Beginnings英国起源(12)

If there were sumptuous country villas amidst the olive groves of the Roman countryside.

Why could there not be equally sumptuous country villas amidst the pear orchards of the South Downs?

Just fall in line, be a little reasonable, some judicious supports here and there,

and see what you would end up with the spectacular palace at Fishbourne.

The man who built it was Togidubnus, king of the Regnenses in what would be ******

one of the quickest to sign up as Rome's local ally.

He was rewarded，with enough wealth to build himself something fit for a Roman.

Only the extraordinary mosaic floors survive

but the place was as big as four football pitches.

Grand enough for someone who now gloried in the name of Tiberius Claudius Cogidumnus.

He couldn't have been the only British chief to realise on which side his bread was buttered.

All over Britain, there were rulers

who thought a Roman connection would do more good than harm in their pursuit of local power and status.

The person we usually think of as embodying British national resistance to Rome,

Queen Boudicca of the East Anglian tribe of the Iceni.

Actually came from a family of happy, even eager collaborators.

It only took a policy of incredible stupidity, arrogance and brutality

on the part of the local Roman governor to turn her from a warm supporter of Rome into its most dangerous enemy.