A STUDY ON ROMAN BRITAIN AND ROMAN GERMANY

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Most scholars of Roman History understand that the Romans conquered uncivilized land and brought the barbarous people culture and civilization of the core part of the Empire, i.e. Rome and Italy (Romanization).But what did the Romans do in the peripheral part of the Empire actually? This project tries to reconsider the essential character of the Roman Empire analizing two peripheral provinces, Roman Britain and Roman Germany. Thanks to the grant-in-aid, I had some opportunities for visiting U.K., Germany and Switzerland. Many scholars of Cambridge, Oxford and Heidelberg gave me a lot of assistance. And I also got a lot of support from the staffs of some municipal Archaeological Units. So, visiting many excavation sites and museums, I could investigate many archaeological evidences directly. I think that this style of research itself is an epoch-making activity for the Japanese academy of Roman History.As the result of my project, I could understand an important relation between the Roman Empire and the British Empire for interpreting the development of the Roman provinces. An useful but troublesome conception "Romanization" was formed at the beginning of 20th century. But it was influenced by the British imperialism, which Dr. Richard Hingley pointed out recently. So I examined the theories of the British scholars of Archaeology and Roman History from F. Haverfield to R. Hingley. And I also examined recent trend of study on Roman Germany. I argue that the conception "Romanization" was shaped under the influence of the imperialism and colonialism and that we have to continue to reconsider the essential character of the Roman Empire by analyzing the peripheral part.