Cunobeline
He controlled a substantial portion of southeastern Britain, including the territories of the Catuvellauni and the Trinovantes, and he was called "King of the Britons" (Britannorum rex) by Suetonius.
[3][4] Cunobeline appears in British legend as Cynfelyn (Welsh), Kymbelinus (medieval Latin) or Cymbeline, as in the play by William Shakespeare.
Archaeology shows an increase in luxury goods imported from the continent, including Italian wine and drinking vessels, olive oil, and fish sauces from Hispania, glassware, jewellery, and Gallo-Belgic tableware, which from their distribution appear to have entered Britain via the port of Camulodunum.
Strabo reports Rome's lucrative trade with Britain: the island's exports included grain, gold, silver, iron, hides, slaves, and hunting dogs.
[15] The Lexden Tumulus on the outskirts of Colchester has been suggested as his tomb (although the earlier Trinovantian king Addedomarus is another candidate for its occupant).
In the early 9th century, in Historia Brittonum, Cunobeline appears as Bellinus, son of Minocannus, and is described as a British king in the time of Julius Caesar.
The names of Cunobeline and his son Adminius probably became corrupt due to a series of scribal errors in the transmission of the name from Suetonius' Life of Caligula to Orosius's Historia adversus Paganos, the latter of which was a primary source for the author of the Historia Brittonum: In the Welsh Triads and medieval literature such as Branwen ferch Llŷr, the Dream of Macsen Wledig, and Lludd and Llefelys, the Historia Brittonum's "Bellinus son of Minocannus" was transformed into Welsh as Beli Mawr ("Beli the Great") son of Mynogan (also spelled Manogan).
The remainder of the genealogy contains the names of a sequence of Roman emperors and two Welsh mythological figures, Guidgen (Gwydion) and Lou (Lleu).
[21] Geoffrey's story was incorporated into Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles in 1577,[22] where it was found by William Shakespeare and used as the basis of his romance, Cymbeline.
The king, under the influence of his wicked second wife, forbids his daughter Imogen to marry Posthumus Leonatus, a low-born but worthy man, preferring that she marry his boorish stepson Cloten, leading to mistaken identity, jealousy caused by false accusations of infidelity and war with Rome provoked by the withholding of tribute, again at the instigation of the queen.
In the end, peace between Britain and Rome is re-established, and Cymbeline is reunited with his two sons, Guiderius and Arviragus, who were abducted in childhood by Belarius, a wrongly banished nobleman.
