Doom, Druids and the destruction of Mona: Roman revenge or divine dissaproval?

Abstract

The Romans did not approve of the Druids, particularly in the first century AD, when they seem to have been at their most troublesome as foci for Gallo-British nationalism. Tacitus was describing an event that took place during the cataclysmic ‘Year of the Four Emperors’, when Rome was in chaos and, as a result, provincial rebellions flared, inclu­ding a revolt in the Rhineland led by Julius Civilis. It was a time when the vulnerability of the imperial capital served to fan the flames of superstition that always smouldered beneath the canopy of rationality. In fact, the event Tacitus described was an accidental fire rather than arson, but the perceived assault on the principal icon of romanitas, the Capitol, symbolised an attack on Rome itself and the empire. If Tacitus is to be believed, dissident Druids, operating in Gaul and Britain, spread the word that this disaster was an omen, signifying a seismic shift of power to the northern lands.