Roman towns in Britain were characterized by ordered grid systems, stone buildings, public amenities like baths, and a central forum for administration and trade. Established as administrative hubs or colonia, they featured amenities such as temples, theaters, and, for the wealthy, homes with mosaics and underfloor hypocaust heating.
These towns were simple in design with a main street running through the centre, and shops, houses and public buildings built alongside. The houses of the Roman period were very different to the simple thatched roundhouses of the Iron Age.
The ideal Roman city plan was based on a regular grid of streets, dividing up square building plots or insulae. In the central insula was the forum, or market square – with a basilica, or great hall, running the length of one side of the square, and the council chamber and civic offices adjoining it.
The Romans eventually criss-crossed the landscape with roads, beside which many villages and towns developed. These often had rectangular houses and shops fronting onto the road. Travellers along the roads between towns would have seen clusters of traditional British roundhouses.
Colchester is Britain's first Roman city, with a 2000 year heritage. Pliny the Elder immortalised Camulodunum, Roman Colchester, as Britain's first recorded settlement and later Britain's first city and capital.
For almost 400 years, much of what is now Scotland was either inside the empire or an uncomfortably close neighbour. Roman armies campaigned as far north as the Moray Firth. The Roman fleet sailed around Scotland and reached Orkney.
Homosexual relationships the way we intend them today–between two free adults–were rarely allowed. Patriarchy was all the rage in the empire and Roman men, who were obsessed with their virility then as now, could have sex with other men only if they took the penetrative role.
The Roman perception of the Iron Age inhabitants of Britain was undoubtedly a negative one, more like wild beasts than people and in no way the equal of the louche, urbane men of the mother city. Of course, much of this was political propaganda.
Romans cleaned themselves after using the toilet with a tool called a tersorium or xylospongium—a sea sponge on a stick—which was rinsed in a channel of running water (often salty or vinegary) and reused by others in communal latrines, although some also used smooth pottery shards or their hands.
Through a process of detective work, historians and scientists at BritainsDNA have discovered a startling fact – around one million men in Britain can claim to be the direct descendants in the male line of the Roman legions.
A subligaculum was a kind of underwear worn by ancient Romans. It could come either in the form of a pair of shorts, or in the form of a simple loincloth wrapped around the lower body. It could be worn both by men and women.
Twelve was considered the marriageable age for Roman girls, hence as menarche usually occurred between thirteen and fourteen years of age some marriages, particularly in the upper classes who tended to marry earlier than Plebians, were prepubescent.
The word “latrine,” or latrina in Latin, was used to describe a private toilet in someone's home, usually constructed over a cesspit. Public toilets were called foricae.
Over the next 300 years, Britain remained a peaceful and successful province of the Roman Empire. New cities, roads, villas and baths were built. Many Celts became Roman citizens and spoke Latin.
Roman rule in Britain ended as Roman military forces withdrew to defend or seize the Western Roman Empire's continental core, leaving behind an autonomous post-Roman Britain. In 383, the usurper Magnus Maximus withdrew troops from northern and western Britain, probably leaving local warlords in charge.
Today we understand the importance of clean water and sanitation, but it was a new concept to Britain when the Romans arrived. Keeping towns and forts clean through drainage and access to fresh water was a feat of engineering. Aqueducts brought water in, and drains were built to keep the streets and houses clean.
The institution of marriage in ancient Rome was a strictly marital monogamy: under Roman law, a Roman citizen, whether male or female, could have only one spouse in marriage at a time but were allowed to divorce and remarry.
The most famous Roman emperor known for a male lover was Hadrian, who had a deep, passionate relationship with the beautiful Greek youth Antinous, even deifying him after his tragic death in the Nile; however, other emperors like Nero, who famously 'married' men, and possibly Galba, also had male partners, as same-sex relationships were common in Roman society, though defined differently than today.
What does the Bible say about homosexuality in Romans?
In the Epistle to the Romans 1:26–27 (ESV), Paul writes, "For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature". This is the only known specific reference in the Bible to female homosexuality.
However, despite several invasions, the Romans never managed to hold the land north of Hadrian's Wall for long. Trouble elsewhere in the empire, the unforgiving landscape and native resistance meant that Scotland was never brought fully under the administration of the Roman province of Britannia.
Yes, many Roman roads in the UK are still in use, forming the backbone of modern A-roads and B-roads like parts of the Fosse Way (A46/A429), Watling Street (A2/A5), and Ermine Street (A1), while other sections survive as footpaths, bridleways (like parts of Peddars Way), or visible alignments in the landscape. While the original paving is often gone, the strategic routes, known for their straightness, were built over or adapted, preserving their legacy in the current transport network and rural paths.
In rejecting authoritarian leadership, Jesus rejected Rome's politics: “You know that among the Gentiles (that is, the Romans) those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It must not be so among you” (Mark 10:42).
