1 – Menai Massacre, 61 AD
The history of extreme violence in the United Kingdom certainly did not arrive with the Romans, but they brought a level of sophisticated to warfare that made their aggression far more effective. The Menai Massacre of 61 AD – might just be the most brutal bloodletting of the Roman period in Britain and it fits several of the key parameters that were outline for our massacres: it was an attempt at social control and ethnic cleansing, it was an example of the Roman army seriously losing control of itself and taking it out on the native Britons.
The Menai Massacre took place Anglesey, an island at the very north west point of Wales that is separated from the mainland by a slither of water known as the Menai Strait. While Anglesey is essentially a contiguous part of Wales in the modern era, back in the first century, the choppy waters of the Menai Strait provided a formidable natural bulwark against foreign invaders. The Romans had been in Britain since AD 43, some 18 years by the time they made it to the far north of Wales and had faced some severe resistance to their advances from the Celtic peoples who already called Britain home. The invaders had not penetrated the hinterland of Wales – though whether they had not was due to strong opposition or simply because they did not see anything of value there is debated – and it was not until the general Suetonius Paulinus took charge in AD 58 that they began to truly suppress the Welsh.
Suetonius gradually eliminated all opposition to Roman rule from the locals, forcing them further and further west. The island of Anglesey provided a useful bolthole for fugitive Celtic Britons and their high priests, the Druids, who feared the advance of Roman religion as well as the soldiers. When Suetonius arrived to exterminate them once and for all in AD 61, their days were numbered. The historian Tacitus speaks extensively of the battle, though he himself was not there, writing on the actions of Suetonius at the Menai Strait:
“He built flat-bottomed vessels to cope with the shallows, and uncertain depths of the sea. Thus the infantry crossed, while the cavalry followed by fording, or, where the water was deep, swam by the side of their horses.
On the shore stood the opposing army with its dense array of armed warriors, while between the ranks dashed women, in black attire like the Furies, with hair dishevelled, waving brands. All around, the Druids, lifting up their hands to heaven, and pouring forth dreadful imprecations, scared our soldiers by the unfamiliar sight, so that, as if their limbs were paralysed, they stood motionless, and exposed to wounds. Then urged by their general’s appeals and mutual encouragements not to quail before a troop of frenzied women, they bore the standards onwards, smote down all resistance, and wrapped the foe in the flames of his own brands. A force was next set over the conquered, and their groves, devoted to inhuman superstitions, were destroyed. They deemed it indeed a duty to cover their altars with the blood of captives and to consult their deities through human entrails.”
The entirety of Mona, as Anglesey was known, was massacred, with no survivors left. The intention had been clear: the Romans wanted to exert dominance as forcefully as possible and make it very, very clear to any Britons considering resistance to Roman domination that their religion could not save them. Moreover, it removed a major class of leaders from the ranks of the Celts, who were left religiously bereft by the mass killing of their priests.