Great Conspiracy

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Great Conspiracy

The Great Conspiracy is a term given to a year-long war that occurred in Roman Britain

Roman Britain

Roman Britain refers to those parts of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire between AD 43 and 410. The Romans referred to their province as Britannia....
near the end of the Roman occupation of the island. The historian Ammianus Marcellinus

Ammianus Marcellinus

Ammianus Marcellinus was a fourth-century Ancient Rome historian. His is the last major historical account of the late Roman empire which survives today....
described it as a barbarica conspiratio that capitalised on a depleted military force in the province brought about by Magnentius

Magnentius

Flavius Magnus Magnentius was a Roman usurper .Born in Samarobriva , Gaul, Magnentius was the commander of the Herculians and Iovians, the imperial guard units ....
' losses of the Battle of Mursa Major

Battle of Mursa Major

The Battle of Mursa Major was fought in 351 between the Eastern Roman army led by Constantius II and the western forces supporting the usurper Magnentius....
.

In the winter of 367

367

Events...
, the Roman garrison on Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall is a Rock and Sod fortification built by the Roman Empire across the width of what is now northern England. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the middle of three such fortifications built across Great Britain, the first being from the River Clyde to the River Forth under Agricola and the last the Ant...
rebelled, and allowed Picts

Picts

The Picts were a confederation of tribes in what was later to become eastern and northern Scotland from Roman Empire times until the 10th century....
from Caledonia

Caledonia

Caledonia is the Latin name given by the Ancient Rome to the land in today's Scotland north of their Roman provinces of Roman Britain, beyond the Frontiers of the Roman Empire of their Roman Empire....
to enter Britannia.

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The Great Conspiracy is a term given to a year-long war that occurred in Roman Britain

Roman Britain

Ammianus Marcellinus

Magnentius

Battle of Mursa Major

The Battle of Mursa Major was fought in 351 between the Eastern Roman army led by Constantius II and the western forces supporting the usurper Magnentius....
.

In the winter of 367

367

Events...
, the Roman garrison on Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall

Picts

The Picts were a confederation of tribes in what was later to become eastern and northern Scotland from Roman Empire times until the 10th century....
from Caledonia

Caledonia

Attacotti

Attacotti refers to a people who despoiled Roman Britain between 364 and 368, along with Scoti, Picts, Saxons, Roman military deserters, and the indigenous Britons s themselves....
, Scotti

Scoti

Scoti or Scotti was the generic name given by the Roman Empire to the Celts Gaels who raided from Ireland. Some of them, from the Ulster Kingdom of D?l Riata, migrated to the Inner Hebrides, Islands of the Clyde and Argyll and Bute, extending D?l Riata....
from Hibernia

Hibernia

Hibernia is the Classical Latin name for the island of Ireland....
, and Saxons

Saxons

The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic peoples. Their modern-day descendants in Saxony are considered ethnic Germans; those in the eastern Netherlands are considered to be ethnic Dutch people; those in north eastern Belgium are considered to be ethnic Flemish people; and those in southern England ethnic English people ....
from Germania

Germania

Germania was the Latin language exonym for a geographical area of land on the east bank of the River Rhine , which included regions of Sarmatia as well as an area under Ancient Rome control on the west bank of the Rhine....
, landed in (coordinated and pre-arranged) waves on the island's mid-western and south-eastern borders, respectively. Franks

Franks

The Franks or Frankish people were a West Germanic ethnic group first identified in the 3rd century as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River....
and Saxons also landed in northern Gaul

Gaul

Gaul is the name used for the region of Western Europe comprising part of present day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western Switzerland and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the River Rhine....
.

These groups managed to overwhelm nearly all of the loyal Roman outposts and settlements. The entire western and northern areas of Britannia were overwhelmed, the cities sacked and the civilian Romano-British

Romano-British

Romano-British culture is that of the Romanised Britons under the Roman Empire and later the Western Roman Empire, and of those exposed to Roman culture in the years after the Roman departure from Britain....
murdered, raped, or enslaved. Nectaridus

Nectaridus

Nectaridus was a possible early Count of the Saxon Shore, a military leader in Roman Britain in the later fourth century AD.His command may have been an ad hoc creation, possibly during the reign of Valentinian I or Julian the Apostate during the early 360s in response to growing pirate raiding....
, the Count of the Saxon Shore

