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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
Still un-picking what the circular structure at Church Stowe could be, not quite a "heathen temple on the hill" but maybe the shrine to a local saint prior to a potential Seagrave/L'Isle re-fortification?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ælfnoth_of_Stowe

188, 886
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(01-13-2017, 02:09 PM)John1 Wrote: One big camp demands an early commitment to what might prove be an untenable perimeter...

As the Roman army were apparently capable of building a camp for an entire army at the end of every day's march I don't think we need to assume they were limited to any early commitments in terms of camp size!


(01-13-2017, 02:09 PM)John1 Wrote: I think for a Tring/Dunstable advocate you are being a bit binary about regional definitions with that one. CS being closer to Iceni territory than Tring.....

Although, as you say, the revolt itself was in the south-east, not in Iceni territory - the only geographical coordinates we have are Colchester, London and St Albans - all a lot closer to Dunstable or Tring than to any site in the Midlands.

But the circularity of this argument is now very well established! [Image: wink.png]


(02-02-2017, 12:54 PM)John1 Wrote: this MOLA site recently claiming a Boudican association, at 3.7 acres it's a lot smaller than the putative sites at Church Stowe  or Windridge, both about 10 acres;

Interesting. Permanent forts seem to have a bigger 'footprint' than temporary camps. At 3.7 acres this early London fort is about the same size at Castlesteads on Hadrian's Wall. I would guess it might have housed a single quingenary auxiliary cohort, perhaps equitata.

(I like the idea of the saint's shrine. Although nothing to do with our battle, of course...)
Nathan Ross
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"Although nothing to do with our battle, of course..." 
Absolutely, I'm just busy publicly attacking my own theories again... all part of the single site advocacy process. "It's not like I can attack Tring or Dunstable, there's nothing there of consequence to attack." - Boudicca 61AD

All else is circular, my lack of rebuttal should not be read as agreement, only a continued tedious wait for someone to put a spade (or probe) in the ground......
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(02-28-2017, 02:14 PM)John1 Wrote: "'there's nothing there of consequence to attack." - Boudicca 61AD

"... except this Roman army blocking our route home, which will attack us from the rear if we try to bypass them..." [Image: smile.png]


(02-28-2017, 02:14 PM)John1 Wrote: a continued tedious wait for someone to put a spade (or probe) in the ground......

Yes indeed. Or perhaps the long-lost Memoirs of Suetonius Paulinus, unearthed from the library at Herculaneum?... "Informed by our scouts of the approach of the barbarians, I elected to take up a position ten miles from Verulamium, where the road passes between hills..." [Image: wink.png]
Nathan Ross
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Quote:Yes indeed. Or perhaps the long-lost Memoirs of Suetonius Paulinus, unearthed from the library at Herculaneum?... "Informed by our scouts of the approach of the barbarians, I elected to take up a position ten miles from Verulamium, where the road passes between hills..." [Image: wink.png]

You can't do that to me!!
Oh the grand oh Duke Suetonius, he had a Roman legion, he galloped rushed down to (a minor settlement called) Londinium then he galloped rushed back again. Londinium Bridge is falling down, falling down ... HOLD IT ... change of plans, we're leaving the bridge for Boudica and galloping rushing north.
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I am not sure this really helps but a Dr Kershaw of Oxford Uni, Vanessa Collingridge and Gen. Wesley Clark all put their names to it. The Battle site would appear to have a mountainous backdrop which to me suggests we are all wrong and should start looking in North Wales;

vimeo.com/174541366

I know you lot are going to love it........ Ducks for cover....

196542
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(03-13-2017, 07:57 AM)John1 Wrote: vimeo.com/174541366

And I see the Britons are smearing their faces with what looks like blue axle grease again...

Stuff like this makes me want to forget about ancient history altogether and develop an interest in gardening, or something... [Image: sad.png]
Nathan Ross
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It's from the equall-awful Barbarians series isn't it?

Again the everlasting leather wrist guards (and helmets? Celtic swords go through armour as if through paper)... the 'must be from a movie' officer attire... metal-rimmed scuta... the endless rain dripping from the trees in the endless forest... green-faced (and what IS he wearing?) Celts bbq-ing Romans on trees (difficult when it's ALWAYS raining) who deserve to be captured because they fail to properly use their pila. or cannot fight in a single line And of course Boudicca is a red-haired model, who suddenly dies in the charge instead of taking her own life.

I know Lindsay as a well-read author, I'm not so convinced of Vanessa as an 'expert opinion'. What a Hindu US representative from Hawaii adds to the subject I'm not sure of.. did she publish something I can't find? Similar thoughts of other experts who get to say something.

That invasion map! Romans being compared to a reddish faultline etched deeply into a pristine gree Island... Roman Britain looks like it has been hit by a zombie invasion!
They decently raped the girls out of sight, very civilised no? Nice touch btw that our 'warrior queen' kisses her daughters before she begins the slaughter of all human life in Camelodunum. But that was revenge of course, and therefore it's heroic. Aaand of course the little girls are killed by Roman cavalry while running off. No line of Celtic ox-drawn carts in sight anywhere.

I have my doubts btw about the description of these affairs btw. Not that I doubt it could happen, surely not. But it read to me more like an explanation in hindsight, because if literally true, it looks like the Romans wanted to provoke an uprising by all means possible. Since they clearly were not anticipating one, the 'ravaging of the Iceni court' was either a very very stupid mistake or it was invented to explain what happened.
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
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(03-13-2017, 12:05 PM)Nathan Ross Wrote:
(03-13-2017, 07:57 AM)John1 Wrote: vimeo.com/174541366

And I see the Britons are smearing their faces with what looks like blue axle grease again...

