Judging from the environmental evidence, in AD 98 the climate in the north was a little milder than it is today, closer to that of south-east England. This may well have changed and grown colder during the second century. There is evidence for widespread cultivation as well as pastoral activities. Several sections of Hadrian’s Wall were built on ploughed land. The population was considerable and this was far from being a wasteland, but most people lived in small settlements, often a few huts on their own, with larger villages and hill forts much less common. In spite of some attempts by scholars to pacify Iron Age Britain, all the evidence points to societies in which warfare, usually in the form of raiding, was an ever-present threat. This is true of most of the ancient world. The Roman Empire imposed on a large chunk of the world a much higher level of peace than it had ever enjoyed before. The famous Pax Romana was real, but it was maintained by force, and in some areas, especially near the frontiers, it was far from unbroken by outbursts of violence and warfare.

Archaeology is not well suited to charting political change among Iron Age peoples. Tincommius and his growing empire are both inventions. There is no evidence as yet for the appearance of so powerful a leader in this region, or for any reuse of an abandoned and slighted Roman fort in the way described in the story. However, his career so far and in the stories to come is based on similar charismatic leaders who appeared at other times in the lands around the empire. At the close of the first century AD, most observers in northern Britain would have surely seen the Romans as in retreat. In such circumstances, other forces quickly emerge to fill the power vacuum.

The druids have attracted a good deal of interest over the centuries, most of it highly romantic. Julius Caesar depicts them as important figures in the Gaul of his day, acting above and outside the tribes. He does not portray them as anti-Roman or as able to control the tribes. Under Augustus and the other emperors the druidic cult in Gaul was restricted and later suppressed, although it survived covertly. In Britain the Romans attacked the centre of the cult in AD 60, invading the island of Mona (or Anglesey) and destroying the sacred groves there. This does appear to have ended the formal structure of the druidic cult. In spite of this people called druids appear in Gaul and Britain in the centuries to come, but lack the status of the aristocratic priests of earlier years.