Battle of Medway

Battle of The Medway is a major historic battle that took place in River Medway between the Romans and the British. The battle constitutes the major invasion of the Romans of the British Territory century after Julius Caesar’s Invasion. Battle of Medway solidified the Sovereignty of Romans over the Britons for the years to come and the establishment of Roman rule over the territory until the collapse of the Roman Empire 

Pre-Engagement

Around the fall of spring AD 43, Words broke out among the Celtic tribes of Southern Britain after a group of Gallic spread words that the Romans were gathering an army and reinforcements, and they would soon be at their door. The merchant said the fleet assembling at the port of Bononia considered this an invasion, with the evidence backed up by the fleet of Roman warships sighted around the coast of Kent that same spring.

Hearing of the invasion, various tribal chiefs sent words around the villages requesting warriors. The British were scattered in different clans, and tribal leaders ruled them; these chiefs did not maintain a professional standard army like the roman; in terms of war, they were calls of men around the villages to take up arms. Having the urge to resist the Roman invasion, tens of thousands of the tribe members answered the call and took up their arms.

Tens of thousands of the tribe members on the coast of Kent waited for weeks, anxious about what would happen to the crops and families they left back home. From Intel’s Gathered, the tribe chief knew that The Romans typically started new military campaigns in the spring. So when no invasion fleet appeared that year, and it seemed like another farcical “invasion” like Emperor Caligula’s four years prior, the British tribesmen went home.

But the warnings had been factual. The new Emperor Claudius ordered four legions and numerous auxiliary Cavalry and infantry units to assemble at Bononia to cross the Channel and invade Britain. A Roman invasion of Britain had been considered ever since Julius Caesar’s expeditions there in 55 and 54 BC. Now Claudius, the least warlike emperor, was going through with it, encouraged by a fugitive British tribal ruler named Bericus.

In early spring, the legions gathered at Bononia, including the 2nd Augusta Legion from Argentoratum on the Upper Rhine, where they had been for 25 years. Their 33-year-old commander was Titus Flavius Vespasianus, the future Emperor Vespasian, then of praetor rank. Vespasian had commanded Thracian auxiliaries as he rose through the ranks. According to the historian Suetonius, Vespasian owed his 2nd Augusta command to his friendship with Narcissus, Claudius’ chief secretary.

Vespasian’s son Titus would later have a connection to his father’s Legion, leading auxiliaries attached to the 2nd Augusta in Britain twenty years later. Vespasian’s third-in-command was camp prefect Publius Anicius Maximus, from Antioch in Pisidia, who would be highly decorated after this campaign.

The 2nd Augusta joined forces at Bononia with the 14th Gemina from the Upper Rhine and the 20th Legion from the Lower Rhine’s Novaesium base. The fourth Legion, the 9th Hispana from Pannonia’s Siscia base, marched there with overall commander Aulus Plautius, a former consul and Pannonia governor.

By then, praetors were increasingly commanding legions. Two of Vespasian’s fellow legion commanders were also praetors. Ve spasian’s fellow commanders were his older brother Flavius Sabinus and Gnaeus Hosidius Geta, six years Vespasian’s senior. Geta had recently led a small force to defeat rebellious Moors in Mauritania twice, earning an excellent reputation.

Supporting the 14th Legion were eight cohorts of Batavian infantry, likely commanded by Gaius Julius Civilis, a mid-twenties Batavian royal. Articulate and assured; he would become Vespasian’s friend. The Cavalry included the renowned Batavian Horse, plus Thracian and Spanish Vettonian units led by future governor Didius Gallus.

Claudius prepared elaborately, even putting elephants on standby against British chariots. But they were not brought to the staging point at Bononia, as the marshy terrain rendered them ineffective – undoubtedly realized by Plautius.

A new Britannic Fleet was built to transport 40,000 troops, horses, and pack animals. Shipwrights came from the Mediterranean for the task. But as spring began, superstitious legionaries heard rumours of horrors in remote Britain. Plautius reported his army refused to board. Despite meticulous plans, the invasion force sat unwilling to sail.

