08-22-2022, 12:49 PM
Renatus wrote:
There were few reinforcements to be found in the south-west. The 2nd Legion, if it was based at Exeter at the time, was almost certainly with the campaigning army in Wales, with its base fortress manned only by its veterans, those with 16 years' service, under the command of its praefectus castrorum.
Firstly this is an excellent summation and one that I wholeheartedly support.
Having spent some time analysing the Tring area and having visited, I have moved my preferred site to Pitstone Hill rather than Dancers End based on the topography.
It seems logical that Seutonius would rely on the topography to trap the Brythons rather than the off-chance that the wagons would surround the battlefield to block escape and there are very few sites that come even close to the description. Pitstone Hill is one such and the area is also known for its springs as a water supply.
I also think that the comment that much of the Second Legion were with Seutonius at Anglesey, makes sense as Renatus notes and that the South West was just left with an "occupational policing army" as he states, similarly to the situation with the rest of Southern and Eastern Britain.
The Ninth were in the East North East guarding the North, the Fourteeenth with Seutonius, much of the Second with Seutonius and the Twentieth in Wales.
Roman intelligence appears to have underestimated the underlying tensions caused by repression and as the inhabitants would perceive it as wholesale theft of their land, that only needed a spark to ignite a country wide rebellion of a resentful people that that was lightly policed according to Tacitus.
Boudica was that spark.
There were few reinforcements to be found in the south-west. The 2nd Legion, if it was based at Exeter at the time, was almost certainly with the campaigning army in Wales, with its base fortress manned only by its veterans, those with 16 years' service, under the command of its praefectus castrorum.
Firstly this is an excellent summation and one that I wholeheartedly support.
Having spent some time analysing the Tring area and having visited, I have moved my preferred site to Pitstone Hill rather than Dancers End based on the topography.
It seems logical that Seutonius would rely on the topography to trap the Brythons rather than the off-chance that the wagons would surround the battlefield to block escape and there are very few sites that come even close to the description. Pitstone Hill is one such and the area is also known for its springs as a water supply.
I also think that the comment that much of the Second Legion were with Seutonius at Anglesey, makes sense as Renatus notes and that the South West was just left with an "occupational policing army" as he states, similarly to the situation with the rest of Southern and Eastern Britain.
The Ninth were in the East North East guarding the North, the Fourteeenth with Seutonius, much of the Second with Seutonius and the Twentieth in Wales.
Roman intelligence appears to have underestimated the underlying tensions caused by repression and as the inhabitants would perceive it as wholesale theft of their land, that only needed a spark to ignite a country wide rebellion of a resentful people that that was lightly policed according to Tacitus.
Boudica was that spark.
Deryk
