| [00:00.660] |
Will probably not. Sooner or later they would have noticed that the top of the head is sliced off, scooped out. |
| [00:07.567] |
Like a boiled egg of breakfast, to hold sacrificial offerings. |
| [00:12.034] |
And then they would have remembered stories of Rome told about the grisly brutality of the Druids. |
| [00:19.148] |
Perhaps they would have even taken note of the stories told by the northern savages themselves. |
| [00:25.164] |
Of decapitated heads who were said to speak mournfully to those who had parted them from the rest of their body |
| [00:32.904] |
Warning of vengeance to come. |
| [00:35.748] |
And then they would have thought, "Well, perhaps not." |
| [00:39.317] |
"Perhaps we don't want to have much to do with an island of talking heads." " |
| [00:53.521] |
So why did the Romans come here |
| [00:55.700] |
to the edge of the world, and run the gauntlet of all these ominous totems? |
| [01:02.354] |
Well, it was the lure of treasure, of course, all those pearls that Tacitus was convinced lay around Britain in heaps. |
| [01:09.338] |
But even more seductive was what Roman generals craved the most |
| [01:14.038] |
the prestige given to those who pacified the barbarian frontier. |
| [01:20.504] |
And so, in the written annals of Western history |
| [01:23.437] |
the islands now had not only a name, Britannia, but a date. |
| [01:28.858] |
In 55 BC Julius Caesar launched his galleys across the Channel. |
| [01:39.499] |
Julius Caesar must have supposed that all he had to do was land his legions in force and the Britons. |
| [01:47.473] |
Just cowed by the spectacle all of the glittering helmets and eagle standards. |
| [01:51.903] |
Would simply queue up to surrender. |
| [01:55.007] |
They would understand that history always fought on the side of Rome. Trouble was, geography didn't. |
