Caratacus

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It was almost the middle of summer AD 43, when a vast fleet set sail from Gesoriacum in Gaul for the distant shores of Britannia. The Emperor Claudius had spent the last two years planning for this enterprise to finally conquer the land that had not once but twice repelled the great General Julius Caesar and his own legions. Claudius’s predecessor, the insane and unpredictable Caligula, had also embarked on an invasion but had been killed by his own Praetorian guard before his plans were allowed to come to fruition.

The Senate and the legions had been humiliated when instead of setting sail across the channel, Caligula had briefed his army on the shoreline of Gaul and ordered them to collect pebbles, shells and stones and to launch them as missiles into the sea. He then claimed victory over Britannia but before redeploying his forces elsewhere, instructed them to build a lighthouse from the pebbles on the beach. This was his monument to celebrate the victory over the Britons after which, his legions were dispersed around the Empire to the astonishment of the Senate.

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