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Title: Carausius and Allectus: The British Usurpers by P. J. Casey ISBN: 0-300-06062-9 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: March, 1995 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $40.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: Imperial Shadows
Comment: The political history of Roman Britain is not well-documented, and among its more shadowy reaches is the ten-year period (286-296 A.D.) during which the island formed an effectively independent realm under the "emperors" Carausius and Allectus. The literary evidence for these figures is windy and exiguous, but they left behind large numbers of coins of many different types. P. J. Casey, an archeologist and numismatist, believing that coinage, properly interpreted, can make significant contributions to the historical record, has taken up the challenge of reconstructing the skeleton, if not the torso, of the Carausian regime.

The greatest part of the book is not a true narrative (which would take up only a few pages) but rather an analysis of raw data from speeches, chronicles, coins and excavations. The presentation is admirably lucid, but readers who are easily bored by tables of the distribution of mint marks may lose the thread.

Casey's efforts produce a convincing outline, tracing events from the rebellion of Carausius (a naval commander, assigned to chase pirates on the Gallic coast, who was accused of snatching their booty for his own purse) through his establishment of control over Britain, his loss and recapture of possessions on the continent, his overthrow by his treasurer Allectus and the latter's defeat by the Caesar Constantius (father of Constantine the Great) or, to be precise, by one of the latter's subordinates, who of course received no official credit. Unfortunately, the outline cannot be fleshed out with much detail. Even major incidents, such as the failure of the Roman authorities' first attempt at reconquest, are known only by inference. Through a dim haze we glimpse the clash of armies and fleets in what must have been "interesting times", but we can barely see who is fighting and cannot at all say why.

Appended to the main body of the work are excurses on three more or less related topics: Roman naval warfare (about which not much can be said), the mysterious "Carausius" coinage that appeared in the 350's (which some historians, though not Casey, attribute to an otherwise unknown "Carausius II") and - the most entertaining portion of the book - the legends that grew up around Carausius' name in the Middle Ages. Perpetuated and elaborated well into the 1700's, this pseudo-history transformed the Roman rebel into an Irishman, a Welshman, a Dutchman, a peacemaker between Picts and Scots, a savage invader of Scotland, the ancestor of a noble Venetian family and a founding father of the English navy.

Obscure though its subject may be, this is a well-crafted work, worth the attention of any serious afficionado of Roman imperial history.