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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
"It's a good-looking site, undoubtably. It's just in the wrong part of the country. Move it thirty miles south-east and maybe..." - 

Well I read it as the Romans preparing a secure position and inviting the Brits on... You seem to read it as advancing to contact with a random parade.

Any further south and the Nene and Ouse back doors swing wide open. 

If the Iceni federation included chunks of the Catuvellani then Church Stowe is right at the North West corner of the 3 tribe territory. All sounds perfect to me and that extra 30 miles south only delivers Paulinus a loss of preparation time, a less adventitious battlefield terrain and an open back door. Easily worth the extra 30 mile tab up from London for his cavalry dash......... having arrived safely from Mona by boat Wink
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(11-19-2020, 08:32 AM)John1 Wrote: preparing a secure position... inviting the Brits on... a random parade... back doors swing wide open... cavalry dash.........

After ten years, these discussions are beginning to seem as retro as your musical choices! [Image: wink.png]
Nathan Ross
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What was right then is still right now..... the obvious bears repeating now and then....
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John1 Wrote:So the slope angle is low, valley bottom narrow. The site can be outflanked and over looked rather easily and the field of view for a commander would have been extremely compromised. I see the networks of valleys supposedly concealing Romans as more of a blind, death trap for those same forces.

All this just serves to emphasise the implausibility of Margaret Hughes description of the battle.  Placing the Roman vanguard in the area of the red dot does explain why, in the caption to her Figure 9, she refers to the Britons approaching from the east (although I am still not sure what the photograph is supposed to show) but, in that case, why does she bother in Figure 8 to show the view down the fault-line defile towards the Anker plain?  I thought it was because she placed the Roman vanguard it the point where the defile meets the Coventry Canal, which is why I didn't understand Figure 9.  In any case, there is no need to go on about this at length; the battle didn't happen at Mancetter anyway!
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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What archaeological evidence are we looking for after 2000 years? What will satisfy everyone and what can we still hope to find?
Ian
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(12-05-2020, 11:03 PM)Owein Walker Wrote: What archaeological evidence are we looking for after 2000 years? What will satisfy everyone and what can we still hope to find?

Battlefield archaeological remains are notoriously elusive. As I've mentioned a couple of times on this thread, the known battle site at Cannae, where tens of thousands of Romans died, has so far produced not one bone fragment or hobnail, despite being in the middle of an archaeological park and carefully studied for decades.

Where remains do turn up, they are more likely in less cultivated locations like the Harzhorn in Germany, where the site would have lain undisturbed for many years after the battle. This is rather unlikely anywhere in south-eastern Britain.

Have said that, if we did find remains of this battle they might comprise hobnails, arrow heads, sling bullets, fragments of weapons and even scraps of armour that could be dated to the 1st century AD. As it happens, all of these items have turned up at the Newground site west of Tring, but in small numbers. The site would need a full archaeological investigation to determine anything further.

Remains of mass graves or cremation sites might also provide some pointers, but without metal finds that could be identified and dated they still wouldn't be conclusive.

As for satisfying everyone - I expect nothing short of a massive Latin inscription saying 'This is the Site of Boudica's Last Battle' would do it, and even then there would be dissenters!
Nathan Ross
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Boudicca revolt: Essex dig reveals 'evidence of Roman reprisals'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-55337814
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& another 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...coins.html
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John1 Wrote:& another 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...coins.html

I think that this is highly unlikely to be part of Boudica's 'war chest', even if she had such a thing.  Assuming that it does date from the period of her rebellion, it is more probably the wealth of some Icenian noble, hidden to keep it out of the hands of the Romans, either immediately after the death of Prasutagus or at the time of the Roman retributions after the suppression of the revolt.
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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John Pegg has published a case for Church Stowe.
https://www.academia.edu/1280170/Battle_..._Stowe_CP1
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Sorry this is an eleven year odd article. However the author still stands by it.
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I certainly do, but what do you find "odd" about the paper?
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(01-08-2021, 12:07 AM)John1 Wrote: I certainly do, but what do you find "odd" about the paper?
 Sorry Sir. For "odd" read "old".
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Another note on the origins of the 'cavalry dash' to London by Suetonius [Paullinus].

