On the very edge of the encroaching Roman Empire, one woman would say ‘no more’,
and stand up to resist the occupation of her people's ancestral lands - this was Boudicca,
Queen of the Iceni. The most famous of the Celtic peoples would fight an ultimately doomed
rebellion against the Roman Empire and would go out in a blaze of glory, to be remembered
for thousands of years as both a fierce barbarian and a heroic figure who fought for freedom.
Upon the assassination of emperor Caligula in 41AD, his uncle, Claudius, was unwillingly
proclaimed as Emperor by the Praetorian Guard, due to his Julio-Claudian lineage. Claudius
was spared by Caligula due to his various disabilities and inadequacies; he had a bad
stutter, appeared to have been lame and reportedly had a tendency to drool. Most crucial was
his complete lack of military experience and prestige, due to the fact that he had not
been able to serve in the legions in his younger years.
Despite his shortcomings, it turned out that Claudius was no incompetent fool, and he saw
the possible propaganda value of invading Britannia. In addition to emulating the glorious
deeds of Julius Caesar, invading Britannia would also allow Claudius to gain military
legitimacy through conquest. As the Empire rose, Augustus and Tiberius
were both content to collect annual tribute from the various British tribal allies and
clients, but a change in 39AD would rupture this cozy arrangement. Cunobelin, who was
known as the rex brittanicum - a ‘King of the Britons - died in that year, and his feuding
anti-Roman sons began raiding in the lands of Roman allied tribes. One of these tribes,
the Atrebates, was ruled by a man known as Verica, and he fled to Claudius in exile,
giving the excuse the Emperor needed.
Under the highly respected former proconsul of Illyricum, Aulus Plautius, who was accompanied
by future giants of the Roman world such as Vespasian, an army of four legions sailed
from Portus Itius. The legions which sailed from Gaul were Legio II Augusta, IX Hispana,
XIV Gemina and XX Valeria Victrix. They landed in modern Kent soon after.
After a few minor skirmishes on the southern coast, two of Cunobelin’s sons - Togodumnus
and Caractacus - met the Romans at the River Medway, and were decisively defeated in an
extended clash. Togodumnus was either killed in the aftermath, or defected to the Roman
cause, while his brother Caractacus would famously lead a guerilla war against the Romans
for another seven years, before being defeated and captured at the Battle of Caer Caradroc.
During the initial Roman invasion, a Brittonic tribe based in the east of the island, the
Iceni, allied with the Romans as a means to secure protection. They paid tribute to the
Empire, but were ruled by their own kings, who saw the way the wind was blowing. In 60AD,
the Iceni king Prasutagus died. In his will, the Roman Emperor Nero was made co-heir with
the king’s two daughters. He did this in order to safeguard his kingdom and household
and to ease them into Roman rule, but this attempt would end up in failure.
The legions marched to seize the entire territory for Rome. According to Tacitus, Prasutagus’
‘kingdom and household alike were plundered like prizes of war’, and Iceni territories
were earmarked for annexation into the Roman province. This compounded the underlying harsh
and oppressive conditions of Roman occupation. We only have Roman accounts of the period,
but even these are enough to reveal terrible misadministration ranging from cruelly negligent
to downright criminal. It is possible that the procurator of Britannia would have been
under constant pressure to improve his cash flow, and the temptation of Iceni riches was
too much to pass up on. In addition, the forced levy of young adolescent warriors into the
Roman legions as auxilia was almost universally detested. Whatever the reasoning, when the
king’s widow, Queen Boudicca, protested against this treatment, she was flogged and
her daughters were abused by Roman soldiers.
Furious at this humiliation and wishing to force the Romans off their lands, Boudicca
raised her people to war in the year 60 and the Iceni were quickly joined by their southern
neighbors - the Trinovantes. The ‘British disaster’, as Suetonius called it, had begun.
The revolt was properly timed, as this was especially bad timing for the Romans, because
the governor of Britannia as the time, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, was away campaigning near
modern Anglesey, and could not quickly return. Iceni troops marched south to the Roman military
colonia of Camulodunum - modern day Colchester. It served as one of the main symbols of Roman
domination. Moreover, its garrison - the Twentieth Legion - had gone west with Paulinus.
