"Southeast England had submitted to Julius Caesar, and although the Romans had
never exercised effective control, they could claim that it belonged to them.
Britain also carried the glamour of being outside the known world . . . .
Claudius and his advisers realised how necessary it was for him to acquire
military prestige. Where better than Britain? . . . Claudius himself spent
only 16 days in Britain and then 'hastened back to Rome, sending ahead the news
of his victory' (Dio lx.22). The Senate voted him a triumph and an arch
erected later in his reign recorded that it was 'because he received the
surrender of eleven kings of Britain conquered without any loss and because
he was the first to subject to the sovereignty of the Roman people barbarian
tribes across the ocean' (ILS 216 = LR p. 113). . . . All had been stage-managed to give Claudius his triumph with a minimum of risk and effort on
his part."
Colin Wells, The Roman Empire 121 (1984 Stanford Press paperback).