The British saw no invasion fleet that spring because the legions at Bononia refused to sail. Claudius sent his chief of staff Narcissus to resolve it. When Narcissus addressed the assembly, he was shouted down – the troops knew he had been enslaved. They chorused, “Hooray for Saturnalia!” drowning him outThe Saturnalia festival allowed enslaved people to enjoy the same privileges as free citizens temporarily. The legions made it straightforward that a formerly enslaved person would not lecture them. Embarrassed, Narcissus stepped down. Plautius likely intended to relay an offer from Narcissus of bonuses for the campaign. Instead, Plautius himself informed them of the emperor’s request. It worked – the legions agreed to proceed.

By summer, with the Britons off guard, the delayed invasion finally began. The fleet left Bononia’s giant lighthouse, modelled on Alexandria’s. Caligula had built it for his failed invasion plan. Dio wrote Plautius sent forces in three divisions to facilitate landing. They sailed through the Dover Strait and up the Kent coast, bypassing Julius Caesar’s landing site at Deal. They likely hit the beaches near Pegwell Bay on the Isle of Thanet. In those times, Thanet was an island separated by the silted-up Wantsum Channel.

At dawn, the first wave grounded in the shallows. Troops splashed ashore – the 2nd Augusta on the left, likely the 20th on the right, and 14th Gemina and 9th Hispana in the centre. Securing the beachhead was crucial, so they dug trenches by the Stour River and built a camp near Richborough called Rutupiae, functioning as a supply base for 30 more years. One Legion, probably the 9th Hispana, stayed to guard the rear and reserves. Plautius swiftly advanced inland, using Caesar’s accounts as a guide. He headed for the Thames, called Tamesa by the Celts.

Scouts and light infantry led the way west over marshland toward Canterbury. The local Cantiaci tribe watched fearfully from forests, sending word of the landing. Plautius needed help to locate them. Meanwhile, Britons gathered forces.

They finally engaged under two brothers – sons of Cunobelinus of the Catuvellauni tribe, which had paid tribute to Caesar a century before. One brother was King Togodumnus of the north bank. The capital of their father’s former kingdom is now Colchester or Camulodunum to Romans. The second brother was Caradoc, known as Caratacus, ruling the west from Calleva Atrebatum, or Silchester, in Atrebates territory. He was younger but more experienced in war. Together they raided and impeded the disciplined Roman advance.

The Battle Of Medway

The brothers hastily gathered support from subsidiary tribes and converged on the Roman advance. Togodumnus came down from the north, while Caratacus hurried from the west. Eager for individual glory, Caratacus attacked first without waiting to combine forces. He likely engaged the 2nd Augusta Legion led by Vespasian.

The Britons lacked armour and helmets. Most warriors carried simple spears and large leather-covered rectangular shields. Often barefoot, the Britons routinely fought half-naked or fully naked. Before the battle, they swore to their war god Camulos that they would not yield to enemy weapons or wounds. Yet Caratacus’ men were no match for the mechanical efficiency of the legion formations and were quickly routed, fleeing back the way they had come. After the bloody repulse of his hasty attack, Caratacus retreated toward the River Medway.

Meanwhile, Togodumnus arrived from the north with thousands more tribespeople. Like his brother, he immediately attacked without tactics. His warriors were swiftly cut down, and Togodumnus himself was gravely wounded, dying within days. The retreating Caratacus reached the Medway and regrouped his forces, joined by his brother’s leaderless men.

Meanwhile, part of Caratacus’ army, the Dobunni tribe from Gloucestershire, surrendered to Plautius, who built a fort to hold them. Having long been subjects of the Catuvellauni, they preferred Roman rule to their fellow Britons.