The hated colonia received word of the incoming storm and asked the procurator in Londinium,
Catus Decianus for help. Rather than marching to the aid of his countrymen, the procurator
sent them a meagre 200 strong force of poorly equipped slaves, as it is entirely possible
that Decianus completely underestimated the scale of the revolt. While Camulodunum was
full of Roman administrative and cultural buildings, it wasn’t protected by walls.
A 2,000 strong segment of the 9th legion hastily rushed to the rescue of the colony. However,
in their haste they were ambushed by Boudicca’s Iceni forces and almost totally destroyed.
Without any substantial relief arriving in time, the Britons bore down on the city. Men,
women and children, were wiped out by hanging, crucifixion, burning and other cruel means,
while the colony’s buildings were burned to the ground. Survivors of this first wave
fled to the great temple of Claudius for protection, and were shielded for two whole days by the
veteran Romans and the small number of reinforcements sent to the town. Despite their resistance,
the Celtic numbers paid off and they burst into the temple, killing everyone they saw.
The destruction of Camulodunum was so total that archaeologists are able to see a noticeable
layer of scorched debris left by the sacking of the city called the ‘Boudiccan destruction
horizon’. In the aftermath, a messenger reached Paulinus in Wales, informing him of
the disaster and prompting him to force march his troops back to the east, while he rode
swiftly with a group of horsemen to appraise the situation.
Londinium was the rebels’ next major target, a Roman city founded just after the conquests
of 43AD, which had grown into a bustling trade centre populated by merchants, travellers,
Roman functionaries and their families. Before Boudicca’s horde of Brittonic warriors could
arrive in Londinium, Paulinus arrived with his small mounted contingent, and contemplated
making a stand to save the town. However, he quickly realised that without his legions,
it was a foolish fight to get into. He instead decided to abandon Londinium to its fate in
order to buy time for his armies to concentrate, and retreated northwest along the road which
would become known as Watling Street. Soon after Paulinus’ retreat, the same devastation
which had scoured Camulodunum now hit Londinium. The death and destruction was absolute. After
slaughtering the population of Londinium, Boudicca set off in the direction of Verulamium,
moving north up Watling street before doing what she had done to the two other larger
cities. The lack of coins in the archaeological record however, could imply that the inhabitants
realised what was coming and managed to escape with much of their portable wealth - possibly
following Paulinus north. Nevertheless, Verulamium also ended up a blackened wasteland
Meanwhile, Paulinus had united with the forces he could muster, and picked a spot for the
coming decisive battle about half-way up Watling street, attempting to draw Boudicca as far
west as possible to allow time for the legionaries to rest.
The field on which the climactic battle would be fought was a spot surrounded by wooded
slopes with a narrow entrance, and protected in the rear by a primitive forest dense with
undergrowth. With the traditional Roman tactic of using terrain to his advantage, Paulinus
knew that in this position, the Romans could not easily be assailed from the flanks or
rear. Where exactly in middle-England the battle took place is still a matter of debate,
and many locations have been put forward, including the town of Mancetter [man’setter],
but it could have been any number of places. Wherever the eventual conflict took place,
Paulinus had around 11,000 soldiers at his disposal, consisting of roughly 7,000 highly-disciplined
legionary heavy infantry, drawn from legio XIV Gemina and a vexillatio - or a temporarily
detached segment - of legio XX. The 4,000 additional troops were six cohorts of auxilia
infantry and two alae of cavalry, including the consistently fearsome Batavians from the
Rhine region. Paulinus had attempted to reinforce his numbers by calling legio II Augusta from
the south, but its commander ignored the request. Forming up in front of their defensive position
was, according to Cassius Dio, a horde of 230,000 Celtic screamers. These numbers are
highly questionable, but if we divide his estimate by five the Romans are still outnumbered
around five to one. The majority of the rebel infantry was traditionally ‘barbarian’
in armament, with a combination of long slashing sword, shield and short thrusting spears.