Stuff like this makes me want to forget about ancient history altogether and develop an interest in gardening, or something... [Image: sad.png]

First you've got to know that not one Roman writer ever mentions or eludes to Celts in Britain. Next you need to know that Julius Caesar tells us they are one of the three groups of Gaul who the Romans knew very well.

Then you have the comments: "launch invasions ... beaten back by the Celts ... For Rome Britannia represents something very different, the people there are alien".

It's pure babble - and I'm surprised any of the academics consented to take part.
Oh the grand oh Duke Suetonius, he had a Roman legion, he galloped rushed down to (a minor settlement called) Londinium then he galloped rushed back again. Londinium Bridge is falling down, falling down ... HOLD IT ... change of plans, we're leaving the bridge for Boudica and galloping rushing north.
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More Asterix than Versingetorix or Arminius. Academics, or US Military, should not get involved in this popular fiction.
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There be dragons!!!

5 separate invasions?? Did I miss something????

A little "trumped" up perhaps......???

Deryk
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(03-13-2017, 02:52 PM)Robert Vermaat Wrote: it read to me more like an explanation in hindsight, because if literally true, it looks like the Romans wanted to provoke an uprising by all means possible. Since they clearly were not anticipating one, the 'ravaging of the Iceni court' was either a very very stupid mistake or it was invented to explain what happened.

Perhaps. Although governments throughout history have often done things which seem immensely foolhardy and counterproductive in hindsight, and indeed to many people at the time... (no comment on current events, of course! [Image: wink.png] )

In this case, the authorities 'on the ground' in Britain were apparently responding to instructions from Rome - both from Nero (who seems to have had little idea of the consequences of his decisions) and from Seneca (eager not to lose his huge investments).

We don't know to what extent the implementation of these instructions was in the hands of Decianus and Paulinus - nor whether those instructions were carried out too forcefully. But even the rape of Boudica's daughters might have been policy - to render them unmarriageable, and their portions of their father's inheritance (which would have passed to their future husbands) worthless. A deliberate act of punishment, rather than provocation.

But, again throughout history, imperial powers have often underestimated the anger of their colonised subjects, and the ability and willingness of those subjects to organise themselves and rise up against oppressive foreign rule.
Nathan Ross
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(03-13-2017, 09:58 PM)Nathan Ross Wrote:
(03-13-2017, 02:52 PM)Robert Vermaat Wrote: it read to me more like an explanation in hindsight, because if literally true, it looks like the Romans wanted to provoke an uprising by all means possible. Since they clearly were not anticipating one, the 'ravaging of the Iceni court' was either a very very stupid mistake or it was invented to explain what happened.

Perhaps. Although governments throughout history have often done things which seem immensely foolhardy and counterproductive in hindsight, and indeed to many people at the time... (no comment on current events, of course! [Image: wink.png] )

In this case, the authorities 'on the ground' in Britain were apparently responding to instructions from Rome - both from Nero (who seems to have had little idea of the consequences of his decisions) and from Seneca (eager not to lose his huge investments).

We don't know to what extent the implementation of these instructions was in the hands of Decianus and Paulinus - nor whether those instructions were carried out too forcefully. But even the rape of Boudica's daughters might have been policy - to render them unmarriageable, and their portions of their father's inheritance (which would have passed to their future husbands) worthless. A deliberate act of punishment, rather than provocation.

But, again throughout history, imperial powers have often underestimated the anger of their colonised subjects, and the ability and willingness of those subjects to organise themselves and rise up against oppressive foreign rule.

But even the rape of Boudica's daughters might have been policy
Boudica was flogged and her daughters raped. Ravaging of the Iceni Court etc

Is this is literary licence and hyperbole?
Especially in an Imperial or Dictatorial society, this is the martial policy of an aggressor and was probably commonplace, as it is now in certain conflicts.
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David Scothorn wrote:


But even the rape of Boudica's daughters might have been policy

Boudica was flogged and her daughters raped. Ravaging of the Iceni Court etc

Is this is literary licence and hyperbole?

Especially in an Imperial or Dictatorial society, this is the martial policy of an aggressor and was probably commonplace, as it is now in certain conflicts.


The more I thought about the attack on the Iceni aristocracy and Boudica and her daughters the more I have come to the conclusion that this was not just a Decianus tax gathering raid but a full on Roman assertion and standard policy of taking the Iceni homelands into the Empire as they had done with a number of other tribal areas that did not have a Client King. 

The whipping and raping was part of the punishment as was the reduction of the aristocracy to slaves for trying to stop the Emperor from having his lands as Rome would see it.

So perhaps it was just a standard method of conquest to put in place Client Kings / Queens and then when they died take over their land at a convenient time, which would have the advantage of limiting the amount of people you had to fight during an invasion / conquest.

Obviously however with the Iceni they decided to rise up and collaborate with other tribes to confront Rome which would have taken some planning and caught everyone off guard....and that is the surprising thing that they managed to be so effective.....

Deryk
Deryk
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If, as you suggest, this was Roman assertion and policy, Boudica would have been aware that these violations would become the consequences of her husband's death. In drawing a comparison with Cartimandua, presumably she ruled by right rather than by marriage.
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