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RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - John1 - 10-03-2022
Boudicca wasn't Napoleon, the British forces present weren't under a formal chain of command and were almost certainly at each others throats and largely strategically and tactically incompetent at this scale of manoeuvre. They probably gathered in a Glastonbury scale mess at a predetermined location over the course of days, I go for Hunsbury but that is completely open. They know there are a lot of Romans a few miles away, they have a party and in the morning they start moving as an undisciplined horde. Roman auxiliary cavalry engages some elements, shepherding the mass in the right direction.
Front elements (more "Intercity Firm" rival gangs than a a disciplined brigade) take the line of least resistance, the uncontested valley floor. Momentum draws everyone else behind into the killing ground at the foot of Weedon Hill. Bingo!!! A ridge top of ballistas, scorpios, slingers, kitchen sink hurlers pound the Brits in an entirely one sided mugging.
We are dealing with something way more loose than Napoleonic Armies on the British side. This was a huge, uncontrolled and barely informed mob, it's really the only way the asymmetrical results can be accounted for.
Think Green Street, not Waterloo... Apply military logic to the Romans, mob logic to the Brits.....
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Renatus - 10-03-2022
On this reading, the open plain seems to have become a valley.
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - John1 - 10-03-2022
At the risk of staying engaged...... the mouth of the Church Stowe "forcibus" opens into the wide open plain of the Nene Valley.... check it out on site the plain is very impressive from Watling Street....
I think the action burst from the valley into the plain and the tight relationship between the valley and plain make a very simple segue in the text. But that's just me.....
NB the SE/NW trending water feature is the Grand Union Canal so not relevant, dashed red line is Watling Street so very relevant.
You don't get many distinct forcibii (my hack latin feel free to correct) opening up onto large river flood plains, on Watling Street (red dash), with Roman sculptural features and apparent camps just up the river from the Iceni territory.... but we do have one here....
Another one for the general archive, the Woman not the battlefield:
https://podfollow.com/the-ancients/episode/b42c7e394865e3cd966350227736b9e07f32a45c/view
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Owein Walker - 10-03-2022
For accuracy the distance from red line to red line is 2,000 metres and the ridgeline measures over 4,000 metres, a further fort at Upper Stowe, which is not shown on this map, adds another 1,500 metres, a total of nearly 6 kilometres .
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Renatus - 10-03-2022
(10-03-2022, 12:37 PM)John1 Wrote: I think the action burst from the valley into the plain
I certainly agree with that. However, I see no authority for putting the troops up on ridges. If you could bring them down on to the valley floor, I would have greater sympathy with the site, although I still consider it to be too far north. Nevertheless, you still have the difficulty that your valley is closed by high ground, which is not what Tacitus tells us.
The centre for the butchery would appear, on Tacitus' account, to be on the plain and, particularly, around the wagons, not at the point of contact, although certainly many will have fallen there and that, in my view, led to a panicked retreat which the Romans exploited. The discrepancy between the casualties suffered by the victors and the vanquished is, I think, attributable in the main to the fleeing Britons being hacked down by the pursuing Romans. I think that this is a feature of ancient warfare.
Turning to the Latin, faucibus is the ablative of fauces and it is the latter that we would use when introducing a Latin word into an English sentence. Fauces is unusual in that it is a word that is plural in form but singular in meaning, which creates a problem if you want to refer to multiple defiles. In that event, you would have to rely on context to convey your intention.
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Theoderic - 10-03-2022
Nathan refers to the literal translation by Michael.
34. At this time, the 14th legion, with the veterans of the 20th, and auxiliaries from the nearest, almost 10,000 soldiers, were with Suetonius, when he determined to abandon delay and to join battle. And he chose a “position in” a narrow defile and closed at the rear by a wood, with sufficient knowledge there to be none of the enemy unless in front and an open plain, without fear of ambush. Therefore, the regular legionary stood in ranks, the light-armed all around, the massed cavalry on the wings.
The issue here is that other translations state :
34. Suetonius had the fourteenth legion with the veterans of the twentieth, and auxiliaries from the neighbourhood, to the number of about ten thousand armed men, when he prepared to break off delay and fight a battle. He chose a “position approached by” a narrow defile, closed in at the rear by a forest, having first ascertained that there was not a soldier of the enemy except in his front, where an open plain extended without any danger from ambuscades.
