BOUDICA: WARRIOR QUEEN

Quick Overview

Boudica (alternative spelling: Boudicca), also known as Boadicea and known in Welsh as Buddug (d. AD 60 or 61) was queen of the British Iceni tribe who led an uprising against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire. [1] Boudica's husband Prasutagus, ruler of the Iceni tribe who had ruled as a nominally independent ally of Rome, left his kingdom jointly to his daughters and the Roman Emperor in his will. However, when he died, his will was ignored — the kingdom was annexed as if conquered, Boudica was flogged, her daughters were raped, and Roman financiers called in their loans. In AD 60 or 61, while the Roman governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, was leading a campaign on the island of Anglesey in northern Wales, Boudica led the Iceni people, along with the Trinovantes and others, in revolt. They destroyed Camulodunum (modern Colchester), formerly the capital of the Trinovantes, but now a colonia (a settlement for discharged Roman soldiers) and the site of a temple to the former emperor Claudius, which was built and maintained at local expense. They also routed a Roman legion, the IX Hispana, sent to relieve the settlement. On hearing the news of the revolt, Suetonius hurried to Londinium (London), the twenty-year-old commercial settlement that was the rebels' next target. Concluding that he did not have the numbers to defend the settlement, Suetonius evacuated and abandoned it — Londinium was burnt to the ground, as was Verulamium (St Albans). An estimated 70,000–80,000 people were killed in the three cities (though the figures are suspect).[2] Suetonius, meanwhile, regrouped his forces in the West Midlands and, despite being heavily outnumbered, defeated the Britons in the Battle of Watling Street. The crisis caused the emperor Nero to consider withdrawing all Roman forces from Britain, but Suetonius' eventual victory over Boudica re-secured Roman control of the province. Boudica then either killed herself so she would not be captured, or fell ill and died — the extant sources, Tacitus[3] and Cassius Dio,[4] differ. Interest in the history of these events was revived during the English Renaissance and led to a resurgence of Boudica's legendary fame during the Victorian era, when Queen Victoria was portrayed as her 'namesake'. Boudica has since remained an important cultural symbol in the United Kingdom. The absence of native British literature during the early part of the first millennium means that Britain owes its knowledge of Boudica's rebellion solely to the writings of the Romans.
1. Davies, John (1993). A History of Wales. London: Penguin. pp. 28 ff. 2. Tacitus, Annals 14.333. Tacitus, Agricola 14-16; Annals 14:29-394. Cassius Dio, Roman History 62:1-12

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Watling Street

The Battle of Watling Street, one of the bloodiest battles in ancient British history, was fought in the year 60 or 61 AD between an alliance of the British tribes led by Boudica, Queen of the Iceni, who had previously destroyed the Roman towns of Colchester, London and Verulamium (St Albans), and a Roman army led by Gaius Suetonius Paulinus. The site of the Battle of Watling Street is unknown, although various sites have been suggested as its location. Most historians favour a site in the Midlands, probably along the Roman road of Watling Street between Londinium and Viroconium (Wroxeter in Shropshire). Other possible sites include Manduessedum (Mancetter), near Atherstone in Warwickshire, a site close to High Cross in Leicestershire, and a small dip at Cuttle Mill, two miles south-east of Lactodorum (Towcester) in Northamptonshire. The Kennet valley, close to Silchester has also been suggested as a plausible site for the battle. Suetonius' force totalled around 10,000 and included his own Legio XIV Gemina, parts of the XX Valeria Victrix. Although heavily outnumbered, he chose a good position to give battle. The Romans lined up in a narrow gorge with a forest behind them, the gorge opened out into a wide plain on which the Britons amassed. The gorge offered protection for the Roman flanks, and limited the combat frontage of the battle, whilst the forest impeded approach from the rear. The Romans adopted a close formation , with lightly armed auxiliaries on the flanks and cavalry on the wings. Tacitus relates:- 'So Suetonius gathered the 14th legion and detachments of the 20th, together with the nearest available auxiliaries - in all around 10,000 armed men - and prepared to join battle without delay. He chose a position in a defile with a wood behind him. He established there could be no enemy except at his front, where there was an open plain with no fear of ambush. Then he drew up his regular troops in close array, with the light-armed auxiliaries at the flanks and the cavalry massed on the wings. By contrast, unprecedented numbers of British troops and followers paraded wildly everywhere. Their confidence was such that they brought their partners to witness the victory, installing them in carts at the extreme border of the field.' Although the Britons had mustered a huge force, they were poorly equipped in contrast to the Romans, they placed their wagon train in an arc formation from which point their women and children could watch what they expected to be a great victory. As the two opposing sides prepared for battle, their leaders gave speeches to inspire their soldiers, Boudicca proudly addressed her army from her war chariot. The Roman historian Tacitus, whose father-in-law, the future governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola was on Suetonius's staff at the time, relates Boudica's speech to her followers-: "But now, it is not as a woman descended from noble ancestry, but as one of the people that I am avenging lost freedom, my scourged body, the outraged chastity of my daughters. Roman lust has gone so far that not our very persons, nor even age or virginity, are left unpolluted. But heaven is on the side of a righteous vengeance; a legion which dared to fight has perished; the rest are hiding themselves in their camp, or are thinking anxiously of flight. They will not sustain even the din and the shout of so many thousands, much less our charge and our blows. If you weigh well the strength of the armies, and the causes of the war, you will see that in this battle you must conquer or die. This is a woman's resolve; as for men, they may live and be slaves." Tacitus also makes reference to Suetonius speech:-"Disregard the clamours and empty threats of the natives! In their ranks, there are more women than fighting men! Unwarlike, unarmed, when they see the arms and the courage of the conquerors who have driven them to flight so often, they will break immediately. Even when a force contains many legions, few among them win battles - what special glory for your few numbers to win the renown of a whole army! Just keep it in close order. Throw your javelin, and then carry on. Fell them with shield-bosses, kill them with swords. Do not think of plunder. When you have won, you will have everything." Boudica launched a massive frontal attack on the Romans, but as the Britons advanced, they were channelled into a tightly packed mass. They were met by a hail of Roman javelins. The Romans then pushed forward in small units. With their superior armour, weapons, and discipline, the Romans possessed the advantage in the hand to hand fighting which followed against the tightly packed Britons. As British losses mounted, they attempted to flee, but their escape was impeded by their arc of wagons and they were slaughtered. The cavalry also attacked the Britons from the flanks as the Roman infantry advanced. The Romans killed not only men but women and children also. 'The remaining Britons fled with difficulty as their line of wagons blocked the escape route. The Romans did not spare even the women. Baggage animals too, transfixed with weapons, added to the heaps of the dead. Tacitus provides an account of the final battle that relates to the women running about frantically, hair wild, naked and screaming. He reports that 80,000 Britons were killed with the loss of only 400 Romans. After losing the battle, Boudica is said by Tacitus to have poisoned herself rather than be captured by the Romans.

