The tribal societies of southern Britain, already in direct contact with Rome, would have found it difficult to avoid being drawn into a system of ‘informal imperialism’. The social and economic consequences of this can only be guessed at, but clearly the expansion of trade and cashcrops together with the spread of literacy would have led to changes in social structure, modifying without necessarily destroying traditional institutions. ‘Modernisation’, as we have seen, was in some respects well under way. In the event, however, the Romans decided upon a course of conquest and colonisation which led to the total destruction of the Celtic societies of the south.

What was the overall effect of this upon the British Isles? The North Sea Province underwent a social and cultural revolution. South of a line between Lincoln and Lyme Bay, the various Celtic kingdoms lost their independence and were incorporated within an imperial administrative framework. British Celtic language, religion, law and social institutions totally lost their elite status and henceforth were to bear the stigmas of the conquered. The southern Lowlands forming a military province were the most Romanised section of Britain. North and west, a military zone existed over which the policy of Rome was to exercise military control rather than to administer as a civil province.

English historians of the Roman Conquest have seen it, on the whole, through the eyes of the victors, an understandable attitude in a society with its own strong imperial traditions.