My most favorite ghost stories these days come from historian Robin Fleming’s new book, _The Material Fall of Roman Britain_. Nothing captures the immediacy of the disappeared Empire in the hinterlands of Rome’s remote northwest like it. Practically none of the evidence from this time comes from written documents, so Fleming utilizes archaeology to tell the story of the fate of the fall of Rome in Britain.
The picture Fleming uncovers shows a thriving elite class living in the 300s, whose wealth depended on their ability to control the labor of Britain’s poorer peasants.
Known as the “Venus mosiac”, this tiled floor from the Roman villa at Rudston in England’s north-east might look simple in execution. However, the pictures on it reflect the wide connections of Britain’s richest people (perhaps 15% of the total population). They depict the God Triton next to Venus, and types of animal fighters symbolized by the bull and ox goad that normally appear in North Africa. Rudston’s villa had other hallmarks suggesting its owner was familiar with the Roman entertainments from that far-away region.
The broad boundaries of the Roman Empire, the flashy villas with baths and entertainment rooms, the expensive artwork would have served as a consistent reminder to the fourth-century masses of peasants as to which people were the Most Important. As one Roman of the time put it, “the houses of the powerful were stuffed [with gold] and their splendor enhanced to the destruction of the poor”.
All this power would vanish away in the decades on either side of the 400 CE collapse.
Source(s): Robin Fleming, _The Material Fall of Roman Britain_, 2021 UPenn Press, pp. 16 (quoting _De rebus bellicis_), 30-32. Image from wikipedia.