There is a world of difference between “position in” and “position approached by”.
It is also interesting when Tacitus describes the defiles in separate places he does not use the same expression or words.
I agree that the Roman line was indeed in a defile as it gave the army a limited front on which to be attacked but I find it equally difficult to think that SP (one of the greatest generals of his generation) would have relied on blind luck to defeat this rebellion.
We have said many times that SP was cautious and thorough and unlike Cerialis not impulsive.
The wagons encircling the plain was a lucky co-incidence which helped delay the retreat but without the wagons being in a particular formation, SP would have failed.
Yet we know that SP had to inflict a serious and crippling blow and I am convinced that was his intention, not just as a survival mechanism because he could have retreated to Cirencester easily before the Brythons arrived at St Albans even with the refugees from London and St Albans.
This was also a once in a lifetime opportunity to have so many Brythons in one place and not scattered throughout the lands. An opportunity to defeat them once and for all.
As SP had great experience of fighting in mountainous regions (having crossed the Atlas Mountains with an army previously) I maintain that he would have used the topography to help him defeat his enemy.
If the Brythons were just to inhabit an open plain even with the wagons surrounding it, the vast majority of warriors would have escaped as they typically did in most of the engagements with all generals from Caesar to Seutonius unless they were trapped as with Caractacus and the recent success at Anglesey where the Brytons could not get disperse.
Pitstone Hill fits the topography and the description with no need for inclusion of the wagons and this cannot be said of many other sites.
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - John1 - 10-03-2022
Break of slope to break of slope certainly less than 1500 m, defenders can choose any point on the slope to engage. Probably let the Brits wear themselves out coming up slope over nasty ground whilst defenders keep their feet dry on the ironstone cap. Based on range estimates I have seen most if not all of that section is covered by artillery, leaving a central core that isn't under serious threat from Roman positions high up (add a bit to the artillery range card due to it being positioned 30m up hill - oh and there's always the rolling bail of hay tactics that appear in so many films..... I guarantee it'll make it into the screenplay for this one along with fire arrows....
Most likely range of contact looks in the 350m range where the Scorpio might start to have an effect on the massed thugs...
and I'm a fan of this choke point part way up the valley as the first opening to the plain.
But really I don't think there is much more to say, more exploration of the site is planned, maybe a battle site ... maybe not, fascinating landscape I'll continue to work with. I've not made a definitive claim for this site it's just a good candidate and I enjoy the process and speculation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F569_t2jCio
the tie in paper is here:
https://www.academia.edu/37728096/Boudica_the_warrior_queen
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Owein Walker - 10-03-2022
OK, just to put this out there, In 2020 I made an application to have the battlefield registered, this is ongoing.
I have chosen not to publicize the site until my concerns are satisfied.
No bodies/mass cremations have been found yet, although several areas identified by Historic England look very interesting, and I intend to look at these. Without bodies, it cannot be the battlefield.
I am committed to verifying this site and leaving no doubts before deciding its future.
I'm Pleased I got that off my chest and look forward to hearing a Military man's perspective some time next year.
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Renatus - 10-03-2022
(10-03-2022, 03:55 PM)Theoderic Wrote: There is a world of difference between “position in” and “position approached by”.
Yes, it is the difference between translation and interpretation. 'Faucibus is an ablative of place. It means 'in', not 'approached by'. You might just get away with 'approached by', if you interpret it as meaning that Suetonius was in the defile and the Britons had to enter it to reach him but that can be misleading, as we have found out.
(10-03-2022, 03:55 PM)Theoderic Wrote: The wagons encircling the plain was a lucky co-incidence which helped delay the retreat but without the wagons being in a particular formation, SP would have failed.
If you want to adopt that reasoning, Suetonius did fail because, as Dio says, those who escaped were prepared to fight on and only accepted defeat when Boudica died. However, the fact is that, even if a few more would have escaped but for the wagons, it was a major victory that broke the back of the rebellion.
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Theoderic - 10-04-2022
Renatus wrote:
However, the fact is that, even if a few more would have escaped but for the wagons, it was a major victory that broke the back of the rebellion.
