ABSTRACT
With the passing of the main part of the Roman army to areas beyond south-eastern Britain, and the early release of these parts from full military occupation, three tribal regions would have required constitution as self-governing civitates peregrinae, outside the areas of the two client kingdoms of the Iceni and the Reg(i)ni. The three civitates then to emerge were those formed from the Cantiaci, the Trinovantes and the Catuvellauni. Canterbury ought to have been among the first, civitas capital to emerge in Britain, and the reasons for its selection, as opposed to other Kentish Iron Age sites, have been discussed. Stevens tentatively suggested that at some time the Trinovantes might have ceased to be attributi of the colonia at Colchester, and that a new town was founded as their capital. Cunobelin's capital at Camulodunum did not coincide with the Trinovantian one. By the time of the conquest, the tribal institutions of the Trinovantes had been largely suppressed under Catuvellaunian domination.
