page_title: History of Cumbria
section_title: Life in Roman Cumbria
hierarchical_section_title: History of Cumbria / Roman Cumbria / Life in Roman Cumbria
caption_attribution_description: Brocavum Roman fort
context_page_description: The history of Cumbria as a county of England begins with the Local Government Act 1972. Its territory and constituent parts however have a long history under various other administrative and historic units of governance. Cumbria is an upland, coastal and rural area, with a history of invasions, migration and settlement, as well as battles and skirmishes between the English and the Scots.
context_section_description: The severe lack of available evidence makes it difficult to draw a picture of what life was like in Roman Cumbria, and to what extent "Romanisation" took place (although the Vindolanda tablets give us a glimpse of Roman life on the, mostly, pre-Hadrian's Wall frontier). The auxiliary troops stationed in the forts obviously had an impact. Land around forts was appropriated for various uses – parade grounds, annexes (as at Carlisle), land given to retired troops for farming use, mining operations (copper in the Lake District, lead and silver around Alston), and so on. Around most forts, a vicus (plural, vici) – a civilian settlement – may have been established, consisting of merchants, traders, artisans, and camp-followers, drawn to the business opportunities provided by supplying the troops. The beginnings of something like town life can be seen, but probably not with the same extent of urbanisation and wealth as in the south of England.
  Apart from settlements associated with the forts, Roman Cumbria consisted of scattered rural settlements, situated where good agricultural ground was to be found in the Solway Plain, the West Coastal Plain, and in the valleys of the Eden, Petteril, and Lune.
  Most of the population, the total size of which at its peak has been estimated at between 20,000–30,000 people, lived in scattered, but not isolated, communities, usually consisting of just a single family group. They practised mixed agriculture, with enclosures for arable use, but also with enclosed and unenclosed pasture fields. During the second half of the Roman occupation, there seems to have been a move from agricultural land to pasture and 'waste' with building of walls and barriers – perhaps due either to a fall-off in demand for grain locally, consequent on the decline of the Roman military establishment, or to a drop in productivity.
  It is difficult to assess the long-term effects of the Roman occupation on the native inhabitants of Cumbria. The evidence gleaned from artefacts such as the Staffordshire Moorlands Pan (also known as the Ilam Pan), suggests that a Romano-British adaptation of Celtic art persisted in Cumbria. One expert says that: "... Celtic tradition survived in Roman disguise ...", and that "the Romanisation of Britain was in many ways nothing but a surface veneer." (The pan was probably a souvenir of Hadrian's Wall, inscribed with the names of some of the Cumbrian forts in the 2nd century, along with the name of the owner, perhaps an ex-soldier, showing that the Wall was noteworthy enough in Roman times to be remembered.)
  
  In a superstitious age, religion was a factor that may have helped to bridge the divide between Roman and Celtic ways of life to form a Romano-British culture. After the destruction of the Druids, there is evidence of a mixing of Roman mystery-cults with local Celtic deities, alongside formal Roman cults of the emperor and worship of the Olympian gods. 
  All in all, the old model of Roman 'conquerors' and local 'vanquished' in Cumbria and the north, is superseded by one that sees that, "within limits, the local population became Romanised".
caption: The banks of Brocavum Roman fort in the foreground; Brougham Castle is in the background
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