Claudius Invades Britain
40,000 Roman troops, eleven surrendered kings, and war elephants at the gates of Colchester
Quick facts
- Roman commander
- Aulus Plautius
- Invasion force
- About 40,000 troops (4 legions plus auxiliaries)
- Kings who surrendered to Claudius
- 11, per Cassius Dio
- Likely landing sites
- Richborough, Kent, or Chichester harbour
What happened
In AD 43 the Roman emperor Claudius launched an invasion of Britain. The general Aulus Plautius commanded a force that English Heritage describes as probably comprising the heavy infantry of four Roman legions, numbering 20,000 soldiers, plus a similar number of auxiliary troops, for a total of about 40,000. Historians and archaeologists still dispute exactly where the army landed, with Chichester harbour and Richborough in Kent seen as the most plausible sites. Once Plautius's forces were established, he summoned Claudius, who arrived from Boulogne with his Praetorian cohorts and, according to the Roman historian Cassius Dio, war elephants. Dio records that eleven British kings surrendered to Claudius, while the resistance leader Caratacus escaped to fight on for several more years.
Why it matters
The invasion began nearly four centuries of direct Roman rule over most of what is now England and Wales, folding Britain into a continent-spanning empire and its road networks, towns, and administrative structures for the first time. Roman Britannia's roads, city grids, and legal habits left a physical and institutional imprint that later Anglo-Saxon and Norman rulers built on top of rather than replaced outright.
How we know
The invasion is recorded by the Roman historian Cassius Dio writing in the early 3rd century, and the landing sites are debated using archaeological evidence from early Roman military camps along the Kent and Sussex coasts.
Sources
- English Heritage. The Roman Invasion of Britain · General sourceenglish-heritage.org.uk · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- English Heritage. History of Richborough Roman Fort and Amphitheatre · General sourceenglish-heritage.org.uk · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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