Invasions Of Caesar To Claudius

Question 1

What is the documentary evidence available for studying the conquests and invasions of Caesar Claudius?

Answer 1

The documentary evidence is quite rich not only do you have the accounts from tacitus’s agricola and animals but you also have contemporary letters of Cicero to Atticus and his brother-in-law he was campaigning with the emperor’s in Britain as well as the Imperial poets such as Horace which show the reception of the campaigns. You also have the commentaries of Caesar in his Gaelic Wars.

Question 2

What’s the problems associated with documentary evidence

Answer 2

All of the accounts of Roman written and produced quite some years after the events took place and this reduces its reliability. Only is Caesar’s accounts technically a first-hand account however like this and all the other sources problems over self-promotion and what was considered imperative to the modern day conceptions of history.
also since iron age Britain was very much that of an oral culture rather than arisen culture there is no other evidence to contend against the room and accounts. any type of ethernet graffiti therefore has the problems of misrepresentation either through not understanding the native culture or through a deliberate misrepresentation in order to show the iron age Britons as inferior to the Romans.

Question 3

Outline the uses and problems of a material reins as a source of the conquests and expeditions of Caesar and Claudius

Answer 3

Unfortunately there a little material remains surviving in Britain. However there is a substantial amount of material evidence that suggests the reception of the expeditions. These include triumphal arches, the res gestae and coinage.

Question 4

Outline the uses and problems of the approaches used to study the conquest of Britain

Answer 4

One approach is to use the narrative histories as a way of reconstructing the Invasion boots and nature of invasion. More of a critical approach however is to use a historical critical read as this usea wider sources of the socio-political context.
another approach is to consider the motives of the invasions for instance Peter Salway suggests that Claudius invaded Britain in order to emulate Caesar.
Another motive could see Britain in its strategic importance while it could also be considered a prize as well as considering the actual nature of imperialism and whether the conquest of Britain with it sat on the frontier of the Roman empire being the next logical step in territorial advancement.