Before long, Plautius arrived at the wide River Medway, where Caratacus had regathered tens of thousands across the bank. By now, chariots had joined the British, who assumed the Romans could not cross without a bridge. Camped carelessly opposite, they did not anticipate Roman military ingenuity.

Plautius demonstrated Roman ingenuity. Some distance upstream, he sent the Batavian Horse to swim across fully armed and ready to attack. Coming downstream, they launched a surprise assault on the British camp under orders to aim weapons at the horses pulling chariots, not the crews. Even British-mounted warriors could not save themselves in the ensuing turmoil.

With the enemy occupied by the Batavians, Plautius quickly threw pontoon bridges across the river. Led by Vespasian and Sabinus, the 2nd Augusta and another legion crossed upriver. They killed many British warriors before camping on the far bank that night.

But the next day, the Britons returned in force. Legion commander Gnaeus Geta narrowly avoided capture leading a counterattack that finally drove the Britons away. For this action at the Medway, Geta was awarded Triumphal Decorations by the emperor, a great honour for one not yet a consul.

Withdrawing to the Thames, the Britons began crossing where, at high tide, a lake formed near the river’s mouth. Knowing where to find firm footing, they intersected the treacherous mudflats. But when Roman auxiliary troops tried to follow, they floundered and withdrew.

When the main army arrived, Plautius set up camps on the southern bank and built a pontoon bridge upstream. Once again, the Batavians swam across. Troops from the bridge met them on the far bank, trapping tribe members between them and cutting them down. Pursuing survivors, the Romans were lured into swamps, with many drowning before Plautius called off the chase.

After securing his position, Plautius sent envoys inviting neighbouring chiefs to surrender on good terms. With the British defeats and Togodumnus’ death, several quickly submitted to avoid Roman blades. Plautius summoned Claudius to take charge, accept tribal surrenders, and complete the conquest.

Clearly, Claudius had instructed him to send for him when the time was right. Within weeks Claudius left Rome with a massive entourage – thousands of Praetorians, cohorts of his German Guard, and scores of fawning senators.

Aftermath

The 2nd Augusta was still pushing along the coast, through today’s Dorset and Somerset, when the emperor and the members of his expedition joined Plautius at the Thames. Palatium propaganda would have it that Plautius’ legions crossed the Thames under Claudius’ command, met and defeated a large army of British tribe members, and then took the surrender of British kings and their disarmed warriors. In reality, with the fighting at the Thames almost certainly over by the time Claudius arrived, Plautius had the kings submitting to Roman rule gather at Camulodunum to present officially to his emperor.

At Camulodunum, the men of three legions, their supporting auxiliaries, and the cohorts of the Praetorian Guard would have formed up in full parade dress to awe the locals, standards glittering, decorations shining, and helmet plumes blowing in the breeze. Troops of the German Guard would have flanked their emperor as Claudius sat on a raised tribunal. There, in the words of the dedicatory inscription on the Arch of Claudius at Orange in France, “he received
the formal submission of eleven kings of the Britons.” Sixteen days later, Claudius left Britain for a meandering return to Rome. He walked
back into the Palatium the following year after an absence of six months, although he had only spent a little over two weeks in his new province of Britannia.

By the time autumn ended, the 2nd Augusta Legion had controlled the south coast of England. Only western Devon and Cornwall remained to be subdued. At the River Exe in Devon, Vespasian and the 2nd Augusta turned the capital of the Dumnonii tribe on the east bank of the river, with its buildings of timber and mud, into what became the substantial Roman town of Isca Dumnoniorum, today’s city of Exeter. There, the 2nd Augusta established a base that became the Legion’s new permanent home, from where it guarded a frontier from Devon up to southeast Wales.

By the end of AD 43, all four invasion legions had spread across southern England and set up permanent forward forts and rear supply bases. The 14thGemina built its base in the West Country north of the 2nd Augusta’s new home, the 20th based itself at Camulodunum, which Plautius made his provincial headquarters, and the 9th Hispana occupied a frontier line north of
Camulodunum. The legions had come to stay.