we've just learned.

Answer the question below in full sentences.

And the question is, why do you think Claudius wanted to invade Britain in 43 CE? And when you're ready, pause the video to complete your task and then resume once you're finished.

And if you're struggling to get started on that, here's a little sentence starter you can use.

How did you find that? Not too bad I hope, I think Claudius's motivations or the reasons he wanted to try and invade Britain, they weren't too complicated.

Here's what I wrote.

Claudius wanted to try and invade Britain because he wanted to expand the Roman empire and prove he was a good leader.

So, if you've got something similar to that, and you've mentioned both points, great job.

If you've only mentioned one of those points, write down that other point now.

And remember also if you wrote he wanted to grow the Roman empire, that is another way of saying expand.

So, that's absolutely fine.

So, great job.

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

What we're going to explore now is what were the differences between the Roman and Celtic armies? And this is important because we now know the Romans invaded Britain and they easily defeated the Celtic armies or the Celtic tribes.

But as historians, it is really important we understand why they were easily defeated.

And to do that, we need to understand what are the differences between those two armies.

So, let's have a look at those now.

So, we'll start off by looking at the Roman Army, which is very famous throughout history for being very successful and influenced many other armies in the way that they did things.

So, the Roman Army, they were very well trained and they had excellent equipment.

So, they're very well equipped.

And actually, if you look at this little soldier underneath me here, that's where he is, that shows you how well equipped they were with their spear, their armour, a big shield, and also he's got a short sword as well there.

As well as that, the Roman Army was very well organised and they fought together using a lot of teamwork and tactics or special tactics.

And tactics is just another word for a way of doing things.

So, one tactic that the Roman Army used is that they would all get very close to one another and put their shields up, so that as they were approaching the enemy, it was as if they had one giant shield to protect them.

And this made the Roman Army, or what's another word for the Roman Army? The Roman Legion, absolutely right.

This made the Roman Legions super effective.

In contrast, the Celtic Army was very different.

They were very poorly equipped.

And in some cases, some of the Celtic soldiers would run into battle without wearing any clothes on at all and paint themselves blue.

They also had a very chaotic fighting style, and that means they didn't really use special tactics and they didn't really have much teamwork going on.

There was just a lot of bravery, but unfortunately for them, the Roman Army were very easily able to defeat them.

So, using that information we've just learnt about the big differences between the Romans and the Celtic armies, you need to complete the sentence below or the one that's on your screen.

So the sentence starts.

The Romans beat the Celtic armies because.

So, all you need to do is think about two or three key reasons why the Romans were able to beat the armies and just add that to the end of the sentence.

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

How did you find that? It's quite an interesting task, isn't it? Like looking at how different these two armies were, even though they were living in the same time.

So, here's what I wrote.

So, the Roman, the Romans beat the Celtic armies because they had much better training and equipment than the Celtic armies who were poorly equipped and used a chaotic fighting style, okay.

So, hopefully you've mentioned the training, that's definitely really important.

And hopefully again, you've also mentioned the fact that the Romans had much better equipment and even better as well, if you've spoken about the fact that the Celts had a chaotic fighting style.

If you have used the word tactics in there as well, then gold star, I'm a very proud teacher, excellent job.

Let's move on to the final part of our lesson.

So, at this point, the Romans have invaded Britain and they've defeated the Celtic armies with their highly effective army.

What we're going to look at now is, well, how did the Romans like truly conquer Britain and begin changing things? Because one reason we're studying Roman Britain is 'cause they changed Britain a lot.

And how we're going to do that in this final part of the lesson is by looking at how did the Romans build new towns and cities.

So, when the Romans first arrived, they began to build large towns and cities, just like those in Rome.

And we can still see evidence in many places across Britain today.

For example, this picture here shows us somewhere in a city called Bath, which is near where I'm from, in the Southwest of England.

And there are lots of Roman structures there still standing today.

Now the Romans building these large towns and cities was a very big change because before the Romans, most of the people living in Britain at that time lived in small villages.

So, to suddenly have big towns and cities, that is a very big change in history.

Now in those towns and cities, many Romans built themselves large houses, and these houses are called the villas.

And you may still hear that term today.

In the centre of those towns, there would be a large open square, and that was called the forum.

As well as the villas and the forum, they would also have lots of shops and they might also have several temples.

And the reason why they would have several temples is because for a very long time, the Romans worship not one God, but lots of different gods.

And then another thing that they might have in their towns is something called an amphitheatre.

And that is where the Romans would go, or the Romans and the people, other people living in those towns would go and watch dramatic performances.

So, the key things in those towns, just a reminder, the villas where the Romans lived, a forum, which was the large town square in the middle of those towns.

And then they would have shops, they might have temples, and they also might have an amphitheatre.

Now, we have a very fun creative task in the last part of this lesson.

What I would like you to do is draw your own plan of a Roman town and include the features below.

So, the features you need to include are, villas, a forum, city walls.

So city walls surround the town to protect people, shops, temples and an amphitheatre.

You might be thinking, how do I get started with this, Mr. Barber? Don't worry, I've got some top tips for getting started.

The first thing I would do, if I were you, is draw a large square that represents your city walls.

And then the second thing you should do is put right bang in the middle of your town, you're going to put the forum.

Can you remember what a forum is? Yeah, it's like the town square.

So, if you start off with that and then you can plan the rest of your town with the different pieces of the town from the checklist.

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

How did you find that? I bet you've done a super, super, super job, and I really wish I could see your drawings actually.

Let's have a look at the drawing I did.

I'll admit, I'm not the greatest artist, but I do love the Romans.

So, I gave it my best shot.

Here's what I came up with.

So, I had my amphi, sorry, my forum right in the middle of the town.

I've got several temples.

Can you remember why will I have several temples? That's right, because the Romans for a very long time worshipped many different gods.

I've got a nice row of shops at the top there, two very large villas and of course, the city walls surrounding the entire town to protect everybody.

So, your layout might look quite different to mine, but the key thing is having that forum right in the middle, surrounded by city walls and including all of those other features.

Once again, well done on all the fantastic learning that you've done today.

I really, really enjoyed that.

And I hope you did too.

There are just two things that you need to do now.

First of all, as usual, please write down three key things that you remember from today's lesson.

That's going to be really helpful in solidifying that knowledge for you.

And secondly, please complete the exit quiz after you finish that.

Again, that's going to be really helpful in maintaining your historical knowledge on Roman Britain.

Have a great day.

And I look forward to teaching you again very soon.