Count of the Saxon Shore

The Count of the Saxon Shore or comes litoris Saxonici was the head of the "Saxon Shore" military command of the later Roman Empire.The post was possibly created during the reign of Constantine I and was probably existent by AD 367 when Nectaridus is elliptically referred to as one by Ammianus....
was killed and the Dux Britanniarum

Dux Britanniarum

Dux Britanniarum was a military post in Roman Britain, probably created by Diocletian or Constantine I during the late third or early fourth century....
, Fullofaudes

Fullofaudes

Fullofaudes was a Dux Britanniarum, a military leader in Roman Britain in the later fourth century.He was either killed or besieged by the barbarian invaders during the Great Conspiracy and replaced by Dulcitius when Count Theodosius came in Britain in 369 to restore order....
was either besieged or captured, their remaining army units staying garrisoned inside southeastern cities. The areani
Areani

The areani were agents in Roman Empire military units based in Roman Britain during the later part of the Roman occupation of the island. They were used both as scouts for the Roman legion and as undercover spies....
or local sailors whom the Romans paid to provide intelligence on barbarian movements seem to have betrayed their paymasters for bribes, making the attacks completely unexpected. Deserting soldiers and escaped slaves roamed the countryside and turned to robbery to support themselves. Although the chaos was widespread and initially concerted, the aims of the rebels were simply personal enrichment and they worked as small bands rather than larger armies.

Emperor Valentinian I

Valentinian I

Flavius Valentinianus, known in English as Valentinian I, was Roman Emperor from 364 until his death. Valentinian is often referred to as the "last great western emperor"....
was campaigning against the Alamanni

Alamanni

The Alamanni, Allemanni, or Alemanni were originally an alliance of Germanic languagess located around the upper Main river . One of the earliest references to them is the cognomen Alamannicus assumed by Caracalla, who ruled the Roman Empire from 211?17 and claimed thereby to be their defeater....
at the time and unable to respond personally. A series of commanders to act in his stead were chosen but swiftly recalled. The first was Severus

Severus

Severus is Latin cognomen, most often used for Septimius Severus, Alexander Severus and other members of the Severan dynasty.Severus can also refer to:...
, the emperor's comes domesticorum, soon replaced by Jovinus

Jovinus

Jovinus was a GaulRoman Roman Senate and claimed to be Roman Emperor .Following the defeat of the Roman usurper known with the name of Constantine III , Jovinus was proclaimed emperor at Mainz in 411, a puppet supported by Gunther, king of the Burgundians, and Goar, king of the Alans....
, the magister equitum; rumours of disasters dogged them, however, and it took almost 15 months before a capable replacement was sent.

In the spring of 368

368

Events...
, a relief force commanded by Count Theodosius

Count Theodosius

Flavius Theodosius or Theodosius the Elder was a senior military officer serving in the Western Roman Empire. He achieved the rank of Comes Britanniarum and as such, he is usually referred to as Comes Theodosius....
arrived in Britannia from Gaul

Gaul

Heruli

The Heruli were a nomadic Germanic people, who were subjugated by the Ostrogoths, Huns, and Byzantine Empires in the 3rd to 5th centuries. The name is related to earl and was probably an honorific military title....
, Jovii and Victores as well as his son, the later Emperor Theodosius I

Theodosius I

Flavius Theodosius , also called Theodosius I and Theodosius the Great , was Roman Emperor from 379 to 395. Reuniting the eastern and western portions of the empire, Theodosius was the last emperor of both the Eastern Roman Empire and Western Roman Empire....
and probably the later usurper

Roman usurper

Usurpers are individuals or groups of individuals who obtain and maintain the power or rights of another by force and without legal authority. Usurpers were a common feature of the late Roman Empire, especially from the crisis of the third century onwards, when political instability became the rule....
Magnus Maximus

Magnus Maximus

Magnus Clemens Maximus , also known as Maximianus, was a Hispanic Roman usurper of the Western Roman Empire from 383 until his death, in 388, by order of Emperor Theodosius I....
. He marched from Richborough

Richborough

Richborough is a settlement north of Sandwich, Kent on the east coast of the county of Kent, England. Richborough lies close to the Isle of Thanet....
to Londinium

