In some respects it can be characterised as a

In some respects, it can be characterised as a deliberate revivification of the
earlier market-place or Venta of Oram’s Arbour, as a town on the western mar-
gin of the old Atrebatic territory. This must have taken place while the client
kingdom was still in existence, and it is possible that Togidubnus’ sphere of
56 Barrett, “Career”; Barrett, “Civitates.”
57 Barry Cunliffe, The Regni (London, 1973), p. 23. Braund, Ruling, p. 111, also appears to lean
towards this position.
58 John Creighton and Robert Fry, Silchester: Changing Visions of a Roman Town (London,
2016), Ch. 11.
59 Michael Fulford, “Nero and Britain: The Palace of the Client King at Calleva and Imperial
Policy Towards the Province after Boudicca,” Britannia 39 (2008), 1–13; Michael Fulford
and Jane Timby, Late Iron Age and Roman Silchester. Excavations on the Site of the Forum-
Basilica 1977, 1980–86 (London, 2000), pp. 567–68. See also Jillian Greenaway, “The Nero-
nian Stamped Tile from Little London, near Silchester,” Britannia 12 (1981), 290–91.
60 Fulford, “Nero,” p. 10.
61 See the summary in John Wacher, The Towns of Roman Britain, 2nd ed. (London, 1995),
pp. 291–93.
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influence had allowed for expansion to the west, thus extending what was later
to become the Belgic civitas into western and south-western Hampshire and
probably beyond.62
Autonomy for Winchester, as a civitas -capital after the end of the client
kingdom, cannot be easily dated, because we do not know when Togidubnus
died. Barrett suggests an early date, in the mid-60s ad, and this, or even earlier
in the late 50s, was accepted by Braund, and initially, by Fulford.63 However,
Fulford’s re-evaluation of the early building evidence at Silchester has led him
to discard a Neronian date and argue for construction taking place on behalf of
the client kingdom during the 60s ad, after Boudica’s rebellion.64 A Flavian
date for the death of Togidubnus is the current view, while acknowledging that
we will never have certainty.65 Tacitus records that Togidubnus had remained
loyal ‘down to our times’, which was the late Flavian period or later.66 This
would make Togidubnus very elderly at the time of his death, and therefore the
phrase is often taken as a literary generalisation.
By way of conclusion, we must return to the word Belgae. Caesar stated that
“maritime regions” of Britain had been settled before the time of his own inva-
sion, by “invaders who crossed from Belgium ( ex Belgio ) for the sake of plunder,
and then, when the fighting was over, settled there: these people have almost
all kept the names of the tribes from which they originated.”67 This led Barry
Cunliffe to suggest that the area in question included the shores of the Solent
and further inland, and that this had taken place c. 100 bc, representing the
beginnings of the Late Iron Age dispositions in the region.68 This could, of
course, mean that a group or groups of people in the region styled themselves
Belgae (but it must be noted that there are no people of this name ‘of the tribes
from which they originated’, as Caesar put it), and that this was crystallised
eventually into the name for Roman Winchester.