The queen of the Iceni, also known as Boudica, was based in eastern England. In A.D. 60, she led a revolt against the Romans that resulted in the destruction of at least two Roman settlements, including Londinium.
The revolt began after her husband's death. According to Publius Tacitus, one of the two ancient historians who record the life and revolt of Boudica, the Romans raped her two daughters and seized Iceni property. The uprising was over a Roman loan and not the flogging of Boudica or the rape of her daughters, as claimed by Dio. After initial success, the Romans were crushed at the Battle of Watling Street, as a result of a rebellion led by Boudica.
The fact that a woman had succeeded in killing so many Romans was considered a huge blow in the society of Rome. The Romans were brought ruin by a woman, a fact which caused them the greatest shame.
The only physical description of Boudica left is from Dio. It leaves readers with the impression that Boudica was a determined war leader. She clutched a spear when she spoke to her people.
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The Roman Empire launched a successful invasion of Britain in A.D. 43 with an army estimated by Joan P. Alcock in A Brief History of Roman Britain. The Romans launched military campaigns against the Brits in the past, but this time they were here to stay.
Roman Britain was always the wild northwest of the empire, requiring a huge military presence to maintain the northern border. I estimate this at around 12 percent of the entire military establishment in what was only four percent of the geographic area of the empire.
The tactic of force was used to hold Britain. Several leaders offered to make their kingdoms in Rome. As long as their leaders lived, they could maintain some level of sovereignty within the Roman Empire. The Iceni were a client state of Rome until the death of Prasutagus around A.D. 60.
The Iceni, who were wealthy at the time of the Roman invasion, had a large collection of precious metals, such as gold coins. Its leaders have been minting coins for over a century.
The client-state relationship with Rome was problematic before Boudica. The Iceni launched an unsuccessful revolt against Rome in A.D. 47. The Romans may have seen Prasutagus as a leader who could keep the Iceni in line, so they may have elevated him to the leadership of the tribe.
Prasutagus tried to strike a balance between the Iceni and the Romans. He left his kingdom to his two daughters. Historians theorize that the Iceni queen held strong anti-Roman views even after her husband was dead.
The Romans treated the Iceni, Boudica and her daughters terribly after Prasutagus' death. His house was taken over by slaves as if it were the spoils of war. His wife was flogged and his daughters were angry. Tacitus wrote that the chief men of the Iceni were stripped of their ancestral possessions, and the king's relatives were made slaves.
She had had enough of her daughters being raped and herself being flogged. She gained support from another tribe called the Trinovantes.
It seems as soon as a realistic opportunity presented itself to throw off the yoke of Rome the leading regional aristocrats did so, aligning their fate to that of Boudica and the Iceni. The Cantiaci, one of the most Romanised of the British tribes, did not join the revolt, and the question is why.
The Roman settlements of Londinium and Camulodunum were burned to the ground. The fires her forces lit have been found.
The results of the Boudican revolt may be compared on a smaller scale with those of the volcanic eruptions that smothered Pompeii and Herculaneum. The towns were destroyed. The town of Verulamium was also destroyed by Tacitus, although the archaeological evidence for this is less clear.
At the time of her rebellion, a lot of the Roman army in Britain was on the Isle of Anglesey, in Wales. The rebels would only encounter a small number of Roman troops for a while. The army of Boudica had swelled to 230,000 people, a figure that was probably exaggerated.
The revolt caught the Romans cold because of the far away deployment of their legions. When trying to incorporate the territory of the Iceni into the province, the Romans overplayed their hand in terms of civil government, and then when things went badly for them, they didn't have the military resources to deal with the fall out.
According to David Mattingly, a professor at the University ofLeicester, the Roman commander on the island, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, had only 10,000 men. Watling Street is an ancient road on the island. Paulinus had several other advantages. The legionnaires were well trained and battle hardened. The forces of Boudica were anything but.
There was no time for rebel forces to make large numbers of arms, nor was there an opportunity for them to pillage Roman weaponry, according to Mattingly. Many of the rebels will have had no body armour and will have been provided with makeshift weapons.
We know from Tacitus that it was in a forest at the rear where Paulinus engaged Boudica. The Roman forces were unable to take on the superior numbers of Boudica. Tacitus notes that Boudica made a tactical mistake when she put her supply wagons close to the front lines, blocking her troops when they had to retreat.
spears at the British by the Roman legions. The spears could have killed some Brits and rendered the shields useless. The Roman troops rushed out in a column. The cavalry with extended lances broke through the rebels who offered a strong resistance. The animals the rebels used to move were killed by the Romans.
Tacitus said that Boudica took poison to avoid being captured, while Dio said that she died of illness. According to Mattingly Paulinus set about re-subjugating the implicated areas by fire and sword, and this extended not only to the most hostile peoples, but also to those who had simply wavered in their loyalty.
The emperor, Roman political establishment and Roman military all knew that the Boudiccan revolt was close-run. The greatest loss of Varus was the loss of three legions to the Germans in AD 9. In AD 60/61, four legions were in danger in Britain, and the emperor was less secure in his position. The Romans knew that a loss to Boudica would be disastrous. You can see this in their response. The last flames of resistance were helped by the drafting in of 2,000 more legionaries from Germany together with 1,000 auxiliary cavalry and eight units of auxiliary foot. The Iceni homelands of north Norfolk remained under-developed for many years compared to the rest of the province.
The Iceni queen has become something of a modern-day hero after her rebellion failed to drive the Romans out of Britain.
Marguerite Johnson, a classics professor at the University of Newcastle, wrote that Boudica has become an icon of British national history and is now a symbol of women's power.
After the death of Queen Victoria, a statue of Boudica was unveiled in London. The Iceni queen is ready to take on the might of Rome and she is standing in her war chariot.
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The Roman Empire was not brought down by the rebellion of Boudica. What brought down the Roman Empire?
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