The Romans & their Influence

The so-called Pomona or Flor Minor - Roman, second half of 2nd Century CE/AD (100s, ∴~150-200 CE/AD).  

Credit: Wikimedia: Dave & Margie Hill / Kleerup

The Roman Conquest of England and Campaign Against the Celtic Druids in Britain

Although Rome never conquered Ireland, they built forts along Britannia’s (say it: bri-TAN-ee-uh; Roman name for England) western coast to defend against attacks from the Goidelic Celts (say it: GOY-del-ick; early Irish-speaking Celts).

Possible Roman trips into Ireland may have started around 60 CE/AD. At that time, the Romans conquered the Welsh island of Mona (now called Anglesey) according to Roman historian Tacitus in his Annals 14.29–3. 

The mission to totally destroy the Celts and their warrior-priest Druid rulers was led by Roman general and governor of Britannia, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus. He took 20,000 legionnaires (Roman soldiers).  The Druids and local warriors lined the shores with burning torches and chanted curses at the Romans. Roman soldiers were terrified at first but forced their way across the water.  Historians estimate there were between a few hundred and few thousand Druids exterminated at Mona, and rumors echoed throughout ancient Rome that the Roman legionnaires had completely exterminated the Celts in England there.  

The Roman soldiers stormed the sacred island of Mona, cutting down the chanting Druids where they stood, hacking them to pieces with swords and spears, trampling over shrieking Druid priestesses covered in black ash, and burning the sacred oak groves to ash while the air filled with the screams of the dying and the sickening stench of blood and burning flesh.  Any survivors fled to Ireland, or Hibernia, where the Celtic people and their Druidic religion survived.   

But before the subjugation of the Brittonic Celts in England was complete on Mona, Roman General and Governor of Britannia Gaius Suetonius Paulinus had to return to stop the rebellion of Queen Boudica (say it: BOO-dih-kuh), queen of the Brythonic (say it: bri-THON-ick, also referred to as Brittonic [say it: BRIT-ton-ik] Celts) Celtic Iceni in southeast England.  

ASIDE:  The Bryonthic or Brittonic Celts refers to the Celtic tribes south of Scotland.  The Goidelic Celts then refers to Irish Celts, Gaelic Celts then refers to Scottish Celts, and Bryonthic/Brittonic Celts refers to Celts in England (made up of the Britons, the Cornovii, Silures, Ordovices, Iceni, Dumnonii, and Brigantes).  After the Romans left the British Isles, the Cornish (from Cornwall) and Welsh (from Wales) people emerged from the former Celtic tribal groups after Roman destruction in the English highlands.   

Suetonius’s contemporary, Pomponius Mela of Baetica (southern Spain, Andalusia), wrote about the Irish (called Hibernia by Tacitus). He said they were “a people wanting in every virtue, and totally destitute (without, lacking) of piety (being very religious and respectful to your faith),” and their land was so rich in grasses that if cattle “fed too long, they would burst.” This shows both the harsh words used to dehumanize people and the strong wish to conquer their rich lands.

Romans called the British Isles the Tin Islands before conquering Britannia. They wanted these lands for tin and good grazing land, and they were definitely eyeing Ireland for conquest before the Germanic Ostrogoths and Visigoths — pushed into the Roman Empire increasingly by Atilla the Hun (skilled horse raiders from Asia) — tribes began harassing Rome while the Gauls (continental Celts) continued uprising against the Empire, causing the Romans to withdraw.   

The next Roman governor of Britannia, Agricola, is believed to have had Túathal Techtmar (say it: TOO-uh-hal TEKH-tur-mar), the son of a deposed high Irish king, in his group. Túathal tried to return to Ireland to reclaim his throne. However, there are no official records of a Roman invasion of Ireland, even though Agricola wanted to do so.

Evidence suggests a Roman trading post was set up at Drumanagh, Ireland, around 80 CE. They also set up coastal garrisons (small military camps) against Goidelic (Irish) Celtic raids, using a watchtower south of Anglesey on the Llyn Peninsula.

By 150 CE, when Claudius Ptolemy made the first map of Ireland, he included several Roman settlements. These included royal sites like Emain Macha (say it: EH-vin MAH-ha; now Navan Fort) in County Armagh.

There is clear evidence of Roman-allied groups, like the Brigantes (one of the Bryonthic Celtic tribes), settling in Ireland. 

The Brittonic (Brythonic) Celtic Ogham (say it: AW-m; an early Irish alphabet) writing system is believed to have come from the Roman language in England (Latin). This happened through contact and intermarriage with Romanized Britonnic Celts, as well as through trade with Goidelic Celts.  In fact, several Ogham stones in Wales are bilingual. They show both Old Irish Goidelic and Brythonic (ancestor of Welsh) alongside Latin.

The Romans never conquered Hibernia (say it: hi-BER-nee-uh; “land of winter”), though they wanted to. Agricola called it a “refuge for fugitives” and saw it as the last stronghold of Celtic Druidism in the British Isles.

