As a point of historical accuracy, the Romans left Britain in 410 CE. On the last day of December 406, the Alans, Vandals, and Suebi living east of Gaul crossed the frozen Rhine River and began a widespread devastation of the country. In that there was no effective Roman response, remaining Roman military in Britain feared that a Germanic crossing of the Channel into Britain was next, and dispensed with imperial authority; an action that may have been made easier by the likelihood that troops had not been paid for some time and their loyalty was thus questionable. The Roman intent at this time was to choose a commander who would lead them in securing their future but their first two choices, Marcus and Gratian, did not meet their expectations and were killed. Their third choice was the soldier Constantine III. In 407 Constantine rallied remaining troops in Britain, led them across the Channel into Gaul, rallied support there, and set himself up as Western Roman Emperor. The Roman Empire south of the Alps was preoccupied with fending off the Visigoths and was unable to put down the rebellion, giving Constantine the opportunity to extend his new empire to include Spain. In 409 Constantine's control of his empire fell apart. Part of his military forces were in Spain, making them unavailable for action in Gaul, and some of those in Gaul were swayed against him by loyalist Roman generals. The Germans living west of the Rhine River rose against him, perhaps encouraged by Roman loyalists, and those living east of the river crossed into Gaul. Britain, now without any troops for protection and having suffered particularly severe Saxon raids in 408 and 409, viewed the situation in Gaul with renewed alarm. Perhaps feeling they had no hope of relief under Constantine, both the Romano-Britons and some of the Gauls expelled Constantine's magistrates in 409 or 410. The the sixth-century Byzantine historian-scholar Zosimus blamed Constantine III for the expulsion, saying that he had allowed the Saxons to raid Britain, and the Britons and Gauls were reduced to such socioeconomic straits that they were forced by circumstances to revolt against the Roman Empire, reject Roman law, revert to their native customs, and arm themselves to ensure their survival. It has been suggested that when Zosimus records that natives expelled Roman civilian administration in 409 he might have been referring to the Bacaudic rebellion of the Breton inhabitants of Armorica since he describes how, in the aftermath of the revolt, all of Armorica and the rest of Gaul followed the example of the Brettaniai). A later appeal for help by the British communities was, according to Zosimus, rejected by the Emperor Honorius in 410 AD. In the text called the Rescript of Honorius, the Western Emperor Honorius tells the British civitates to look to their own defence. The first reference to this rescript was mentioned by Zosimus and is located randomly in the middle of a discussion of southern Italy; no further mention of Britain is made, which has led some, though not all, modern academics to suggest that the rescript did not apply to Britain, but to Bruttium in Italy.
Historian Christopher Snyder wrote that protocol dictated that Honorius address his correspondences to imperial officials, and the fact that he did not implies that the cities of Britain were now the highest Roman authority remaining on the island. At the time that the Rescript was sent, Honorius was in Ravenna surrounded by Visigoths and he was unable to prevent their Sack of Rome in 410. He was in fact in no position to offer any relief to anyone. As for Constantine III, he was not equal to the intrigues of imperial Rome and by 411 his cause was spent. His son was killed along with those major supporters who had not turned against him, and he himself was assassinated. There are various interpretations that characterize the events in a way that supports a particular thesis without taking issue with the basic chronology. The historian Theodor Mommsen (Britain, 1885) famously said that "It was not Britain that gave up Rome, but Rome that gave up Britain ...", arguing that Roman needs and priorities lay elsewhere. His position has retained scholarly support over the passage of time. Michael Jones (The End of Roman Britain, 1998) took the opposite view, saying that it was Britain that left Rome, arguing that numerous usurpers based in Britain combined with poor administration caused the Romano-Britons to revolt. Regarding the events of 409 and 410 when the Romano-Britons expelled Roman officials and sent a request for aid to Honorius, Michael Jones (The End of Roman Britain, 1998) offered a different chronology to the same end result: he suggested that the Britons first appealed to Rome and when no help was forthcoming, they expelled the Roman officials and took charge of their own affairs. One theory that occurs in some modern histories concerns the Rescript of Honorius, holding that it refers to the cities of the Bruttii (who lived at the "toe" of Italy in modern Calabria), rather than to the cities of the Britons. The suggestion is based on the assumption that the source (Zosimus) or a copyist made an error and actually meant Brettia when Brettania was written, and noting that the passage that contains the Rescript is otherwise concerned with events in northern Italy.
Criticisms of the suggestion range from treating the passage in the way it was written by Zosimus and ignoring the suggestion, to simply noting its speculative nature, to a discussion of problems with the suggestion (e.g., 'why would Honorius write to the cities of the Bruttii rather than to his own provincial governor for that region?', and 'why does far-off southern Italy belong in a passage about northern Italy any more than far-off Britain?'). The theory also contradicts the account of Gildas, who provides independent support that the reference is to Britain by repeating the essence of Zosimus' account and clearly applying it to Britain. E. A. Thompson ("Britain, A.D. 406–410", in Britannia, 8 (1977), pp. 303–318) offered a more provocative theory to explain the expulsion of officials and appeal for Roman aid. He suggested that a revolt consisting of dissident peasants, not unlike the Bagaudae of Gaul, also existing in Britain, and when they revolted and expelled the Roman officials, the landowning class then made an appeal for Roman aid. There is no textual proof for these events but it might be plausible if the definition of 'bagaudae' is changed to fit the circumstances. There is no need to do this, as any number of rational scenarios already fit the circumstances. There is the possibility that some form of bagaudae existed in Britain, but were not necessarily relevant to the events of 409 and 410. Among the works that mention but skirt the issue is Koch's Celtic Culture (2005), which cites Thompson's translation of Zosimus and goes on to say "The revolt in Britain may have involved bacaudae or peasant rebels as was the case in Armorica, but this is not certain."
The point being all written evidence support Rome's departure from Britain in 410 CE.
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