Kids Rule! TV | Episode 2: The Romans

Explore Roman Britain with Kids Rule TV, learning about Roman history, Hadrian's Wall, and life for children in the Roman Empire.

Key Takeaways

The Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43 significantly shaped British history and culture.
Hadrian's Wall was a major defensive structure built to separate Roman Britain from northern tribes.
Roman infrastructure like roads and towns laid foundations for modern Britain.
Life in Roman Britain varied greatly depending on social status, especially for children.
Roman emperors Claudius and Hadrian played crucial roles in the conquest and consolidation of Britain.

What the video covers

Introduction to Roman Britain and its impact on English history.
Overview of the Roman invasion in AD 43, including army size and key emperors like Claudius and Hadrian.
Discussion of Roman infrastructure including towns, roads, forts, and Hadrian's Wall.
Insights from curator Francis McIntosh about Roman Britain and life during that era.
Details on the Roman army composition and their journey to Britain.
Explanation of the resistance from British tribes and the use of elephants in battle.
Background on Emperor Claudius and his unexpected rise to power.
Information about Emperor Hadrian’s focus on consolidating the empire and building Hadrian's Wall.
Exploration of daily life for children in Roman Britain and social differences.
Creative activities including making a Roman mosaic and cooking a Roman burger.

Chapters

How large was the Roman army that invaded Britain?

The Roman army consisted of about 40,000 men, including four legions of 5,000 men each and auxiliary troops such as cavalry and infantry.

Why was Hadrian's Wall built?

Hadrian's Wall was built on orders from Emperor Hadrian in 122 AD to separate Roman Britain from the northern tribes and to consolidate the empire's borders.

What role did Emperor Claudius play in the Roman invasion of Britain?

Emperor Claudius ordered the invasion in AD 43 to gain military victory and support as emperor; his decision led to Britain becoming part of the Roman Empire until 410 AD.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

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[Music] Hello and welcome to Kids Rule TV, brought to you by English Heritage. I'm Esme, and I'll be your guide as we time travel through English history. We'll be joined along the way by some fascinating historians and a few other helpers, so if

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you've ever wondered who built Stonehenge or how the Romans changed British history forever, then you've come to the right place. Coming up in today's show, we're journeying back 2,000 years into the world of Roman Britain. We'll discover

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how the Romans shaped our way of life today, including giving us fast food and a wall 73 miles long. Joining us is curator Francis McIntosh, who will be sharing what life was like for children living in the Roman Empire.

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And we'll be sampling a Roman burger and showing you how to make a stunning Roman mosaic at home. There's a lot to cover, so let's dive into this week's show. Our journey begins back in AD 43, at a time when British history changed

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forever. The Romans described Britain as a mysterious place inhabited by tribes of Britons and Celts. They were attracted to Britain's precious natural resources such as tin, gold, and iron. And Roman emperors such as Caesar and Claudius wandered the glory

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of conquering Britain and adding it to their great empire. Everything changed when the Roman army sailed over to Britain in wooden boats from Bologna in France to the Kent coast. They first conquered the southeast of England before expanding west and north.

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But the Romans didn't just fight, they also built. As their territory grew, they expanded existing settlements into larger towns like London and Colchester. They built stone forts, grand houses, and of course roads. In fact, they built 10,000 miles of them, which if laid end to

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end would get you from London to Sydney in Australia. They also brought with them great wealth, exotic foods, and a new language called Latin. Emperor Claudius hoped his army would conquer the whole of Britain, but many tribes were unhappy about the

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Romans invading their land, especially those to the north. So in 122 AD, Emperor Hadrian ordered a great wall to be built to separate Roman Britain from the land inhabited by tribes further north. Let's find out more about life at the

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time, and I know just the expert who can help us. Hi Francis.

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Hi there, a warm welcome to our Roman episode. Can you tell everyone a bit about what you do at English Heritage?

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Yeah, absolutely. I'm a collections curator. That means I look after the objects from the sites that are in my patch, and I cover an area including Hadrian's Wall and then northeast, so quite a big area. And I put together exhibitions, help researchers look at our collections, and care for the

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objects alongside our conservators so that we can use them to tell people's stories about our sites and the people who lived here. And I'm really lucky because no day is the same. One week I'll be up a ladder cleaning bat poo from a

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19th-century organ at Brinkmann Priory, the next I might be planning an exhibition house is full, and then the next day I might be recording a program like this.

