Britannia

Over the past weeks, I have been glancing at 'Britannia', a history of Roman Britain by Sheppard Frere and cast out by Surrey Libraries. Not sure that I will ever read it all the way through, but it is good for dipping into between programmes on ITV3.

First, the Claudian invasion army consisted of four legions and around 40,000 men. A serious bit of logistics and a much bigger operation than the Norman invasion a thousand years later. Maybe four times as big. Maybe knocking over the Anglo-Saxon monarchy was a much simpler business than grappling with all the quarreling tribes and what have you of Roman times.

Then I have been interested by the various maps of coins, roads and forts - and surprised by how much we know about such things. And amused to see how little things have changed. First push was into the wealthy south east, with not all that much beyond the Fosse Way, running roughly north east from the Exe to the Humber. This was followed by pushes into Wales (culminating in a daring and bloody storming of Anglesey) and into Scotland. Deep thought about whether holding the Tyne-Solway line was a better bet than holding the rather shorter but rather norther Clyde-Firth line. And then pushing up the east coast to Inverness anyway, before eventually fading back to the Tyne-Solway line. Must have been tough chaps these Romans, marching up into the far north like that, into what was then the heart of darkness. But why on earth did they bother?

With one ambitious general suggesting at one point that with a couple of legions he could knock off Ireland. I think the emperor of that day didn't buy this one.

Which brings me back to the present, with the SNP looking likely to more or less sweep the board in Scotland. One result of which looks to be that we will expend vast amounts of treasure and senior management time in fussing about Scottish affairs - vast amounts which will probably be out of all proportion to any benefits on the ground, to the Scots or anyone else. And how long will the SNP get to run Scotland as a one-party state?

But I expect there will be some minor up sides for them. Sometimes small countries can do things which big countries find hard. So perhaps a more or less independent Scotland will get around to legalising assisted suicide years before we do. Or drugs. And perhaps we English will have the face saving excuse we need to dump our slightly independent deterrent.