Londinium

This article covers the history of London during the Roman Britain from around 47 AD when the Roman city of Londinium was founded, to its abandonment during the 5th century....
and began to deal with the barbarians. An amnesty

Amnesty

Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent persons....
was promised to deserters which enabled Theodosius to regarrison abandoned forts. A new Dux Britanniarum

Dux Britanniarum

Dux Britanniarum was a military post in Roman Britain, probably created by Diocletian or Constantine I during the late third or early fourth century....
was appointed, Dulcitius

Dulcitius

Dulcitius was a Dux Britanniarum, a military leader in Roman Britain in the later fourth century AD. He is praised by Ammianus for his military abilities....
, with Civilis

Civilis (vicarius)

Civilis is all that is known of the name of a vicarius of Roman Britain around AD 368. Dulcitius was appointed Dux Britanniarum at the same time under Count Theodosius' reforms....
granted vicarius

Vicarius

Vicarius is a Latin word, meaning substitute or deputy. It is the root and origin of the English word "vicar" and cognate to the Persian word most familiar in the variant vizier....
status to head a new civilian administration.

By the end of the year, the barbarians had been driven back to their homelands; the mutineers had been executed; Hadrian's Wall was retaken; and order returned to the province. Considerable reorganisation was undertaken in Britain, including the creation of a new province named Valentia

Valentia (Roman Britain)

Valentia was the name of a consular northern province of Roman Britain.Count Theodosius set up Valentia in 369 AD as part of his reorganisation of Britain following the Great Conspiracy, and probably named it after the reigning emperors, Valentinian I and Valens....
, probably to better address the state of the far north. Claudian

Claudian

Claudian was a Roman poet, who worked for Emperor Flavius Augustus Honorius and the latter's general Stilicho.A Greek language citizen of Alexandria, Claudian arrived in Rome before 395, and made his mark with a eulogy of his two young patrons, Probinus and Olybrius, thereby becoming court poet....
suggests that naval activity took place in northern Britain. It is possible that Theodosius mounted punitive expeditions against the barbarians and extracted terms from them. Certainly, the Notitia Dignitatum

Notitia Dignitatum

The Notitia Dignitatum is a unique document of the Ancient Rome imperial chanceries. One of the very few surviving documents of Roman government, it details the administrative organisation of the eastern and western Roman empires, listing several thousand offices from the imperial court down to the provincial level....
later records four units of Attacotti

Attacotti

Attacotti refers to a people who despoiled Roman Britain between 364 and 368, along with Scoti, Picts, Saxons, Roman military deserters, and the indigenous Britons s themselves....
serving Rome on the continent. The areani were removed from duty and the frontiers refortified with co-operation from border tribes such as the Votadini

Votadini

The Votadini were a people of the British Iron Age in Great Britain, and their territory was briefly part of the Roman province Roman Britain....
, marking the career of men such as Paternus

Cunedda

Cunedda ap Edern , also known as Cunedda Wledig , was an important early Wales leader, and the progenitor of the royal dynasty of Kingdom of Gwynedd....
.

Theodosius returned to Rome a hero, and was made senior military advisor to Valentinian I. A decade later, his son became emperor. The Romans did for the most part end much of the chaos, though raids by all of the people listed above did continue.

Fictional accounts of the Great Conspiracy were featured in Wallace Breem

Wallace Breem

Wallace Breem was a British librarian and author, the Librarian and Keeper of Manuscriptsof the Inner Temple Law Library at his death, but perhaps more widely known for his historical novels, including the classic Eagle in the Snow ....
's historical novel Eagle in the Snow
Eagle in the Snow

Eagle in the Snow is a modern classic of historical fiction. Written in 1970 by Wallace Breem, the novel is set in Britannia and Germania in the late 4th and early 5th century, and centers on the Roman Empire general Paulinus Gaius Maximus, a Mithraism in an age of Christianization....
, Stephen R. Lawhead

Stephen R. Lawhead

Stephen R. Lawhead, born , is a best-selling United States writer known for his works of fantasy, science fiction, and more recently, historical fiction....
's fantasy novel Taliesin
Pendragon Cycle

The Pendragon Cycle is a series of fantasy or semi-historical books based on the Arthurian legend, written by Stephen R. Lawhead. They are:...
, and Jack Whytes "Skystone"