As for armour, it was very rare, and Celtic warriors probably went into the fray dressed
only in a pair of loose woollen trousers. They instead relied on their fearsome physique
and individual skill in fighting to gain victory. Celtic aristocrats and military elites also
formed a small force of open-fronted, lightning fast and nimble chariots.
As the rebel force approached Paulinus’ ragtag, half-strength contingent, he arrayed
his forces along a narrow defile, with his legionaries serving as the core strength of
his army in the centre, three auxilia cohorts on each of their flanks, and an alae of cavalry
on each wing, anchored by the forests. The dense forest cover at the sides and behind
also meant retreat would be impossible if the Romans were defeated; it was to be an
all or nothing battle. As the opposing forces readied themselves
for the fray, both commanders attempted to motivate their men. Riding the royal chariot
along with her two daughters, the queen is reported, by the probably inventful Cassius
Dio, to have driven through her loose ranks, shouting to the warriors around her: “Win
this battle, or perish! That is what I, a woman, plan to do. Let the men live in slavery
if they will!”. The comments made on the other side of the
battlefield were far more brisk and businesslike, brushing off the apparent ‘riff-raff’
opposite them. “Ignore the racket made by these savages!” Paulinus orated to the troops.
“They are not soldiers. They are not even properly equipped! We have beaten them before
and when they see our weapons and feel our spirit, they WILL crack.” With a clamorous
din of war cries from both sides, the British charioteers opened the battle, wheeling up
and down the Roman line, throwing insults and deadly javelins at the Romans in equal
measure.
After the Romans resisted the missile onslaught for a while and likely suffered a few losses,
the charioteers retreated as the warbands surged forward. They came in a gargantuan
head-on assault, hoping to use the shock factor of their charge to crash through and break
apart the Roman line. However, the Romans’ clever use of terrain now came into effect.
As the numerically dominant Celtic horde charged up the slope, it was naturally funnelled into
the increasingly narrow defile, which acted as a force multiplier - limiting the number
of warriors which could engage the Romans at any one time, and blunting their charge,
due to its uphill nature. Nevertheless, the screaming warriors charged
forward and, just before they hit the Roman line, were showered by a storm of legionary
Pila javelins, which would have caused crippling casualties to lightly armed troops. Then,
the Roman formation charged downhill in a series of offensive wedge formations, aiming
to carve deep swathes into the enemy mass. The legionaries would have smashed the enemy
in the face with the metal centre of their heavy scutum shield, and then thrust with
the gladius. With the impetus of their initial shock charge
blunted by the terrain, and the sophisticated tactics and brutal efficiency of the enemy,
the battle turned. Boudicca’s light infantry, who probably had little experience fighting
the kind of heavily armoured and armed troops Rome fielded, were progressively, slowly but
certainly carved into during the course of the day. British vigor and ferocity were pushed
back by Roman endurance and discipline, closer and closer to the semicircle of wagons behind
them. Catastrophically, women, children and the
infirm had accompanied the men to this battle. However, the wagons inadvertently served as
a large net through which the Celts could not escape quickly enough, and they were massacred.
Despite fighting for their own lives and those of their loved ones, the Romans had no mercy
for them. The women, children and even draught animals were slain by the Roman gladius. We
do not know how many perished, but 80,000 Britons were said to have died on the battlefield,
at the meagre cost of 400 Romans.
Though Boudicca managed to escape on her chariot, Tacitus tells us that took her own life a
few days later, while Cassius Dio says that illness claimed her. Poenius Postumus, the
legio II commander who had refused to assist Paulinus, committed suicide when he heard
news of the victory - clearly aware of the fate that awaited him for his insubordination.
The legion itself was disgraced, and remained II Augusta for the rest of its days. Conversely,
legio XIV Gemina gained the title Martia Victrix - Martial and Victorious.
The rest of the Iceni and Trinovantes were utterly annihilated by the punitive Paulinus.
After this defeat, Britannia would increasingly be solidified as a Roman province and would
only gain its freedom from Rome in the early fifth century, just before the Western Empire’s
final collapse.
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