A colleague has brought to my attention a paper by Overbeck ...

Tacitus and Dio on Boudicca's Rebellion
John C. Overbeck
The American Journal of Philology
Vol. 90, No. 2 (Apr., 1969), pp. 129-145 (17 pages)
Published By: The Johns Hopkins University Press
https://doi.org/10.2307/293422
https://www.jstor.org/stable/293422

https://www.jstor.org/stable/293422?refr...4b9d&seq=1

Jstor link

In it Overbeck refers to the words of Theodor Mommsen, the famous classicist, as they relate to Tacitus' account of the Boudica uprising and the question of whether Suetonius conducted a 'cavalry dash', or his whole army was in London.

Mommsen's work is the 'The Provinces of the Roman Empire', 1886 available via Project Gutenberg ...

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48966/48...#CHAPTER_V

Gutenberg link


Mommsen's text is in Footnote 106 ...

"A worse narrative than that of Tacitus concerning this war, Ann. xiv. 31–39, is hardly to be found even in this most unmilitary of all authors. We are not told where the troops were stationed, and where the battles were fought; but we get, instead, signs and wonders enough and empty words only too many. The important facts, which are mentioned in the life of Agricola, 31, are wanting in the main narrative, especially the storming of the camp. That Paullinus coming from Mona should think not of saving the Romans in the south–east, but of uniting his troops, is intelligible; but not why, if he wished to sacrifice Londinium, he should march thither on that account. If he really went thither, he can only have appeared there with a personal escort, without the corps which he had with him in Mona — which indeed has no meaning. The bulk of the Roman troops, as well those brought back from Mona as those still in existence elsewhere, can, after the extirpation of the 9th legion, only have been stationed on the line Deva—Viroconium—Isca; Paullinus fought the battle with the two legions stationed in the first two of these camps, the 14th and the (incomplete) 20th. That Paullinus fought because he was obliged to fight, is stated by Dio, lxii. 1–12, and although his narrative cannot be otherwise used to correct that of Tacitus, this much seems required by the very state of the case."

So, in 1886, that is prior to the work of Prof. Haverfield, Mommsen describes and ridicules what we call the 'cavarly dash' to London. Mommsen then seems to ignore Tacitus' account of Suetonius being in London and, instead, argues that the Roman army was on the line 'Deva—Viroconium—Isca' [by Isca he might mean either Exeter or Caerleon]. He does not say the battle was fought on that line.

I'm not sure what Mommsen is implying with regard to whether, or not, he thinks the whole army was in London; he just doesn't say! But he is clear that the 'cavalry dash' has "has no meaning".

I cannot decide if Mommsen thought that Tacitus' was wrong in stating that Suetonius was in London - he just seem to ignore the passage as Overbeck points out.

Anyway, I think this pushes the date for the 'cavalry dash' back a little further - I've not checked all the previous thread pages. Are there any earlier offers on the origins of the the 'cavalry dash'?

Regards, Steve Kaye
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(01-10-2021, 12:16 PM)Steve Kaye Wrote: I think this pushes the date for the 'cavalry dash' back a little further

It certainly does! Thanks for that, Steve - Haverfield would certainly have read the mighty Mommsen, and no doubt drew his idea of Paulinus's movements from that source. Fascinating to see the way this idea had developed from that root over more than a century.

It appears to me, however, that Mommsen is rather supporting (or inventing!) the 'cavalry dash' idea rather than opposing it: If he really went thither, (meaning London), Mommsen says, he can only have appeared there with a personal escort, without the corps which he had with him in Mona...

But I don't see the idea of Paulinus marching an expeditionary force from his main Anglesey army back into the south-east to counter a native uprising as at all 'without meaning' - and, once he learned of the fall of Colchester, re-routing this force to London to secure the supplies there and protect the citizen inhabitants seems eminently meaningful!
Nathan Ross
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