Belgae (Britain)

Origins

Caesar wrote that the coastal parts of Britain had been settled by Belgae from Gaul who kept their tribal names, and Belgic coins circulated widely in the south from the 2nd century BCE. A people called Belgae is named only from Roman times, however, and their pre-conquest identity is uncertain; Winchester, the later Venta Belgarum, had a late Iron Age enclosure at Oram's Arbour.

Rule and society

Before the conquest the region of Hampshire and Wiltshire seems to have fallen within the sphere of the Atrebates (Britain) and their kings Commius, Tincomarus and Verica, sharing their coinage and links with Gaul. Farming was rich on the chalk downs, and hillforts such as Danebury had been major storage centres in earlier centuries.

Decline and legacy

After 43 the area may first have been part of the realm of Togidubnus in the Kingdom of the Regni. On his death it was organised as the civitas of the Belgae, with Venta Belgarum as its capital; Ptolemy also lists Aquae Sulis, Bath, among their towns. Winchester later became the royal seat of Wessex.

Few sources survive for this state; details are uncertain.