12-01-2015, 11:24 PM
"OK, I'll withdraw the word 'random'. Nevertheless, whatever advantages it may have had in other circumstances, it does not seem to me to be an appropriate place to dig in, with the enemy somewhere between Colchester and London and with Paulinus thinking that he might make a stand in or near London." - Renatus
Thanks, that's big of you.
For a cautious commander coming in from North Wales it's a pretty big leap to assume he knows the enemy is between Colchester and London and will act on the basis of that unknown "knowledge". I think you overstate the presumption of the Britons location and Paulinus' knowledge or certainty of that.
We are now back to marching distances of a single mass from London and St Albans as a "known", it still isn't, and I don't buy that as the only option, I happily stand alone on that. But if you can countenance that the Britons might not be en masse, or even that cautious Paulinus may have taken decisions on the basis that they may have been in more than one group then maybe, just maybe, he might have considered it wise to pay attention to where the Iceni territory was, both as a threat and as a means to pose a threat. I have made this point before and it is not made again for the benefit of the hardcore, rather for new comers who haven't tracked the last 1000 posts, but do look at the map below.
No site, Dunstable, Tring or Church Stowe is any further away from Iceni territory than another (other than London). There continues to be no merit in dismissing CS as too distant in Paulinus' calculations (or ours), as neither he, nor we, knew/know whether the Iceni had moved on from Colchester or returned home. London and St Albans could still have been done over by smaller groups, rather than a host of 230,000.
All sites are almost exactly 60 miles from Iceni territory, the solid block is the territory according to Rudd, and the radiating halos are 20 miles each.
Thanks, that's big of you.
For a cautious commander coming in from North Wales it's a pretty big leap to assume he knows the enemy is between Colchester and London and will act on the basis of that unknown "knowledge". I think you overstate the presumption of the Britons location and Paulinus' knowledge or certainty of that.
We are now back to marching distances of a single mass from London and St Albans as a "known", it still isn't, and I don't buy that as the only option, I happily stand alone on that. But if you can countenance that the Britons might not be en masse, or even that cautious Paulinus may have taken decisions on the basis that they may have been in more than one group then maybe, just maybe, he might have considered it wise to pay attention to where the Iceni territory was, both as a threat and as a means to pose a threat. I have made this point before and it is not made again for the benefit of the hardcore, rather for new comers who haven't tracked the last 1000 posts, but do look at the map below.
No site, Dunstable, Tring or Church Stowe is any further away from Iceni territory than another (other than London). There continues to be no merit in dismissing CS as too distant in Paulinus' calculations (or ours), as neither he, nor we, knew/know whether the Iceni had moved on from Colchester or returned home. London and St Albans could still have been done over by smaller groups, rather than a host of 230,000.
All sites are almost exactly 60 miles from Iceni territory, the solid block is the territory according to Rudd, and the radiating halos are 20 miles each.
