Camulodunum Camulodunum Camulodunum (; ), the Ancient Roman name for what is now Colchester in Essex, was an important town in Roman Britain, and the first capital of the province. It is claimed to be the oldest town in Britain. Originally the site of the Brythonic-Celtic oppidum of Camulodunon (meaning "stronghold of Camulos"), capital of the Trinovantes and later the Catuvellauni tribes, it was first mentioned by name on coinage minted by the chieftain Tasciovanus sometime between 20 and 10 BC. The Roman town began life as a Roman Legionary base constructed in the AD 40s on the site of the
Traditional English pronunciation of Latin light, so the stress must fall one syllable further back, on "cas" (which coincidentally happens to be a closed syllable and therefore heavy). Therefore, the standard English pronunciation is pronounced (note however that this word has the additional irregular pronunciation of ). Whether a vowel letter is pronounced "long" in English () or "short" () is unrelated to the length of the original Latin or Greek vowel. Instead it depends on position and stress. A vowel followed by a consonant at the end of a word is short in English, except that final "-es" is always long, as in Pales