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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
(12-01-2015, 11:24 PM)John1 Wrote: Thanks, that's big of you. 

Don't mention it. That's me all over - conciliatory to a fault.

(12-02-2015, 01:05 PM)Theoderic Wrote: Tacitus has Boudica state that Cerialis after his defeat was penned up in a fort rather than had escaped back to his Legion. 

For such an important figure (dashing cavalry leader and future Governor of Britannia) not to be mentioned again in any of the documentation would imply that he was trapped and played no further part in the events leading up to the battle.   

Nathan has already given some of the Latin but there is a little more. I will recap slightly on what he quoted:

ceteros castris occultari aut frugam circumspicere

'the rest were skulking in their camps, or looking around them for a way of escape' (Loeb translation)

It seems clear from the context that ceteros does not refer simply to Cerialis or the remnants of his legion but to the Roman forces as a whole. It is rhetorical, of course, but that is to be expected in a pre-battle speech. Castrum is unusual in that, in the singular it means 'a fortified place' but in the plural it means 'a military camp'; in other words, it is plural in form but singular in meaning. However, there must be occasions when the writer wants to refer to 'camps' in the plural, so presumably the plural form has to be used and actually mean the plural. In that event, the reader is expected to get the meaning from the context. I would assume that that is why the Loeb translator renders castris as 'camps'.

It seems evident that Cerialis did not take part in the final battle but it is unlikely that this means that he was trapped and unable to get back to his legion.
Michael King Macdona

And do as adversaries do in law, -
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
(The Taming of the Shrew: Act 1, Scene 2)
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Messages In This Thread
Re: Calling all armchair generals! - by Ensifer - 03-11-2010, 03:13 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-18-2012, 06:26 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 12:02 AM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 02:50 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 05:40 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 11:26 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 05:11 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 09:42 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 10:10 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 03:11 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 03:25 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 08:36 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-26-2012, 02:57 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-27-2012, 01:50 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 08-05-2012, 02:24 PM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-07-2014, 02:18 PM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-08-2014, 01:50 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-11-2014, 02:03 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-18-2014, 07:54 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-20-2014, 02:37 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-25-2014, 08:29 AM
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - by Renatus - 12-02-2015, 04:58 PM

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