Roman \"Abandonment\" of Britain: Fact or Fiction?

[Robert Vermaat]

I don't know whether Britain was still a province but I think that Britain still had ties to Rome because politically during the reign of Vortigern there was always conflict between the pro roman faction led by Ambrosius Aurelianus and the anti-roman faction led by Vortigern so there must have been a lot of people who still had fond memories of Rome. If Ambrosius was Riothamus as some people claim (Leon Fleuriot author of book Les Origins de la Bretagne which is written in French unfortunately) then that could be an explanation for why Riothamus went to the aid of Rome and disappeared from the pages of history in 470ad.

I'm afraid that the only evidence on which the 'pro-Roman' stance of Ambrosius and the 'anti-Roman' stance of Vortigern is based soleley on their names. This in turn led people to interpret a passage in the 9th c. Historia Brittonum (c. 31: "Vortigern ruled in Britain, and during his rule he was under pressure, from fear of the Picts and the Irish, and of a Roman invasion, and, not least, from dread of Ambrosius".) as proof of a conflict over that issue.
However, if you accept that Riothamus was also Ambrosius, the original assumption falls away, and hence the political reason behind their rivalry.

As it happens, I cannot support the identification of Riothamus with Ambrosius. Apart from other differences in their respective lives, Sidonius Appolinarius, the pinnacle of Romanitas in Late Roman Gaul, would never have addressed Ambrosius with a Celtic name.