Note 97 — Chapter V

To all appearance the political relations between Rome and Britain in the time before the conquest are to be regarded essentially as arising out of the restoration and guarantee (B. G. v. 22) of the principality of the Trinovantes by Caesar. That king Dubnovellaunus, who along with another quite unknown Britannic prince sought protection with Augustus, ruled chiefly in Essex, is shown by his coins (my Mon. Ancyr. 2d ed., p. 138 f.). We have to seek also mainly there the Britannic princes who sent to Augustus and recognised his supremacy (for such apparently we must take to be the meaning of Strabo, iv. 5, 3, p. 200; comp. Tacitus, Ann. ii. 24). Cunobelinus, according to the coins the son of king Tasciovanus, of whom history is silent, dying as it would seem in advanced years between 40 and 43, and thus contemporary in his government with the later years of Augustus and with Tiberius and Gaius, resided in Camalodunum (Dio, lx. 21); around him and his sons the preliminary history of the invasion turns. To what quarter Bericus, who came to Claudius (Dio, lx. 19), belonged we do not know, and other British dynasts may have followed the example of those of Colchester; but these stand at the head.