I think that you have proved my point, Basically that it wasn't the wagons only that trapped the Brythons from retreating swiftly but the topography as SP intended.
I dont think SP failed at all at this battle...he used topography to his advantage to break the rebellion with little loss to his soldiers, a quite remarkable achievement.
Many Brythons did escape however but as you say the drive of the main rebellion faltered, perhaps around the death of Boudica leaving SP to destroy the tribes piece by piece using a burnt earth policy on the rebels and their lands.
Although the rebels were never able to mount a combined response neither were they fully defeated militarily by SP after retreating into the fens and won a defaulted peace (mainly on Roman terms I grant you) once he was finally replaced by another Governor, much to Tacitus' dismay.
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Nathan Ross - 10-04-2022
(10-03-2022, 05:41 PM)Owein Walker Wrote: Without bodies, it cannot be the battlefield.
That means we will have to look elsewhere for the Battles of Hastings, Bannockburn and Bosworth, not to mention Cannae and Pharsalus, as no bodies have been found at any of those sites!
Finding bones or other remains at pre-modern battle sites is extremely rare. Rarer still to find any from an age which practised widespread cremation.
John1 Wrote:Another one for the general archive, the Woman not the battlefield:
https://podfollow.com/the-ancients/episode/b42c7e394865e3cd966350227736b9e07f32a45c/view
Yeah, I had a listen to that a while back. Bit wonky on the chronology, I thought. Don't they have Boudica burning London before Suetonius arrived, or something?
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Owein Walker - 10-04-2022
(10-04-2022, 08:30 PM)Nathan Ross Wrote:(10-03-2022, 05:41 PM)Owein Walker Wrote: Without bodies, it cannot be the battlefield.
That means we will have to look elsewhere for the Battles of Hastings, Bannockburn and Bosworth, not to mention Cannae and Pharsalus, as no bodies have been found at any of those sites!
Finding bones or other remains at pre-modern battle sites is extremely rare. Rarer still to find any from an age which practised widespread cremation.
John1 Wrote:Another one for the general archive, the Woman not the battlefield:
https://podfollow.com/the-ancients/episode/b42c7e394865e3cd966350227736b9e07f32a45c/view
Yeah, I had a listen to that a while back. Bit wonky on the chronology, I thought. Don't they have Boudica burning London before Suetonius arrived, or something?
You are welcome to look for other battlefields,and bodies,I'm only concerned with this one.
I edited this and added.
Do you think I should not look for cremated bodies and other evidence, then just add the site to the long list of "potential" sites that exist already ?
I'm not here to add to the list,im really not,its already long enough.
Then Added more...
I'm going to explain,when you are requested to specify the boundary of a site that is so large it becomes a daunting job.I'm sure you have a better idea of how to do it than I did,and to be honest, the request seemed futile .Its impossible to know where the battle actually finished,did units pursue the warriors back down Watling Street or further along the valley?
However, Tacitus tells us about the battle and mentions two things ,the initial contact and the slaughter near the wagons, that could help locate bodies and debris. It so happens these are the same places where evidence of something strange occurs on my site,patches where the soil changes.
I could pull up some Iron Age artefacts, but there are Iron Age sites nearby,so that's not conclusive. I could dig across my double trenches ,but that would only show I have some trenches,that doesn't prove I have a battlefield.
Likewise, I have a feature with a floor plan similar to' Arthur O on',means nothing on its own.
My decision is to find the evidence to end this search and that requires bodies,burnt,partially burnt or intact, and mentioning what other sites have produced ,it's important to realize disarticulated bones from 130 bodies were discovered on a neolithic site not too far away,3,000 BC.....
This is my decision and if other sites had chosen to do this then we wouldn't be in the mess we are in now !!
Is that a shot at a lot of people,historians,authors and archaeologists. I will let you decide. What seems to have happened is there's been a trend of believing something just because it sounds feasible,without the evidence to support it.
If I'm told coffee is good for me, I will support it.
It's easier to agree,saves me researching the facts and falling out with other people .
