Londinium and the Сultural Interaction in South-East Britain in the 1st-2nd centuries AD
The paper deals with Roman London in the 1st-2nd centuries AD. The author pays particular attention to some debatable issues in the existing reconstructions of the city’s development. Of these issues one is the issue on Londinium’s origin. In our opinion, the two main groups of theories - «military» (Londinium has emerged as a fort to defend the strategically important river crossing) and «merchant» (Londinium has been founded as a settlement of merchants who followed the Roman army conquering the south-east of the island) - do not contradict one another, for the first fortification constructions and shops could have appeared there simultaneously. Boudicca’s rebellion causing the destruction of Londinium itself and colonia Camulodunum, the first capital of Britannia, has played, paradoxically, the particular role in the city’s further development. The Roman administration (above all Julius Classicianus, the first post-Boudiccan procurator of Britannia) began the restoration of the province with the rebuilding of burnt Londinium; it was planned that this city should be its centre. Officials and military men were followed by merchants, craftsmen and adventurers from the continent; the new sense of urban identity - known from one recently founded inscription (RIB, III, 3014) - was established. The active migrations determined the multiethnic and multicultural nature of Londinium. The new Roman city due to its beneficial location and activity of provincial administration became the biggest and most important craft and trade centre on the island, the place where cultures and traditions from various parts of the Empire met and interacted. In contrast to other major cities in the south-east of the island, in Londinium the influence of aborigines was minimum, although there were natives of various regions of Britannia, with their habits, inside the city walls.