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Wow, it sounds like such an interesting job, maybe not the bat poo though. I'm curious to find out more about the Roman arrival in Britain nearly 2,000 years ago. How big was the Roman army?

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So the Roman army that came over consisted of about 40,000 men, and that was put into two types of

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soldiers. There was the Roman general, a long time he was out as Plotius. He was in charge, and he had this invasion force. And there were four Roman legions, which are five thousand men in each, that's 20,

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000 soldiers. And then the other half were multi-purpose auxiliary troops, which would include cavalry as well as infantry, you know, men on foot. And so that gives that total of 40,000 men.

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Wow, so it was quite the mission then. We think with all the men, the animals that came with it, and the supplies that the Roman navy probably needed between seven hundred and a thousand transport ships just to get them across the channel. And were the Romans welcomed with open arms

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by people living in Britain at the time?

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Uh, no, exactly. And I think we probably can guess that by the fact they had to take 40,000 soldiers with them. And Britain at the time was ruled in different areas by different tribes. It's

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not one big kind of organization, and some tribes did submit. One tribe is the Dobunni, who were based around Gloucestershire, but a lot of the tribes really did put up a fight against the Romans. Now I've

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heard that the Romans brought elephants with them. Is this true?

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Well, if we believe Cassius Dio, it is true. Cassius Dio says that once the battle at Colchester was almost won, Claudius was summoned by his general Alice Clodius, and he came with his

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elephants and his bodyguards to kind of oversee the final defeat. Sort of really had a big impact, I think, on the Britons. You would never have seen something like that before.

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Absolutely. And who were the key players in the

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invasion? We've had a bit about Emperor Claudius. Who was he and why was he important?

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So Claudius, or if you want to give him his full name, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, he was an emperor and who was never expected to be

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an emperor. He came into power in 41 AD after his nephew Gaius, who tends to be known mostly as Caligula, was murdered. When Caligula was murdered, Claudius was the only adult male of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, that wider family he

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was part of, who was left alive. And the bodyguard of the emperor, the praetorian guard, proclaimed an emperor. Now he'd never been expected to be emperor because his family thought his disabilities, which included being slightly deaf and having a limp, made him

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unsuitable for public life. So it was quite a big ask for him to become emperor, and although his bodyguards supported him, he needed the wider support of the Senate, the governing body of Rome, and the army. And a really good

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way to do that was to have a military victory, and he chose Britain. He only stayed as an emperor until 54 AD when he died, but Britain remained part of the Roman Empire until 410 AD. So that decision that he made

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to invade us in 43 had a really long-lasting effect.

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Wow, the other important emperor that people at home will surely have heard of is Hadrian, who famously ordered his army to build a wall named after him. What can you tell us about him?

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So Hadrian, also another big long name, he's called Publius Aelius Hadrianus, and he was born in Rome, and we know his actual birthday on the 24th of January AD 76. Hadrian is known as a consolidated emperor, so he stopped invading new

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places like all the emperors had before him, and he focused on sorting out the borders of the current empire, so consolidating it, making it safer, and drawing the lines. Hadrian is also a really big fan of Greek culture, and one

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aspect of this kind of culture was having beards. So if you look at coins and statues of emperors before Hadrian, they're almost all clean-shaven, no facial hair, but Hadrian brings the beard in, and that follows after him. Thanks for

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that roundup, Francis. So what can you tell us about Hadrian's Wall? I heard it only took six years to build the wall all by hand.

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Yeah, that's right, and it's really quite an undertaking. So I would say only six years. It took around

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fifteen thousand men that six years, but it's 73 miles. It's got 80 mile castles, and it's got 160 turrets, so absolutely phenomenal undertaking for these men to construct it in that short period of time. And I've got another fun

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fact for you. A cavalry regiment who we know was stationed upon the wall, they're known as an Ala, and that's 500 men with 500 horses. They would produce six and a half thousand sons of horseman a year,

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which is the same weight as 800 elephants. Well, for lots of poo. I'm also interested to know more about what life was like for children in Roman Britain. Can you tell us more?

