Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[MonsGraupius]

On Caratacus last stand. Yes - spelling is unfortunately not my forte (nor my English). On a few certain key words, I am indeed Dyslexic and rushed it (when I was in the military, this was not a problem as military Emails have a spell checker).

I will say this on your comment, it is important to note that in Roman writing, accurate historical fact was just one secondary aspect. It was the literary style that took precedence. As such there are indeed, many different translations of Tacitus with different interpretations including elements suggested by various authors. In my search I chose two of the most renowned translations which I considered the most authentic because of the terrain I discovered (90% matches anyway and on the most important parts it is a 100% match). A single word added in by a mistranslation can indeed throw the whole search out as I learnt to my cost.

The site I have found, matches the main translations. I again went through every map and grid square using a color code and it has taken 15 months to locate the place. If this was easy everyone would have found it. Interestingly, please note how many people have actually nominated a site and how few have provided any evidence. I can think of only one - Martin Hackett. I would have started my search earlier this year but have been delayed due to the weather and other matters. I am going to do this and if I cannot get landowners permission, then I will publish my evidence on it and leave it to others to judge. PS As stated my earlier efforts 9 years before pale in comparison to where I am now. This is a journey and as such begins with the first step. Watch this space. I am coming.

I thought "all because the lady loves Milk tray" ... was based on special forces!

On translation ... it's well worth checking the actual meaning of key words. I've come across some real howlers. Like for example a translation saying "the celts did this" ... when it turned out to be a tribe in Germany. (Batavaria?? ... dimly comes to mind). Another example is Tacitus's record of Calgacus' speech which constantly refers to a word that was translated as "slave". "They will make us slaves". Which I found also could be translated "they will make us servants". I then realised that the speech had been translated to be an "anti-slavery" speech.

Also, the original translators were extremely prudish ... and the Romans were not. That can lead to some obscure translations!

I've had the benefit of finding the battle of Mons Graupius, and then several years later having another look at my evidence. Bizarrely, although there is more evidence for a fort than I had originally found (it shows up on Lidar quite distinctly), having been up to metal detect without even the slightest trace of conflict in the most likely place that it should have shown up, and given that roman finds have been found about a day's march away, I would now list two sites as being similarly probable.

The lessons from that experience were ... even with a huge amount of detail about the battle site, and clear Roman archaeology leading like a trail of dots toward the likely battle site, you need to be cautious about too much enthusiasm. Secondly, unless you have enormous enthusiasm and a certainty you have the right site, you won't get any press interest, thirdly, all academics seem to have a "not invented here" syndrome. I've sent aerial photos showing what was almost certainly multiple overlaid buildings in a site reported as likely to have a Roman fort ... and I didn't even get a reply ... I think it's because unless they can claim they found it, they really have no interest. And finally ... every academic has their own pet theory about key battles etc., and many have written papers by cherry picking the evidence to build sometimes really absurd cases for the pet theories ... and you could show them absolutely clear evidence or a site, but because it will only highly how they cherry picked the evidence to fit their theory, they don't want to have anything at all to do with you.

And finally ... I'm so ****ed off with academics that I've no chance of even "smooth talking" them enough to get any success. You need to have the ability to make these dullards feel like they are the most important people in the world and that they (having done no work at all) were the ones who actually found the site.