Germanies, Britains, and the Roman World

This chapter offers a British perspective on the rich array of contributions by German scholars that make up the present volume. The stories told of Roman Germany and Roman Britain are entwined both in their detail and in the manner of their telling. A mass of data attests to the movement of objects, people, and ideas between these areas. It is argued that comparative archaeological studies of different parts of the Roman Empire are necessary in order to illuminate the entangled history of that empire. Analogy is a powerful weapon at the heart of most archaeological analyses, but our dependence upon it seldom receives the consideration it demands. Moreover, the importance of Roman Britain to the archaeology of the Roman Empire is out of all proportion to Britannia’s importance in the Roman World.