Preposterous video and my response

[OC Richard]

I thought of this thread when listening to this video of a fascination discussion about Septimius Severus, which of course touches on his Scottish campaigns at the end of his life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSmf7xUJv9Q

There's a telling bit at 24:22

On the other hand, they point out that the Midland Valley of Scotland probably would have been able to produce sufficient crop value to offset the price of Roman occupation, and raise the question "why didn't the Romans annexe that region?"

They bring up an interesting consideration I'd not heard raised before.

We know that prior to the Romans invading Britain there was tremendous trade between Gaul (a Roman province) and Britain, the loss of the tax revenue of which would offset the financial gains the Romans would reap by directly squeezing every bit of worth out of a conquered Britain.

A good part of this trade was vast quantities of fine Roman wine and other Roman luxury goods purchased by British aristocracy (especially in the southeast) which had already been attracted to the Roman way of life to some degree. Thus even before the Roman invasion the process of Romanisation had already begun.

In the north of Britain not so much! The natives continued to dwell in traditional British round-houses while in the south Roman style towns and houses became the norm.

The presenters of that video make the point that with "the people of Caledonia" the Romans didn't have the aid of pre-Romanisation which so often helped the Romans win the hearts and minds of those the Romans were considering annexing.