Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[Renatus]

Fascinating! I wonder if any of the food or other traces might tell us more about what time of year the destruction took place, as some people claim about Pompeii?

Soft fruits might provide an answer.  The article in The Colchester Archaeologist refers to earlier finds of evidence for cherries, elderberries, raspberries, plums and sloes.  If these came from securely dated Boudican deposits, they could be significant.

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It seems from the evidence that the Brythons only wanted to wipe Colchester off the map, throwing the occupying Romans off their lands and didn’t need supplies.

This also supports the theory that their prime objective was Colchester and not an extended campaign at this time, the real prize was getting their land back.

I have always wondered why the inhabitants of Colchester did not fortify the town if they were concerned about being attacked and did not send away its vulnerable citizens including the old, the women and children. It would appear that unusual activity was apparent but that people were reassured. A request for more troops was made, they were sent and arrived but it seems from the description they were not fully armed, so again if there was an imminent threat why weren’t they? 

I don't think there is any great mystery about this.  The sources indicate that the colonists were lured into a false sense of security by forces sympathetic to the revolt:  Tacitus, Ann. 14.32, ' . . . hampered also by covert adherents of the rebellion who interfered with their plans, they neither secured their position by fosse or rampart nor took steps, by removing the women and the aged, to leave only able-bodied men in the place.' (Loeb); Dio, 62.9. 'Neither fear them because they have burned a couple of cities; for they did not capture them by force nor after a battle, but one was betrayed and the other abandoned to them.' (Loeb)

As to the 200 men sent by Catus Decianus, London did not have a garrison at that time and Decianus cobbled together a force from whatever sources he could scratch together and armed them as best he could.  Possibly, some of them, at least, were members of the governor's staff, who had left most of their weaponry in their legionary fortresses and had only their side-arms.

It is highly unlikely that the Trinovantes were so naive as to believe that they had only to reclaim their lands, destroying the colony and slaughtering the veterans in the process, without incurring massive retribution from Suetonius when he returned from Wales.  The only way they could succeed was, in combination with the other tribes, to drive the Romans out of the province.