The Last Druids

In the summer of AD 60, a vast Roman army commanded by the Governor of Britain, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, descended on the coast of north Wales. This well disciplined fighting force was directed at eradicating all resistance on the island of Anglesey (Mona Insulis), which lay just off the coast.

There were several motives behind Rome's assault against Anglesey. For Tacitus, the reasons for Paulinus choosing to attack the island were twofold: "Mona Insulis contained a large population, while it also acted as a haven for refugees." Paulinus therefore appears to have been intending to remove this independent refuge to which opponents of Roman rule had been fleeing.

The large population of Anglesey also offered the prospect of vast financial rewards for the Romans; with military victory, many of the island's inhabitants would be enslaved, generating considerable profits when sold on the slave markets.Evidence of the trade in humanity practiced in Celtic as well as Roman society came to light in 1943 when slave chains were discovered in Llyn Cerrig Bach in south-west Anglesey.

Anglesey was also agriculturally rich, often referred to as the breadbasket of north Wales, and the island also possessed desirable mineral deposits, especially copper. However, there is a little doubting that the principal reason for Roman attack was that the island was the focal point of Druidism in Britain.

Claudius I - The Wisest Fool in Rome

"What an artist the world is losing in me!"

 Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (August 1, 10 B.C.E. – October 13, 54) 

As news of Caligula's assassination spread, the senate gathered in haste, several of them ready to press their own claims to the succession, other urged that the moment had come to restore the republic.
Though the praetorian guard had its own ideas as to who should take the throne. Claudius, Caligula's feeble-minded uncle, had been dragged from his hiding place in the palace to the praetorian camp, where he was promptly hailed as emperor, and then marched back to the senate, who had no choice but to confirm their decision.
But the soldiers had chosen better than they knew. Claudius had spent his life the almost forgotten, half-witted brother of the great Germanicus. But now in office he proved extremely conscientious. His intentions were excellent, and his political theory, if derived wholly from books, was intelligent. He was 'the wisest fool' in Rome, but he kept his wisdom for the state, while his domestic follies made him a figure of contempt to his contemporaries and ridiculous to posterity. 

Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (August 1, 10 B.C.E. – October 13, 54)