Colchester

A district and borough northeast of London, England that was the capital of the pre-Roman Belgic ruler Cunobelinus by 43 AD, formerly an Iron Age Celtic settlement (oppidum) surrounded by dikes. Though it burned down in 60 AD, Colchester soon became one of the chief towns in Roman Britain and there are surviving walls and gateways from this period. Some of the masonry of the temple to Claudius survives in the foundations of the Norman castle.

[Roman Camulodunum]. A city in southeast England, some 80 km northeast of London, formerly an Iron Age Celtic settlement (oppidum) surrounded by dykes. It was the capital of the tribal chieftain, Cunobelinus, who seems to have been known to the Romans as King of the Britons. This local importance probably made the site a principal objective for the Romans in their invasion of 43 ad, and it is possible that some kind of military camp was established here almost at once. Certainly, in the year 49 the Romans built here their first colonial town (colonia), alongside the town of Cunobelinus, and they may have intended this as their capital for the new province, since a huge temple was erected to the Emperor Claudius, in Roman style, and with massive vaulted substructures which still survive. Destroyed in Boudicca’S rebellion of 60-61, the site was subsequently rebuilt as a pleasant Roman provincial town, eventually extending to some 44 hectares with stone walls (partly surviving, as at the Balkerne Gate), houses with painted wall plaster and mosaics, and sizeable cemeteries.