Yes bodies for me, but you do it your own way ,it's your choice not mine
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - John1 - 10-05-2022
Don't give up on bones. My first hands on experience of Battlefield Archaeology was cleaning well preserved hacked femurs from the pre-Roman battlefield site at Ribemont sur Ancre..... a drop in the Ocean to the 50,000 human bones found on that particular site, most neatly stacked in deep piles;
https://fr-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Sanctuaire_de_Ribemont-sur-Ancre
On reflection my Ribemont experience probably has had a significant impact on my interest in, and expectations of, the Boudiccan study, it's a site worth looking into if you're not aware of it.
It's worth noting the Ribemont bones were well preserved due to burial in a chalk substrate (Roman Temples directly above, the siting and form of which suggested a knowledge of the significance of the bones beneath). This characteristic soil chemistry bodes well for preservation should the battlefield be one of the Chiltern candidates.
Like it or not, when you announce your site (I know it well and we are aligned on much) you go on a list that isn't actually that long, for credible candidates anyway. Then, when you publish your proof, the world can assess it.
I was surprised my write up from 2010 got the CS site named in the HER record, it's not something I asked for but it's clear a credible write up is the key to recognition at any level (just ask Webster and Dudley). I'm not sure if any other site has HER recognition yet, so good luck with your application for registration.
"Turning to the Latin, faucibus is the ablative of fauces and it is the latter that we would use when introducing a Latin word into an English sentence. Fauces is unusual in that it is a word that is plural in form but singular in meaning, which creates a problem if you want to refer to multiple defiles." Renatus
Thanks, noted for future reference. Is the second half "problem" directed at the most recent interpretation of the text at Mancetter?
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Renatus - 10-05-2022
(10-03-2022, 03:55 PM)Theoderic Wrote: It is also interesting when Tacitus describes the defiles in separate places he does not use the same expression or words.
What instances do you have in mind?
(10-05-2022, 08:01 AM)John1 Wrote: Is the second half "problem" directed at the most recent interpretation of the text at Mancetter?Not specifically. However, I reckon that there would have to be something in the context or additional wording to convey that more than one defile was intended. Fauces on its own would not be enough.
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Owein Walker - 10-05-2022
(10-05-2022, 08:01 AM)John1 Wrote: Don't give up on bones. My first hands on experience of Battlefield Archaeology was cleaning well preserved hacked femurs from the pre-Roman battlefield site at Ribemont sur Ancre..... a drop in the Ocean to the 50,000 human bones found on that particular site, most neatly stacked in deep piles;
https://fr-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Sanctuaire_de_Ribemont-sur-Ancre
On reflection my Ribemont experience probably has had a significant impact on my interest in, and expectations of, the Boudiccan study, it's a site worth looking into if you're not aware of it.
It's worth noting the Ribemont bones were well preserved due to burial in a chalk substrate (Roman Temples directly above, the siting and form of which suggested a knowledge of the significance of the bones beneath). This characteristic soil chemistry bodes well for preservation should the battlefield be one of the Chiltern candidates.
Like it or not, when you announce your site (I know it well and we are aligned on much) you go on a list that isn't actually that long, for credible candidates anyway. Then, when you publish your proof, the world can assess it.
I was surprised my write up from 2010 got the CS site named in the HER record, it's not something I asked for but it's clear a credible write up is the key to recognition at any level (just ask Webster and Dudley). I'm not sure if any other site has HER recognition yet, so good luck with your application for registration.
"Turning to the Latin, faucibus is the ablative of fauces and it is the latter that we would use when introducing a Latin word into an English sentence. Fauces is unusual in that it is a word that is plural in form but singular in meaning, which creates a problem if you want to refer to multiple defiles." Renatus
Thanks, noted for future reference. Is the second half "problem" directed at the most recent interpretation of the text at Mancetter?
Thank you, We do have a lot in common, and I'm sure I have more things to share with you,but I've always been a bit different. Will I publish it,should I ,who knows? I've had all sorts of offers and invited a few people to see the site( including a few here),inevitably one day I won't be here, but the valley will ,so perhaps time will play its hand,who knows.
Yes, Bodies will prove the site, and I've made sure someone else knows enough to carry on.
I only wanted to stop Mancetter placing a memorial in the wrong place and for that I had to challenge them. Respect should never be forgotten.
Boudicas followers were very brave that day.RIP.