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Yeah, absolutely. It really depended on whether you were rich or

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poor, and life was very different for the two children. So if you were poor, you probably wouldn't be taught to read or write. You definitely would

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that the soldiers or Robbers game and we don't know exactly the rules but it's something to do with having to steal your players pieces by and move games that we know children definitely play even so don't doesn't play

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um board games is um maybe games with a dice so I bought a dice along as well which is made of bone here and you can see it's got the numbers marked out by circles it doesn't say one it's got one Circle I've got

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three circles they'd also played things such as knuckle bones they're the knuckles in our fingers the children would have played with bones maybe from sheep or goat and you throw them up in the air and have to catch

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them either in a cup so I've brought a little cup along here again this is bone so you maybe shake your knuckle bones around throw them off and try and catch mad in the cup or in your hand or guess

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which way up they went so lots of different games some of which we kind of recognize now and they're similar amazing now I've had the Romans were also big on hygiene and they love to bathe didn't they yeah absolutely and we

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can see um kind of the Roman bats in our modern Stars if you go to a modern Spa today they've got plunge pools steam rooms saunas cold rooms that's all based on the Roman designs and we're really lucky

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at English Heritage because we look after some sites I've got just some wonderful Roman baths preserves so at rocksitter which was a town first built in ad90 and claimed to fame fourth largest city in Rome of Britain and

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there you can go and see the remains of the bath house so you can see all the different rooms and how they were used and at Chester's fort on Hayden's wall the walls of the bath house stand above

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head height and you can see how the air was used to heat both under the floor and along the walls and the ceilings and they're really amazing survivals I'm curious to find out what life is like for children in rocksetter so let's meet

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veracovo and Claudius and follow their day at a Roman bath house foreign [Music] after a week working on his family's Farm varicovo is visiting his cousin Claudius in one of Britain's biggest cities variconium conoverum which we now call roxator

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[Music] the bath house is a huge building the men and women bathed at different times so viracovo and Claudius arrive with their Dads as their mums are leaving foreign [Music] the Romans take bathing very seriously it doesn't matter if you're rich or poor

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everyone gets to go to the baths changing and bathing next to each other [Music] [Music] before they get clean Claudia suggests they go to The Basilica a large Hall where they can run try ball games and weightlifting but the boys aside to

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wrestle instead [Music] the boys head to the hot room the heat is created by a fire below the floor and they have to wear wooden shoes to stop their feet from burning foreign [Music] ERS at the Roman army are visiting from

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Chester viricovo hasn't met a legionary before and asks him about Army life [Music] [Music] in the first of the hot pools slaves clean the boys by covering them in oil and scraping it off again [Music] once they're clean it's time to finish

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off with a quick dip in the cold pool it's a bit of a shock for viracova though [Music] [Music] after changing the boys meet their parents for some dinner the shops nearby sell hot foods such as soup and meat and

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sweet pastries for dessert [Music] well that looks like a very nice way to spend a day now we saw in a video that viracovo and Claudius went to a street Cellar to get their food was this very common

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yeah more common than you might think because actually many of the houses particularly those for the poorer people would be very small in the Big Towns they might be flats and there wouldn't be any cooking facilities because having

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a fire in those closely spaced houses that were probably made of wood would be really dangerous so a lot of houses wouldn't have the facilities to cook so they would go and buy food you know the equivalent of a fast food vendor

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so what sort of foods did the Romans bring to Britain now you might think well Italy let's have a thing pizza and pasta but unfortunately um it's not true Tomatoes really key for particularly pizzas didn't come over to

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Europe until much later they they originate in the Americas and there was also no ice cream that's a much later invention too so some of the the real standard Italian food did not come over with the Romans to Britain but they did

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bring quite a lot of food and some of them were quite healthy they introduced lots of fruits and vegetables say pears and figs cucumbers and carrots and also the trade links that the Empire brought introduced and allowed um more exotic things to be brought into

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Britain and there's black pepper mint mustard and then three real Staples of the Roman Empire's diet were olive oil which mostly came from Spain and North Africa wine the Romans um were not impressed with the British drinking beer

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and they wanted their wine and also garum which is g-a-r-u-m and that was a fish sauce and you might think oh not too bad we have fish sauce today and say stir fries but their fish sauce is made

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from rotting fish guts so not really something I'd like to try not so sure about that one so was the diet of the Native britons quite basic then before the Roman Invasion no not necessarily just different and you know even before

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the Romans arrived in Britain some of the British people would have had access to olive oil and wine because there were a few trade links but Everyone likes their home Comforts and the Romans when they moved over here wanted to bring

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things that they knew and liked but there would actually have been quite a lot of similarity in the diet of the Iron Age people or the British Celtic people here and many of the Romans it's only going to have been the really rich