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Boudica’s Historical Significance


Although Boudica ultimately failed in her quest to rid Britain of the Romans, she is still celebrated today as a national heroine and a symbol of freedom, justice and courage in the face of tyranny. She fought against the Romans triumphed as courageous female leader, standing up for what she believed in. This courage is perhaps what she is most famous for, and what has kept her historically significant throughout the centuries.
Boudica is not just famous in the modern day. Boudica began to be seen as an important figure in British history during the reign of Elizabeth I, when the works of Tacitus were rediscovered. Boudica’s defence against the Romans was often compared to Elizabeth, who, at the time in 1588, was required to defend Britain from a possible invasion of Spanish Armada.
However, Boudica gained the most amount of interest in the Victorian period, which led to her position in history today. The husband of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, commissioned the statue of Boudica which stands outside the Houses of Parliament in London. Boudica actually became a symbol of the British Empire. Plays, poems and books were written about Boudica, too.
Boudica was also adopted by the Suffragettes as one of the symbols of the campaign for women’s suffrage. In 1908, a “Boadicea Banner” was carried in several National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies marches.
In Wales, Boudica was chosen by the Welsh public as one of eleven statues of historical figures to be included in the Marble Hall at Cardiff City Hall.
(c) https://englishhistory.net/romans/boudica/ Retrieved 11 February 2023

WERE THERE CELTIC EPICS ABOUT BOUDICA?

(c) Dr. William Thierfelder

 Like many ancient peoples, the Celts in Britain (also known as the Britons) had a strong oral tradition but did not develop a written language. By the time they might have--in the early first century CE--they were already being absorbed slowly but surely by their Roman conquerors. And those few Britons (if any) who did become literate would have written and spoken Latin. Further, by Boudica’s time, the Celtic priests and priestesses known as Druids (who also had no written language) were being eliminated by the Romans, and the Germanic runic alphabet didn’t come into maturity until the second century before it, too, was absorbed into the Latin alphabet. So, the bottom line is that any contemporary stories about Boudica that might have been told among some Celtic tribes were oral, probably not “epic” in scope, and surely lost in the onslaught of invading armies. As a result, our only sources for Boudica’s story are relatively brief chapters in manuscripts by the Roman writers Tacitus and Cassius Dio; indeed, there may have been other historians who wrote of the savage Celtic queen, but we have no record of their work. It’s not until the 6th century CE that we find a reference in Latin (the universal language of Europe until well into the Renaissance) by an obscure British monk Gildas the Wise in a book titled On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain. He never actually mentions her by name, but scholars seem confident that the “treacherous lioness” he describes is the Iceni queen. Meanwhile, after the Roman conquest of most Celtic lands, Celtic culture throughout Europe and Britain was further trampled by Germanic tribes, Slavs, and Huns from 300 to 600 CE. The death knell in Britain came with the Viking invasions that began in the late 700s. By that point there had also been a widespread Christianizing of the British Isles thanks to Emperor Constantine’s conversion in the 4th century CE. Therefore, the Celtic oral tradition--which may have been quite rich--would have been lost in the whirlwind of invasions and Christianization, a tradition that became the ghostly memory of a culture long since absorbed by other groups. As some areas of Europe began to emerge from the so-called darkness of the medieval period--and the “sunshine” of humanism and the Renaissance began to spread from the Mediterranean into England--stories about Boudica also began to materialize thanks to the discovery of Roman documents long lost in ancient monasteries, war-torn libraries, and the ruins of ancient buildings. Thus, the descendants of the original Britons became aware of Boudica not through their own epics and poems, but through Tacitus, Cassius Dio, and later Renaissance writers who took the Roman stories and embellished them. Today, the people of Britain see Boudica as a heroine, but only through the writings of Boudica’s conquerors and those Renaissance writers who followed--not through the oral or written sagas of their own ancestors.
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