Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[Renatus]

This thread is moving so fast that, whenever I feel that I want to make a point, it is superseded by something else.  However, there are a couple of things I would like to say, if they are still relevant.

If Suetonius had been in St.Albans, then being the more important town, that would have been the focus of the narrative and London would have been mentioned only in passing: "a place called London was also ransacked". Instead it is St.Albans that gets the incidental: "and St.Albans was also ransacked".

Tacitus tells us that London, although not designated a colony, was a major mercantile centre, crowded with merchants and stores.  It was also the administrative centre of the province, where the procurator was based.  It was, therefore, much more important than Verulamium which, although a municipium, was in essence simply a tribal capital.  As the rebels, not having planted crops, were relying on Roman stocks for their provisions, the warehouses of London would have been a prime target for them.

But we are told about the Thames in that it cuts off those who failed to cross it:

Those who were chained to the spot by the weakness of their sex, or the infirmity of age, or the attractions of the place, were cut off by the enemy.

If they were just "fleeing before" they are not "cut off". That they were cut off, requires that they are prevented from all means of escaping. That, within the environs of London, only fits with crossing the Thames where the few fords and that defensive line means that they are "cut off".

You have been misled by the translation.  The Latin text reads 'ab hoste oppressi sunt'.  'Oppressus' derives from the verb 'opprimo', the principal meaning of which is 'to press against, press down'.  Other meanings include 'to strike down', 'to overcome', 'to overthrow, overwhelm, overthrow', 'to fall upon', 'to terminate abruptly'.  'To cut off' is not one of its meanings.  So, 'cut down' - possibly; 'cut off' - no.

It is not the gallop that is daft ... it is the idea that Suetonius heads out along Watling street, seeking a "seat for war".

By accident or design, 'seat for war' is a literal translation of 'sedem bello' in the text and thus more literally accurate than 'seat of war' in the Church & Brodribb translation - but what does it actually mean?  The Loeb translation has 'base of operations', which may be more intelligible.  Michael Grant's Penguin translation, which is often more a paraphrase than a literal translation but nevertheless captures the sense, has 'he hesitated whether to stand and fight there'.  'Sedes' means literally 'a seat, bench, chair or throne', so obviously we are looking for a figurative meaning.  Some alternatives, such as 'dwelling-place, residence, habitation, abode, temple', are wholly inapplicable but amongst them there is 'place or spot'.  So 'sedem bello' may mean no more than 'a place to fight'.  To be clear, there is nothing in the text to say that Suetonius was seeking a 'seat for war', only that he decided that London was not one, but the notion that he might be looking for a 'place to fight' Boudica would be entirely compatible with the aggressive Roman approach to dealing with rebellions.

EDIT: Sorry, Nathan. You were posting as I was preparing mine.