<P> The historian Theodor Mommsen (Britain, 1885) said that "It was not Britain that gave up Rome, but Rome that gave up Britain ...", arguing that Roman needs and priorities lay elsewhere . His position has retained scholarly support over the passage of time . </P> <P> Michael Jones (The End of Roman Britain, 1998) took the opposite view, saying that it was Britain that left Rome, arguing that numerous usurpers based in Britain combined with poor administration caused the Romano - Britons to revolt . </P> <P> Regarding the events of 409 and 410 when the Romano - Britons expelled Roman officials and sent a request for aid to Honorius, Michael Jones (The End of Roman Britain, 1998) offered a different chronology to the same end result: he suggested that the Britons first appealed to Rome and when no help was forthcoming, they expelled the Roman officials and took charge of their own affairs . </P> <P> One theory that occurs in some modern histories concerns the Rescript of Honorius, holding that it refers to the cities of the Bruttii (who lived at the "toe" of Italy in modern Calabria), rather than to the cities of the Britons . The suggestion is based on the assumption that the source (Zosimus) or a copyist made an error and actually meant Brettia when Brettania was written, and noting that the passage that contains the Rescript is otherwise concerned with events in northern Italy . </P>

When the romans left britain who took over the land