A CLIMATE warm enough to support vineyards as far north as Yorkshire, a rising sea level and the Fens partly relinquished to salt water, Norwich and Colchester accessible by sea-going vessels, and the shingle banks which converge on Dungeness separated from the Kentish mainland by a gulf of shallow water where Romney Marsh now is: it sounds like the 21st century under the influence of accelerated global warming. It is, in fact, a description of Britain in late-Roman times.
Since the end of the last Ice Age some 10,000 years ago, our climate has oscillated around an average not very far from that which has prevailed this century. The Roman occupation of Britain coincided with a trend to warmer and drier conditions culminating in the fourth century ad, although even at its peak the climate was not as warm as during the fourth millennium bc, the high point of post-glacial climatic recovery.
The early development of the Roman civilisation took place during a less warm period. For more than 500 years after the founding of Rome, the Mediterranean region was cooler and wetter than it is today. Early Roman chroniclers wrote of severe winters when the Tiber froze over and snow lay for lengthy periods. Rain fell more frequently across northern Africa, helping this region to become Rome's granary. A journal kept by Ptolemy in Alexandria shows that the climate of northern Egypt was relatively moist as late as the second century ad.
According to the late Professor Hubert Lamb, one of the most respected names in the history of British climatology, the improvement in the climate of central and western Europe after 100bc led to the spread of vine cultivation in what is now France and Germany. The Emperor Domitian issued an edict forbidding the opening of new vineyards in these regions just before 100ad, presumably to maintain control of wine production and distribution from Rome itself. But the edict was overturned some 200 years later and it was at this time that the vine was introduced to Britain. Lamb suggests that the lack of evidence of wine imports from 300ad onwards indicates that Britain may have become self-sufficient in wine by this time.
Changes in the climate probably contributed to the decline of the Empire. As Europe became warmer and drier, so central Asia became so drought-ridden that it could no longer support its population. From 300ad, nomadic peoples began to migrate westwards towards Europe, and from the fifth century invading hordes from the east resulted in Rome withdrawing progressively from its eastern and northern provinces.
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