ABSTRACT
The third year of his reign had begun when Claudius made up his mind to undertake the conquest of Britain, and commissioned Aulus Plautius, a veteran who had been consul fourteen years before, and was now far on in middle age, to concentrate the troops that had been designated to form the expeditionary corps. The time expired veterans of his legions were settled there, and given lands in the vicinity; this nucleus of war-tried soldiers was the first Roman city in Britain: it was named Colonia Victrix, as some inscriptions prove. The moving of a Roman legion was no light matter; ever since Augustus fixed the establishment and the cantonments of the regular army, its units had continued fixed down to the stations which he had appointed for them, with their dependants dwelling close by the camp in their "huts", and many time-expired veterans settled on allotments in the surrounding country-side.
