ABSTRACT
THE EPISODE OF CARAUSIUS AND Allectus made very little impact in the Roman world as a whole. It was soon forgotten and little attention was paid by historians; a revolt in a distant, and not very important, area of the empire was not of much interest to historians in the East. By the time that the Byzantine historian Zonaras completed his universal history in the early twelfth century the memory of events had already become hopelessly distorted: ‘The prefect Asclepiodotus destroyed Crassus [sic!] who had held Britain for three years [sic!]’ (Zon.xii.31).
