Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[Nathan Ross]

70,000 dead... this figure looks fictitious at best.

Yes, in this case we can be pretty sure that Tacitus is talking out of his hat!

The population of London in AD60 was about 10,000 (Museum of London estimate); Colchester was about 15,000, St Albans about 5,000. There were probably fewer than 50,000 Roman civilian citizens in the whole province, most of them nowhere near the rebellion.

To escape from Londinium by boat would risk sailing past the Trinovantes further down river, How long that would be a safe option for, I wouldn't like to guess.

Even today the Thames at London Bridge is about 230 metres across. Further downstream it widens to around 600 metres at Gravesend. In Roman times it would probably have been wider.

The maximum range of an English bow in the 12th Century was c.137 metres, and it's unlikely the native Britons of the 1st Century had anything more powerful. All a boat or ship would need to do is keep to the southern or Kent shore and they'd be well out of range of anything the natives of Essex could lob at them!