Monday, December 28, 2009

Londinium

One of the courses I'll be taking when I get to London is a British Seminar, which explores the basic historical, institutional, and modern issues of Great Britain. Required for this class is a (fortunately cheap!) textbook entitled London: A History. The reading is about as riveting as the title.

We're expected to read most of the book before we even get to London, so in order to make the process a little less painful and a little more interesting, I'm coupling reading the book with cross-referencing the history online and writing about it here. They say you learn better when you're teaching it to someone else, so I figure blogging about it should work just as well.

So far, I haven't gotten very deep into the book. From the first 30 pages or so, I've learned that London was originally named Londinium, when it was founded by the Romans around 43 AD. Originally England had been settled by the Celts, but it seems they were no match for the Roman armies.

Aulus Plautius (lovely name!) was the commander of Emperor Claudius' army at the time of the invasion. Strangely enough, he won by sending a detachment of German auxiliaries across the River Medway, who were -- get this -- specially trained to swim in full armor.Weird, huh?

At that time, the River Thames (not to be confused with the River Medway), was much shallower and wider than it is now. Eventually, however, a bridge was built across the Thames, and it became a natural point for commerce and trade, which flourished until about 200 AD.

Everything I've just said here in the 4 or 5 sentences took about 7 pages of small print to explain the textbook!

The next part gets a little more interesting. Apparently Queen Boudicca and her Iceni Tribe rebelled against the Roman Empire in 60 AD, outraged by their brutal treatment of her family. Noble as her effort was, the Queen's attack on Londinium wasn't much better than the acts she was revolting against in the first place. The Icenis and their allies, the Trinovantes, proceeded to massacre the inhabitants of Londinium and other surrounding settlements. Eventually, the Romans defeated Queen Boudicca, and to avoid capture, she committed suicide by poison.

...And that's about as far as I've gotten. I'll spare you the fascinating history the construction of streets and buildings for now, but I'll post more of my findings later once I've read a little further.

Travel preparations are well underway. Just need to figure out how to get phone service overseas and then book my fights. Otherwise, I have most of my other supplies, my travel backpack now, and plenty of reading to do over the next few weeks.

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