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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Printable Version

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Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - John1 - 08-04-2012

check their "sell by" dates next time you're passing through !
Currently operated by Bannaventa Chef.


Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - Theoderic - 08-04-2012

Hi John1

A trifle harsh to lay all the blame on me - but I hope it will be worth it.... Big Grin

I gather that if you are a Church Stowe advocate that you are of the "Cavalry Dash" persuasion?

As Tacitus mentions that Seutonius only abandoned London and retreats because he had a "small army", he then retreats up Watling Street. Why would the Brythons chase him with a huge host when they would have no idea where he was going or how far.

Also he was supposed to take refugees with him. As they could only travel at about 10 miles a day would the Brythons not have cut him off at around Dunstable which is about 30 miles from London (3 days travel with the refugees)and 65 miles from Thetford (2 days travel for a strong warrior band) or 60 miles from Colchester.

It would seem a risky strategy by Seutonius Paulinus who was a cautious man by all accounts.


Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - John1 - 08-04-2012

worth it? oh it always has been in the past. Harsh? me? no I'm the softy, just wait until the others get going.

In the tradition of the post I am indeed of the "cavalry dash persuasion" although it may not have been cavalry and it may not have been a dash. My sense is that we armchair types try to tie too much together too precisely and give far more credit to the sources than they deserve.The marching time/distance calculations are a general indicator but no more, they do sometimes tend to become a definitive crutch that should be relied on with some wariness.Certainly some strategic theories take these as the only definitive elements and as a result topographies which are clearly inadequate are nominated.

Did Paulinus get all the way down to London? maybe,
Did he make the assessment on what he knew or reports he received? maybe.
Did the, not quite contemporary, chroniclers make stuff up or alter facts? certainly.
Do we really know Paulinus' character in any meaningful way? certainly not.
Did he take refugees or anyone who could do 30 miles a day? he probably took no-one, they probably just tried to tag along.

The solution to this one is probably more bluntly about strategic location and strategic topography, of which there are very few candidates within the current candidate group. We can, and will, keep going around the armchair (it is your fault) having diverse interpretations of some wobbly historic accounts but more than a pinch of salt has to be added to all literary references and topographic sensitivity could come to the fore more in my view.The site is around somewhere with a real topography, and a real archaeology. For the time being I'm going with Steve Punts psychics as the best method we have at our disposal.


Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - Theoderic - 08-04-2012

I sense a certain amount of healthy cynicism but I have to admit that the psychics were in a league of their own!

I am still not convinced that the Brythons would have left the safety of their own lands when they would have known that there was an army waiting for them in pre set positions leaving their Southern flank open to the 2nd Legion or indeed the 20th Legion.


Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - John1 - 08-04-2012

where would you put your money Deryk?


Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - Theoderic - 08-04-2012

I am more of the "escape to the West" viewpoint with refugees in tow with Seutonius Paulinus hoping to leave everything until the next fighting season because he had a reduced force from the Fourteenth (possibly 3,000 Batavians who would have joined with the Ninth and the Second to form a reasonable force if the others had turned up)but not enough on their own to defend London or to take the battle to the Brythons.

In fact it seems like the Romans seriously underestimated how many troops they would need anyway - they misjudged the Brythons.

Being forced into a battle against extreme odds because the Brythons kept coming.....but only when he could get enough troops to offer battle.... in the right place.


Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - Nathan Ross - 08-04-2012

I'm going to exercise extreme discretion in all further posts here!

Quote:My sense is that we armchair types try to tie too much together too precisely and give far more credit to the sources than they deserve.
Hmm, but what else do we have to go on? Granted, ancient historians should not be regarded as entirely objective and reliable. But, as has been said here before, Tacitus was writing for an educated readership, many of whom will have had either direct or second-hand experience of the events he describes. So it seems counterproductive to disregard his account, unless we have compelling reasons for doing so - some contradictory version of events from a possibly more reliable source, for example.

In the case of your list of maybes and possibles, Tacitus provides clear answers for all of these. There has been a trend in historiography, I think, to overcriticise any assertions of fact in Tacitus (which leads, I think, to the fuzziness about the date of the revolt - T clearly says it was AD61). However, since the description of the battle site (and therefore almost all of our various speculations on this thread!) derives from this same source, to start cherrypicking what you do and don't want to believe risks leaving us with nothing more than the vague sense of a war that might have happened once, somewhere, about which nothing concrete can be said... :???:


Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - Theoderic - 08-04-2012

I think there is a debate here about the year of the revolt.

Seutonius Paulinus arrived in AD58 and had two years successful campaigning against the Silures / Ordovices before he invaded Anglesey according to Tacitus.

Then again the Governor was replaced in the second half of AD61 (Publius Petronius Turpilianus resigned his consulship early in AD61 to take on the Governorship of Britain).

Yet according to Tacitus, Seutonius received re-inforcements after the big battle and continued campaigning past the end of the normal "season" into the winter with the troops being under canvass.

I think that it is because of these conflicts in timings that AD60 is reasoned to be a reasonable date for the rebellion.

So its not cherry picking it is just trying to make sense of the timescales which are all too important in the interpretations.


Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - Nathan Ross - 08-04-2012

Quote:I think there is a debate here about the year of the revolt.
There has indeed been debate - dating back in 1878 in fact! The redating of the revolt to AD60, first proposed then, was popularised (along with the 'cavalry dash' idea Confusedhock: ) by Dudley and Webster in 1962. However, Kevin Carroll's The Date of Boudicca's Revolt (Britannia, Vol 10, 1979) provides, I think, a very convincing argument that the events happened when Tacitus said they did.

We don't actually know when Paulinus took up his command in Britain, so Tacitus's two successful years could have been 59 and 60. He tells us, though, that the uprising occurred 'in the consulship of Cæsonius Pætus and Petronius Turpilianus', which was AD61. Turpilianus had 'just laid down his consulship' when he was nominated to replace Paulinus - ordinary consuls usually served for the first six months of the year, so if the revolt happened in 60 Turpilianus wouldn't have been able to take over command in Britain until the autumn of the following year at the earliest. Also, we know that his colleage Pætus arrived in Armenia for his own ill-fated goverorship in 62.

Despite this, as Timothy Barnes says in Ammianus Marcellinus and the Representation of Historical Reality, "many modern students of Roman Britain have shown a perverse resolve to reject Tacitus' explicit and emphatic date for the rebellion in favor of 60 simply because he notes that Petronius Turpilianus had relinquished his consulate before he was sent to Britain to replace Suetonius Paulinus."

So it seems that 61 was the year of the revolt. Although, as Carroll says at the end of his essay, "our evidence will not permit a definite chronology. Only a possible chronology can be offered." I actually attempted my own 'possible chronology' back here, which I think at least demonstrates that it was feasible for all these events to take place within the same year. :wink:


Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - John1 - 08-05-2012

Hmm, but what else do we have to go on?

The big topographic principals.

There is a "narrow defile" and "plain" clearly major topographic features that are going to be recognisable for generations or millenia and had a significant impact on the choice of site and course of the battle. So that effectively knocks out Paulerspury, High Cross and Arbury Banks as there is really nothing that can be described as a narrow defile in the vicinity, certainly nothing of sufficient significance to impact the course of a battle.

So far Mancetter, Church Stowe, Virginia Water and Dunstable are the only sites offering the narrow defile and plain.

Then there is ommission of major site factors, the Anker at Mancetter and Thames at Virgina Water would have been major factors on any action but don't rate a comment, so their likelihood drops several notches but still cannot be discounted entirely on the basis that they have a defile. So of the current candidates topography leads to 2 lead candidates, CS and Dunstable. To date I haven't seen any site identified west of London that can compare with these two, but I think Steve has one up his sleeve and I really, really want to see it named and detailed. :-P

So for each strong candidate site one builds a narrative that plausibly fits the text with some wiggle room allowed, both CS and Dunstable do this but do not fit other models (eg Steve's work), so either the sites are wrong or the models are wrong. I'm not contending either CS or Dunstable is correct only that they are currently the best candidates and the texts can be molded to fit them. Molding the sites to fit the texts, or making cast iron assumptions about the campaign and military practice (marching distances/times) has led to the identification of sites that don't get past square one on the more critical topographic identity tests.

So I don't believe we are dumping the texts but using topography to shed light on the texts, if CS or Dunstable throw up incontrovertible archaeological evidence of a major battle in 61AD (I am listening) then the texts will fit but never completely, thereby openning up entire new avenues of exploration. The texts are accepted but the interpretation is put to one side as the topographic tests and (hopefully one day) archaeological tests take on the dominant role of assessing the sites.

Ideally the topographic line of investigation will throw up a further dozen or so potential sites that match or outstrip the current candidates, each will compel a slightly different interpretation of the text but that will make the whole exploration richer. We're seeing this already through this thread, can you interpret in or out field fortifications? can you assess the strength of a site on it's access to water?

The text evidence just isn't strong enough to say north or west of London but to date the best candidates we have are north of London and can fit both the text and the broader strategic situation in a way the western option cannot yet.

Get the topography close first and don't sweat the small stuff.

OK that should of got a few people going, heading back to the shelter now.


Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - Theoderic - 08-05-2012

Many thanks for that.

An extraordinary encapsulation of events and it certainly could be valid.

There are many things that I agree with but this is all down to interpretation so of course I have differing views in certain areas. Big Grin


Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - Theoderic - 08-05-2012

Hi John 1

One site worth thinking about has been mentioned before on this thread.

West of Silchester on the Speen / Bath road is Cunetio (Mildenhall Wiltshire) in the Kennet valley, which fulfills the topographical, hydrological and the events can be made to fit the texts as you say. It also is backed by the oldest documented forest in Britain.

It has iron age earthworks and in AD60/61 had a Roman road station on the hill built behind the eathworks.

An area that the Brythons knew well as it was just off the Ridgeway and close to Avebury a religious site. Accessible by Roman roads and Brythonic trackways.

