IN ANCIENT TIMES
Although Caradog had been led captive to Rome, the spirit of the Siluries was not broken. A fierce guerilla warfare was carried on in the woods and morasses. The long and bitter resistance was finally crushed by Julius Frontinus, and by the year A.D. 78 the Roman conquest of Wales was assured.
By A.D. 75 the Romans had reached the flat plain where, within a mile or so of each other, the three rivers, Rhymney, Taff and Ely reach the sea, , and had built there a wooden fort. Later this was rebuilt in stone and its remains can still be seen in patches at the base of the walls of Cardiff Castle. This was the principal centre of occupation of what was the old county of Glamorgan.
Leaving at Cardiff a permanent garrison, the Romans pushed west and north. A Romanroad was made to Gelligaer as a connecting link between the forts of Cardiff and Brecon. In addition to a fort at Gelligaer another was eventually built at Penydarren. Thence the road ran through Pontsarn and Vaynor to Y Gaer, near Brecon. On an ordnance map one can trace the line of the Roman road on Gelligaer common, where it is known as Heol Adam.
The Roman road from the fort at Gelligaer lies just west of Fochriw and Pant-y-Waun.
It is said that the Romans marched 11 Roman miles a day and there was a rest post at Twyn-y-Waun which was 11 miles from the fort at Gelligaer. A Roman fort also exists at Pen-y-Darren which is located underneath the current site of Merthyr Town Football Club.
Between the departure of the Romans and the coming of the Norman baron who built his great castle at Caerphilly, nine centuries elapsed. During the first part of this long period there is very little direct evidence of what happened, not only in the Fochriw area, but even in Britain.
The whole of the island was invaded, plundered and harassed by the Teutons from the east and the Goidels from the west with the result that the old Romano-British way of life broke down. These were the Dark Ages. Out of the gloom of the dark days of the fifth century there emerged the celebrated Celtic Saints.
There may have been some Christians in the Roman army of occupation, and also among the immigrants that came to Britain from the Continent. If so, it was only in, or around, Caerleon and Caerwent that we could expect to find a fairly strong Christian element in the Wales of Roman times.
The tradition that Saints Aaron and Julius suffered martyrdom near Caerleon testifies to the presence of people who professed the Christian faith at that time. Archaeological evidence has also shown that some form of sub-Roman life persisted in that district for a century or more after the withdrawal of the Roman troops in A.D. 383. Furthermore, it is claimed that Christianity survived there into the Dark Ages.
In south Wales there are to be found many early Christian stone monuments, and the inscriptions carved upon them distinctly show that the people who raised these memorials had undeniable cultural associations with the early Christian communities in Gaul.