Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[Theoderic]

The Colchester Archaeologist refers to earlier finds of evidence for cherries, elderberries, raspberries, plums and sloes.  If these came from securely dated...

Yes, good thinking! This page has plums, cherries and raspberries from August, elderberries not till September, all of them into October. Sloes, apparently, are traditonally harvested after the first frost, in October.

So if these fruits (and the grapes we mentioned before) were indeed from the Boudican layer, and were fresh and not preserved, then it's pushing the fall of the colony back into September/October...

If it is the case that it was the end of September / beginning of October that Colchester was burnt, the continuation of the war makes it more likely to run into the following year, with the associated actions. 

Renatus wrote:

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 just seems strange to me that if the Colchester inhabitants didn't think that they would be attacked why ask for troops at all? 

Renatus wrote:  [/size]

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.


If your [size=medium]supposition is correct it would imply that the Brythons were well organised and already had in place agreements with other tribes (apart from the Iceni) for a countrywide insurrection before they attacked Colchester?