It is certainly worth looking at..... Wink


Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - Steve Kaye - 08-05-2012

Quote:I was wondering if perhaps anyone has a view on whether there were two armies working in concert, with the Iceni and the Trinovantes destroying the forts early in the campaign (perhaps as a practice run against the Romans), the Trinovantes destroying a virtually undefended Colchester and the Iceni then ambushing and destroying a depleted Ninth Legion.

That's what I think is the most likely configuration of the tribes. The Iceni clobbering the 9th somewhere east of Watling Street and north of Suetonius' then position, might help explain why he marched on to London (with his full army), i.e. he had to go south because the Iceni could cut his northern retreat route. The Iceni then followed him to London and destroyed St. Albans as they passed. Then with the Iceni north of London and the Trinovantes approaching from the east the only routes of retreat left to S. are south or west.

Quote:The other point that I have difficulty with is the concept that the Brythons would have advanced on London when they must have known that Seutonius Paulinus would try to bring them to battle in the typical Roman style, leaving their homelands undefended.
Suetonius' original 'enclosing' plan failed - 9th destroyed, 2nd disobeying orders - therefore the Brits had to destroy the one remaining army in the field. The Brits cannot sit and wait in their homeland for the Romans to regroup (which might have taken until the following year), they had to chase and destroy S. The minor forts are of no consequence, a dangerous strategic distraction. It seems to me that we all have difficulty fully appreciating the death struggle that the uprising represents - it is 'total war', similar to that in the Soviets in WWII. Whichever side loses will be annihilated (warriors, Legionaries, wives, followers, sons and others enslaved). The leaders on either side viscerally understood that. The Brit leaders must drive their horde(s) to catch and destroy S. and then push westwards into the military zone hoping that a general uprising then takes place and the Ordovices etc. join in destroying the remaining Roman forces in the western fortresses.


Quote:What they would not have allowed for was the Romans retreating.
Possibly not allowed for but that is what happened - you could almost conclude that the Brits early success drove them to their own destruction. That is, if S. had managed to bring together all his units in the east then the Brits might have been capable of a second Teutoberg, on prepared ground, somewhere in East Anglia, Cambridgeshire or Essex. Maybe that was the Brit Plan A but it didn't transpire and they had to implement Plan B, follow and destroy S.

John1, you list Silchester as a contender for the battle site but, unless you are thinking of the fiction author 'who shall not be named', I don't know anyone who supports that idea. Now, if you had written, 'somewhere west of Silchester' .......

By the way, I attended the Silchester Open Day yesterday and got into conversation with one chap on a display. He confirmed what I think you all know but it's worth restating:
1) all buildings at a chronostratigraphic level 55-80AD destroyed/burnt
2) wells destroyed/in-filled at the same level
3) 10 year hiatus of rebuilding after the destruction and then along a new alignment.

I'm hoping Prof. Fulford is going to write a third Britannia monograph covering this period. I have a horrible feeling that Insular IX won't supply any further evidence to tighten that date range and we may have to wait some years for another area to be opened-up and excavated.

And, John, 'get thee behind me Satan' and stop teasing me with the temptation to name my favourite site. In anycase, I don't have one.

WARNING: Self-publicising about to start!
Deryk, Cunetio is a very good candidate - number 10 in my list of 118 possible battle sites. Much of the Kennet valley is of candidate material and I had to try hard to limit the number of possible sites there by thinking that S., with the spare time he had available while waiting for the Brit horde, would have chosen the best-of-the-best. By the way, Wessex Archaeology have now published their report on the Time Team Cunetio excavations in 2009 - available here.

Nathan, your comments on the worth of Tacitus are spot on and thanks for the dating (60 or 61 argument).

Regards, Steve Kaye


Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - John1 - 08-05-2012

John1, you list Silchester as a contender for the battle site

West of Silchester will do, but mainly still wanting to be sarcastic about the BBC "Digging for Britain" statements.

Teasing you Steve? Noooo you are the tease until you point to the site :twisted:

Deryk may have done the pointing for you (Steve, was Mildenhall one of your tested sites)and put himself in the glorious position of producing a map and statement of potential for the Mildenhall Wilts scenario. Go on Deryk give it a shot, it'll be the first western attempt since Fuentes, 85 miles, so out of Nathan's range though, can we break through the "extreme discretion"?

Steve, Grahame and I are posting our stuff on Academia.edu so it would be good to see the others registered there as well

Mildenhall is a fascinating landsape from what I've just googled around and I'm looking forward to hearing the topographic fit. Plenty of narrow defile options but I can't make out the plane, and the Kennett presents the same obstacle as Mancetter and Virginia Water have at first glance. I also hope to hear a bit about "anchoring of the wings" which seemed to be Mark Hatch's key diagnostic element, but that was a media thing so who knows what was actually said. Even without the Boudiccan association the earthworks visible on the OS make this a fascinating site to unpick,

Good luck, this is all DERYK'S FAULT


Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - John1 - 08-05-2012

An area that the Brythons knew well

Ok the Brythons may, but are we talking about a very specific and distinct sub-group with the Iceni, were they actually Brythonic? would they have stryed that far?

http://www.proto-english.org/Boudica.pdf

funny how this thread takes you up many oblique paths, never a dull moment, and never an assumption un-challenged.