Unrest after conquest: Indigenous rebellions in the Roman West

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Rising Up Against Authority: Archaeological Approaches to Rebellion" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Roman wars of conquest brought with them the violent subjugation of millions of people. But what happened in the years and generations after the military campaigns? While there was considerable diversity among regions and communities, many groups launched armed uprisings, sometimes shortly after the initial conquest, but other times several generations later, showing the existence of widespread discontent with Roman rule. Drawing upon historical and archaeological sources, this paper will provide an overview on some of the main episodes of indigenous rebellions in the Roman West. This will include famous episodes such as the Boudican revolt in Britain and the Batavian revolt in the Rhineland, but also other, lesser known episodes which are sometimes not even recorded in written sources. Among the latter, the paper will introduce insights from recent fieldwork at Ambleside in northwest England, which point to the existence of unrest in the Lake District region several generations after the incorporation of the area into the Roman Empire. The results will be set within the wider framework of rebellions against imperial powers in the ancient and modern world.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Rising Up Against Authority: Archaeological Approaches to Rebellion   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 50996