±«Óãtv

To the Britons, the entire natural world was sacred and they, like the Romans, had a wide array of gods.

As the centuries passed, there was a tendency to identify the gods of the Britons with those of the Romans.

This was a result of some degree of cleverness on the Romans' part. They attempted to end allegiance to the old Celtic gods by linking them with Roman one. The Roman god Mars, for example, was linked to the Celtic Oculus.

Various other religions and beliefs had their followers, and druidism survived despite the Romans' attempts to quash it.

From 306 AD, however, when Emperor Constantine came to power in Rome, a new religious movement, Christianity, was making itself felt. Constantine was the first Christian Emperor, and his Edict of Milan in 313 fully legalised the religion across the Empire.

Although Christianity did not reach all parts of Wales until after the fall of the Empire, it slowly began to replace the earlier Celtic religions.

It is difficult to determine to what extent Wales became Christianised while under the sway of Rome. There were bishops in Britain by 313 - one perhaps at Caerwent - but the in-depth Christianisation of Wales took a while longer.

Initially it was the religion of the urban areas: the civitas. The population at large, though, continued for some time their polytheistic worship based on Roman and Celtic beliefs.