Were the Romans good for Britain?

Since the Romans themselves wrote about the subject, we have a clear idea of the good things they did for Britain. Roads, towns, stone and brick buildings, plumbing, writing (IOUs), vineyards and leather bikinis were some of the many gifts of what used to be called Rome’s civilising power. Thanks to archaeology, we know some of these advances were less dramatic than thought – there were Iron Age towns and roads in Britain before the invaders arrived, for example. Now new evidence shows they had a clear negative impact on the native population. As happened centuries later during the Industrial Revolution, the Roman conquest led people to move into towns and their health deteriorated. And there’s another twist that questions just how deep the adoption of Roman culture in Britain really was.