After Tiberius and Claudius pushed Celtic Druids out of mainland Europe (the Gauls to the Romans whose lands were alternately called Gaul and land or people referred to as Gallia), many fled to Mona. Romans across the empire started converting to Druidism. Emperor Augustus (Caesar Augustus Octavian) banned conversion under penalty of death. Tiberius forced the Druids out of Gaul (mainland France) who fled to England, and Claudius destroyed the last Druid centers in Gaul there.

Claudius even executed a Roman knight for wearing an Adder’s Stone or Druid’s Egg necklace (a special charm — see Crom's Persecution👈 to learn more) to win a civil lawsuit.

By the time the Romans left the British Isles in 410 CE, there had been nearly a century of growing Roman Catholic Christianity, intermarriage, and trade. 

Five years later, in 415 CE, the Roman slave Saint Patrick came to Ireland. At this time, Celtic Samhain and Roman Pomonalia began to mix with Roman Catholic Christianity.

Celtic Druidic Survival in Ireland & Continued Persecution by Roman Catholic Saint Patrick's Mission

The Gallic Druids defeated by Emperors Tiberius and Claudius in Gaul fled to the Welsh island of Mona (say it: MOH-nuh; now called Anglesey). There, they were finally massacred by Suetonius Paulinus around 60–61 CE. He attacked with 20,000 legionnaires (Roman soldiers).  Because the keepers of their traditions were mostly killed, the Celtic Druid religion weakened throughout the British Isles. But it survived in Ireland, where some Druids escaped after Suetonius Paulinus’s campaign.

After Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, he ordered that Christians be tolerated and that persecutions (mistreatment) of Christians end in 313 CE. This was influenced by his mother’s conversion and his vision of the Christian Chi-Rho (a special Christian symbol) at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge.  His Christian successor, Emperor Theodosius I — the last emperor of a united Roman Empire before it was split into Latin-speaking Roman Catholic West and Greek-speaking Greek Orthodox East (Byzantium) — made Christianity the official religion of Rome in 380 CE.  And now that Christianity would be the official religion of Rome, the Christians — now Roman Catholic — would continue the persecution of the Celts and their Druid religion.  

Theodosius and later Roman Catholic emperors ordered Druidism wiped out from both Britannia and Gaul over the next three centuries, replacing it with Roman Catholicism. At that time, Christians still probably made up less than 20% of the Roman Empire.  After 410 CE, when Roman legions left the British Isles to protect Rome after Alaric the Visigoth sacked it, Roman Catholic missionaries like the Roman slave Saint Patrick and his followers continued the mission to spread Christianity.

The missionaries told the Irish Druidic people that their Aos sí (say it: EES shee; old pagan gods and spirit folk) had been exiled or had died after Christ rose again and conquered hell. Church leaders said that fire, candle, nut, and apple charms worked only because of “black magic,” further mixing up Crom’s old Celtic cult with devil worship or Baal worship.

Early Christians considered the Canaanite god Baal (say it: BAY-ul), mentioned many times in the Bible, as just another name for the devil. Baal was a major fertility and storm god in the Canaanite religion and was often seen as a rival to the Hebrew God. Baal was the son of El (say it: ELL), the high sky god and creator in the Canaanite pantheon (group of all the gods worshipped in a polytheistic [belief in more than one god] religion). Both father and son were symbolized by the bull.

Some later scholars falsely tried to connect Baal to the Gallic Celtic fire and solar god Belenos (say it: BEL-eh-nos) through mistaken linguistic links, but early Christians did not make this direct connection.  By so doing, it gave rise to the false belief that the Celtic Druidic god Crom or Belenos was proof of Celtic devil-worship, a tradition strongly believed by Saint Patrick's mission against the Celts in Ireland.   

An 18th Century engraving depicts Julius Caesar's First Century BCE (56-50 BCE) claim that Celts burned prisoners of war in wicker figures—the wicker man of 1973's Wicker Man film or its 2006 reboot and popular art culture festival Burning Man infamy.

An image from a set of 8 extra-illustrated volumes of A Tour in Wales by Thomas Pennant (1726-1798) that chronicle the three journeys he made through Wales between 1773 and 1776. These volumes are unique because they were compiled for Pennant's own library at Downing. This edition was produced in 1781.The volumes include a number of original drawings by Moses Griffiths, Ingleby and other well known artists of the period. Author: Thomas Pennant (1726-1798)  Credit: Wikimedia: Beyond My Ken

Credit: Wikimedia: 1876 Henryk Siemiradzki- Nero's Torches 

In AD 64, rumors circulated that Nero had started the Great Fire of Rome.  Roman historian Tacitus recorded that Nero, instead, blamed the Christians, accusing them of arson.  He executed them by condemning them to the beasts (lions, tigers, bears, leopards, boars) in the Coliseum (the place gladiator competitions happened in Rome), crucifying them, by covering them in the carcasses of wild animal skins and having them torn to death by wild dogs, and by being dipped in tar and set on fire to light his feasts.  This is according to Tacitus, a Roman source describing Roman practices.  ASIDE:  It's long been suggested Nero set the fire himself to blame it on Christians (“As Rome burned, Nero fiddled"), but he was not in Rome when it burned.  However, he definitely used the Great Fire of Rome as pretext to round up all of Rome's Christians and he did convict them of the crime of arson for setting the fire, dipped them in fire, and held a great feast using them to light it.