11-28-2015, 07:55 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-10-2016, 12:14 AM by Nathan Ross.)
(11-28-2015, 05:41 PM)Renatus Wrote: There is probably an element of rhetoric in this
I think so, and a 'barbarian' trope too. 'Flying to arms' is what barbarians do, being very impulsive and reckless people...
Tacitus's account is highly dramatic, and, I believe, compresses events to add further drama. An uprising of this scale would have taken a considerable period of time to arrange and set in motion.
In fact, as I've suggested before, perhaps Tacitus's dramatic compression of events creates the misapprehension that Paulinus only learned of the revolt after the sack of Colchester, and therefore would not have had time to march his army down to London.
And from that comes the idea of the 'cavalry dash' and the notion that the battle must have been somewhere in the Midlands...
(11-28-2015, 05:41 PM)Renatus Wrote: until they were all able to return to their homes victorious.
Agreed - although I still think they would have needed to head home in the autumn to plant winter crops, whether Paulinus was defeated or not. The Iceni and others would not have wanted entirely to abandon their ancestral homelands and miss an entire year's planting.
(11-27-2015, 10:16 PM)Theoderic Wrote: Prasutugus died in AD59 and the revolt did not happen until the summer of AD60
Tacitus is very clear that the revolt happened in AD61!
Nathan Ross