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Professor David Shotter
Professor Emeritus
Degree: B.A., Ph.D., F.S.A.
Research Interests
During my time in the History Department, I followed three principal strands of research: the collapse of the Roman Republic, and the development of a far more centralised form of government under the early Emperors (from Augustus to Hadrian); the Archaeology and History of Roman Britain, especially that of northern Britain; Roman Numismatics, viewed from the perspectives of the student both of Roman History and Roman Archaeology. Inevitably, there were many points at which these three strands overlapped and informed each other.
In the first of these, the central questions which drive the research concern the reasons for the Republic's collapse during the first century BC, the nature and working of the centralised control of government under the early Emperors, men of widely divergent characters and capabilities, and the effect of this centralised control on politics in Rome itself and on the wider canvas of the Roman Empire. At the same time, it is vital to analyse the standpoints of and motives that lay behind the surviving works of the Roman and Greek authors who are our main sources for the events of this period.
In the second, the principal thrust has been the examination of the archaeological and documentary evidence for the military history of Roman Britain, and for the understanding of what we mean when we invoke the term, Romanisation.
In the third, Roman coinage is used as a documentary source to elucidate events and episodes in the political and economic history of Rome. However, a parallel study has been directed at refining the ways in which Roman coins recovered from the ground can, through numerical analysis, illuminate the study of the archaeology and history of Roman Britain.
Recent Publications
Roman Coins from North-West England: Second Supplement, Lancaster (CNWRS) 2000.
Rome and Her Empire, London (Longman) 2003.
Romans and Britons in North-West England (third, revised, edition), Lancaster (CNWRS) 2004.
In 2004-05, I produced second, revised, editions of my five titles in the Lancaster Pamphlets series: The Fall of the Roman Republic; Augustus Caesar; Tiberius Caesar; Nero; Roman Britain, London (Routledge).
Nero Caesar Augustus, Longman, London 2008
'The Roman Contribution', pp.32-54 in Waller P. (Ed), The English Urban Landscape, Oxford 2000.
'Petillius Cerialis in Northern Britain', Northern History 36 (2000), 189-98.
'Agrippina the Elder: A Woman in a Man's World', Historia 49 (2000), 341-57.
'The Roman Conquest of the North West', Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Ant. and Arch, Soc. (second series) 100 (2000), 33-53.
'Roman Lancaster: Site and Settlement', pp.3-31 in White A.J.(Ed), A History of Lancaster, Edinburgh 2001.
' "Agricolan" is an Overworked Adjective', pp.75-83 in Higham N.J.(Ed), The Archaeology of the Roman Empire: A Tribute to the Life and Work of the Late Professor Barri Jones, Oxford (British Archaeological Reports, International Series 940) 2001.
'The Roman Period', pp.38-51 in Hall S. and Haywood J. (Eds), The Penguin Atlas of British and Irish History, Harmondsworth 2001.
(with Penney S.H.) 'Further Inscribed Roman Salt Pans from Shavington, Cheshire', Chester Arch. Journ. 76 (2001), 53-61.
'Chester: Early Roman Occupation', pp.25-32 in Carrington P.(Ed), Deva Victrix: Roman Chester Re-assessed, Chester 2002.
'Roman Britain and "The Year of the Four Emperors", Cumberland and Westmorland Ant. and Arch. Soc. (third series) 2 (2002), 79-86.
'The Cumberland Coast and the Evidence of Roman Coin Loss', pp.195-204 in Wilson R.J.A. and Caruana I.D.(Eds), The Romans on the Solway, Kendal 2004.
'Vespasian, Auctoritas and Britain', Britannia 35 (2004), 1-8.
'Salt-Proprietors in Cheshire: Realities and Possibilities', Archaeology North West 7 (2005), 41-6.
(with Edwards B.J.N.) 'Two Roman Milestones from the Penrith Area', Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Ant. and Arch. Soc. (third series) 5 (2005), 65-77.
'The Romans in North-West England: Conquest and Occupation', Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Ant. Soc. 101 (2005), 1-23.
' "We were too Civilised": The Interface of Romans and Britons in Southern Cumbria', pp.237-47 in Cherry P.J.(Ed), Studies in Northern Prehistory: Essays in Memory of Clare Fell, Kendal 2007.
'Cicero and the Treveri: New Light on an old Pun', Greece and Rome 54 (2007), 106-9.
'How the North West was won', Bull. Of the Hadrianic Society (new series) 2 (2007), 5-12.
'The Roman Coins', pp. 69-70 in Rogers I.R. and Garner D. (Eds), Wilderspool and
Holditch: Boom Towns on the Road North, British Archaeological Reports (British Series 449), Oxford 2007
'The Roman Occupation and the Landscape of North-West England', pp. 3-17 in
Lawson Z. (Ed), Aspects of Lancashire History: Essays in Memory of Mary Higham,
Lancashire Local Historian 20, 2007
'The Roman Coins', pp. 37-40 in M. Williams and M. Reid (Eds), Salt: Life and Industry. Excavations at King Street, Middlewich, Cheshire, 2001-2002, British Archaeological Reports (British Series 456), Oxford 2008
'From Conquest to Frontier in the North West', pp. 105-112 in Bidwell P. (Ed), Understanding Hadrian's Wall, South Shields 2008
Publications Forthcoming and in Preparation
'Carlisle: The Roman Coins', in Zant J., Carlisle: The Millennium Excavations, Lancaster 2008.
(Edited jointly with Iles P.D.), Lancaster's Roman Cemeteries, Lancaster (CNWRS) 2009.
Roman Coins from North-West England: Third Supplement, Lancaster (CNWRS) 2010.
'Birdoswald: The Roman Coins', in Wilmott T. (Ed), Research by English Heritage on Hadrian's Wall, 1976-2000, London 2009
'Roman Carlisle: Its People and their Lives', in Brennand M. and Stringer K. J. (Eds), The Making of Carlisle: From Romans to Railways, Kendal 2009
'When did the Romans invade Scotland?', in Hall M. A. (Ed), Agricola and Scotland, 2010
'The Roman Coins', in Wilmott T. and Garner D., The Chester Amphitheatre Excavations, 2004-06, 2011
Associated Keywords: Archaeology, History, History of Rome, Numismatics
Contact Details
Tel: +44 (0)1524
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