Here is a quick timeline of some of the events that helped shape Roman Britain:
55 BC-Julius Caesar lands near Kent, meets furious resistance, and falls back across the Channel to Gaul.
54 BC-Julius Caesar returns with a much larger force, makes enemies and friends, wins several small engagements, declares himself a conqueror and sails south never to return.
51 BC-A third planned invasion by Caesar is cancelled due to an uprising in Gaul.
40 AD- an expedition under Caligula fails.
43- Britain is invaded under the orders of Emperor Claudius. An exiled tribal king named Atrebates had appealed to Claudius to restore him by force. The Romans invaded in late April with 4 legions- around 20,000 men.
47- by this point the Romans have have conquerored much of southern Britain. Their conquest extended from the Devon coast along a northeasternly angle to Lincolnshire. A road later called the Fosse Way would run roughly along the same line.
51- Romans capture Cataracus, a leader of the British resistance. He was deported to Rome to be executed, but gave a moving speech in the presence Emperor Claudius and was allowed to live (must have been quite a talker!).
60-a king of the Iceni tribe named Prasutagus willed some of his lands to the Romans upon his death in hopes of keeping peace. Instead, they took all of his land, horribly mistreated his widow Boudicca and his daughters, and created a rebellion within the population due to their outrageous cruelty. Boudicca quickly found herself at the head of an entire population of enraged Britons hungry for Roman blood. The Roman governor of Britain, Suetonius Paulinus, was away fighting up north in Wales, and when he returned the countryside was in an uproar. The cities of Camulodonum, Londinium, and Verulamium were burned to the ground and part of the Ninth legion was destroyed. Paulinus finally faced Boudicca's army somewhere in the Midlands, and defeated her. She poisoned herself after the battle. Around 80,000 men, women, and children on each side are killed during the course of the revolt. Paulinus thought only of revenge after this revolt, and began a campaign of further cruelty of the Britons, yet they refused to break. An extermination of an entire ancient race might have ensued but for a Roman procurator named Julius Classicianus (whose tombstone sits in the British Museum). He had the foresight to realize that Paulinus would soon be governing a desert island instead of a rich province, and persuaded Emperor Nero to send a new governor, who made somewhat of a peace with the tribemen and stopped the Roman massacre of Briton civilians.
78-Arigola arrived on the island and began campaigning to the north. He felt that lasting peace could not be attained until the fierce warlike tribes in the north were subdued.
83- Arigola won a decisive victory at Mons Graupius and resistence crumbled. He also established a fort in what is now Scotland. Failure to follow up on this campaign north left much of the British Isles outside of Roman control.
92-legions are pulled out of northern Scotland and sent to support Emperor Domitian's campaign in Moesia (modern day Serbia and Bulgaria).
97 through 115- Emperor Trajan greatly reduces the number of legions in southern Scotland and most of his forces become set in forts between Carlisle and Newcastle.
122-Hadrian becomes the first reigning Emperor to visit Britain since Claudius. He orders a 73 mile wall to be built which stretched nearly coast to coast in northern Britain. Though there were still some soldiers stationed to the north of the line, Hadrian's Wall was essentially the northern Roman border for years to come. It took about 6 years to complete. It worked as a defensive line, with forts being built into the wall down it's entire length, but also could have been used to control immigration, smuggling, and customs to a degree.
142-Emperor Antonius Pius advances north into Scotland and orders the construction of the Antonine Wall. Similar in function to Hadrian's Wall, lay about 100 miles to the north of it. It also stretched nearly coast to coast and was about 37 miles in length, stretching from Firth of Forth and Clyde.
With a few units once again being posted north of the wall, the Romans had once again established a presence in central Scotland. The Antoine Wall took about 12 years to complete.
161- around this year, Antonius Pius's successor Marcus Aurelius ordered the Antonine Wall to be abandoned, and all Roman forces in Britain and Scotland were pulled back behind Hadrian's Wall.
213- the Britain is split in two. They formed Brittania Superior (southern Britain and Wales), and Brittania Inferior (northern Britain)
312-the provinces continues to fracture, and by this point province has split into two once again.
367-uprisings by many tribes of the Picts, Scots, and even the Saxons from Europe wreaked havoc throughtout Britain
410-Roman occupation of Britain ends when Emperor Honorius recalls all legions to help defend Rome.
References:
"History of Britain & Ireland" by R.G. Grant, Ann Kay, Michael Kerrigan, and Philip Parker
"History of the English Speaking Peoples" by Winston Churchill