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who would have had access to such exotic foods you know for most of the poorer Romans and the native britons their diet would have been really simple and wouldn't have been much different before 43 or after 43 there would have

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been lots of things such as cereals and which is not breakfast cereals that we have but the wheat or the barley and they're doing peas and beans and then if you're lucky you'd have a little bit of meat but quite simple really

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well thank you Francis it's been so interesting chatting to you bye for now goodbye [Music] all of this talk of food is making me hungry let me see if I can find a tasty Roman recipe here we go the Roman Burger

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if you want to try this recipe at home you'll need 500 grams of minced meat 60 grams of pine nuts three teaspoons of garum a salty fish sauce or you can use regular salt if preferred ground pepper a handful of coriander and

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juniper berries which are optional and just like that here it is I've got a veggie version which you can create at home too using plant-based mints and vegetarian fish sauce right I'm gonna Dive In did you know that it took 15 000 men to

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build Hadrian's Wall we sent two English Heritage members to halstead's Roman Fort to find out what life was like for a Roman legionary let's take a look hi I'm Peter and I'm Amy we're here at harsted's Roman fort in Northumberland

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to meet Marcus the legionary we've got lots of questions about what life would have been like on TJ's wall hello solveig I am a Roman legionary part of the Legion which built the fort at halsteads what is illusionary a legionry has to be

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a citizen of Rome there are over 30 Legions in the Roman army each one has five thousand men where did the soldiers live each group of eight soldiers would have two rooms one room you keep all your kit and you have a little stove

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that you can cook all your food with the other room you're sleeping what did the soldiers wear you start off with the tunic it looks like a big skirt you also get a cloak you've got leather sandals called Cali guy you're also

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wearing socks because it's cold you got a helmet called a Galia that's lined with sheep's wool you have armor you have a leather belt you have a sword and a knife and a spear and a shield called the scutum What food did the

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soldiers eat the soldiers were allowed one pound of meat which was usually pork Army bread or they may have biscuits now this is not a biscuit like you would eat this is just flour water and salt and it's absolutely rock hard you'd cook

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with a sauce called liquid made out of fermented fish guts where would Roman soldiers go for the toilet there's a special toilet in each foot there's one here in Houston's Fort there would be benches with holes in it

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and underneath the benches there would be water flowing and what you do when you're finished you wipe your bum with one of these and then you put it back in the bucket for the next person to use did they ever have doctors or nurses at

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Halstead well there is a hospital here and the treatment they had was very very good what language would the people speak they would have to learn Latin because that was the the language the Army spoke the soldiers would speak all

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kinds of languages because they would have come from all kinds of places all over the Roman Empire [Music] now it's that time of the show and we Flex our creative muscles this week we're sharing our guide to creating a

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Roman Mosaic you can use paper colored cardboard marbles or even old dried beans are you ready let's get creative foreign [Music] people decorated their homes with fantastic images they would paint murals on their plaster walls and cover the floors with mosaics

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mosaics were pictures made up of tiny colored stones and stuck to the floor with mortar which is a kind of cement they created geometric patterns scenes from everyday life all the stories of gods and goddesses as they were made from Stone they've

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lasted a very long time you can go to see them all over England there are lots of ways you can create mosaics at home you can cut small squares from colored paper and stick them down with glue it helps to draw a pencil guideline

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first if all that cutting seems like hard work you can use a stamp to make the squares but if you want to get messy you can use air drying clay fill the lid of an ice cream tub with

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clay and press things into it to create your design you can use lentils and beans beads and sequins shells and Pebbles anything you like now that you know how to make mosaics why not have a go yourself how cool was that I had no idea that a

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handful of dried beans could look so beautiful so here's my attempt how did you guys get on at home as always we'd love to see your Creations so if you've had a go at cooking a Roman Burger or been inspired by our

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historical crafts then do share them with us here at kids at English hyphenheritage.org dot UK and that brings us to the end of our show I hope you've enjoyed watching and feel inspired to get out and explore all the

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amazing historic Roman places that English Heritage cares for don't forget to subscribe and for more activities and fascinating history facts make sure to visit the kids rule website bye for now [Music] thank you [Music]

Topics:Roman BritainHadrian's WallRoman EmpireEnglish HeritageRoman historyClaudiusHadrianRoman armyRoman cultureKids Rule TV

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