Elodie Harper

It all becomes very murky and messy, I think.

And the Romans' first push into Britain was not...

military, it was more via trade of trying to sort of soften up the native rulers and people by gifts and interchange and trade.

So the idea that they were wholly separate, I think, is not correct at this time period.

There would have been quite a lot of muddled communities going on at this point, if muddled up is not quite the right word that I was looking for.

But

Yeah, communities where the lines were perhaps less clear.

Having said that, I would say that Colchester, which was the most powerful colony or colonia in Roman Britain at this time, was symbolic of oppression and colonialism in the sense of this massive temple that had been built.

that was built by the local people, they were forced to pay for it.

And it was a massive, massive monument that would have dominated the landscape.

And yeah, it's not surprising that this is the target of Boudicca's rage.

It's what she destroyed.

It's the current foundations of Colchester Castle today.

is the foundations of that Roman temple, but she raised it to the ground because it was such a sort of powerful symbol of oppression.

So yeah, we don't know exactly where that line was between intermarriage, a mixed community versus a very imposed settler colonial rule on Britain at this time.

So it is thought that, and one of the things that's interesting, I mean, anybody who wants to sort of read more about the archaeology of this period, I really recommend Duncan Mackay's Echolands.

But

It's thought that the Romans didn't just destroy this centre that was built at the time of Prasatagus and Boudicca.

They essentially uprooted it.

They dismantled the foundations.