Boudica

Summary

In Our Time – "Boudica" (March 11, 2010, BBC Radio 4)

Main Theme

This episode of "In Our Time" delves into the life, legend, and legacy of Boudica, the Iceni queen who led a rebellion against Roman rule in AD 61. Exploring both the historical figure and the myth that shaped British identity, host Melvyn Bragg is joined by three experts: Miranda Aldhouse-Green (archaeology), Richard Hingley (Roman archaeology), and Juliet Wood (folklore). The conversation assesses Roman and archaeological evidence, probes the complicated construction of Boudica’s image through the centuries, and considers the enduring power of her story.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Britain's Landscape and Context in the First Century AD

• Fragmented Tribes: Britain was not a unified country, but a patchwork of tribes with their own leaders and distinct identities. Some elites in the southeast were already influenced by Rome before the invasion (02:05).
  • Miranda Aldhouse-Green: "It was very fragmented. There were tribes, polities all over Britain ... aristocrats ... already beginning to turn their eyes towards ... Rome" (02:05).
• Rome's Psychological View of Britain: For Rome, Britain held a semi-mythical, "edgy" status, seen as a wild and uncivilized place, making its conquest a boost for Emperor Claudius's credibility (04:05).

The Sources: Tacitus and Cassius Dio

• Evidence Limitations: Our main sources are the Roman historians Tacitus (writing in Latin, closer in time) and Cassius Dio (in Greek, about a century later). Both present the Roman worldview and agendas (05:06).
  • Juliet Wood: "They're very much writing from an outside perspective ... the critical thing is ... the classical world's perspective" (05:37).
  • Tacitus uses Boudica's story to warn against the dangers of "female rule," reflecting his cultural biases (06:05).

Did Boudica Really Exist?

• Historical Doubt vs. Archaeology: The panel questions how much we can know.
  • No direct archaeological evidence of Boudica herself, but destruction layers in Colchester, London, and Verulamium from 60–61 AD support the historicity of major events described (09:51).
  • Iron Age coins may reference her husband Prasutagus, but this is debated.
  • Richard Hingley: "We can't dismiss Boudicca as a historical figure, but we can't locate her archaeologically" (09:51).

Female Leadership among the Britons

• Was Boudica’s Rule Unusual?: Tacitus claims Britons commonly follow women, but Romans abhorred female rulers (12:23).
  • Other female leaders existed, like Cartimandua of the Brigantes, often vilified in Roman accounts (12:46).
  • The panel discusses confusion in ancient sources about which tribe's queen led the resistance (13:00).

Trigger for the Revolt: Injustice and Humiliation

• Client Kingship Fallout: After Prasutagus's death, his estate was intended to be split between his daughters and Rome — Boudica herself was excluded, and Roman authorities forcibly annexed Iceni territory (14:58).
• Roman Abuses: Boudica and her daughters were flogged and raped — a personal and cultural outrage, not only for their own suffering but for its implications for the tribe and Roman citizenship if they held it (15:25, 17:20).
  • Miranda Aldhouse-Green: "...if he was a Roman citizen, the chances are Boudica was one as well. And that is something you don't do to Roman citizens ..." (16:25).

The Rebellion: Actions and Atrocities

• Destruction of Roman Settlements: Boudica and allied tribes, notably the Trinovantes, swiftly sacked Colchester (destroying the temple and veterans), London, and Verulamium, exacting vengeance and redressing humiliation (19:05).
• Roman Lack of Defenses: None of the Roman towns had proper defenses, as the focus had been conquest rather than consolidation, making them vulnerable (21:06).
  • Miranda Aldhouse-Green: "...Paulinus...was interested in conquest ... because none of those Roman cities had defenses ..." (21:06).

The Final Battle and its Mystery

• Numbers and Tactics: Vastly outnumbered (10,000 Romans vs. alleged 230,000 Britons), the discipline and tactics of Roman soldiers led to the Britons' defeat (25:09–25:40).
  • Juliet Wood: "...a disciplined group of people can outmaneuver a far larger but undisciplined enemy" (25:40).
• Archaeological Black Hole: Despite massive bloodshed, little to no physical evidence (bones, battle sites) has been found; possible explanations include Roman clean-up efforts and loss to history (22:07–24:34).
  • Richard Hingley: "We wouldn't necessarily expect large numbers of dead bodies ... If we could find Boudicca's battle sites ... we might find pits full of dead bodies ... but we haven't found it" (22:07–23:40).

Boudica’s End and the Aftermath

• Death of Boudica: Reports vary — she may have taken poison or died from illness/heartbreak (20:41).
• Roman Reaction: Following the rebellion, the focus shifted to reconciliation and consolidation rather than further conquest (31:19, 32:28).
  • Nero nearly considered abandoning Britain; new administrators had to balance the recovery.
  • Miranda Aldhouse-Green: "It was crux time for the Roman Empire and for Nero...whether Britain remained part of the Roman Empire at all ..." (31:19).

The Making of a Myth: Boudica in British Identity

• Medieval and Early Modern Reinvention:
  • Little mention during the so-called Dark Ages; resurgence in Renaissance England when Roman sources are rediscovered (33:28).
  • Boudica becomes a symbol aligned with the interests of Elizabeth I, paralleling the queen's image of female martial power and national independence (35:33–36:12).
    • Portrayals shift between noble rebellion and dangerous female rule, according to contemporary needs.
  • Juliet Wood: "It's Britain kind of refining its past ... Polydore Virgil ... reintroduces the notion of Boudicca ... you get Boudicca, Voidicea, Voada, Bundaker ..." (34:18–34:51).
• Victorian Appropriation:
  • Boadicea is now depicted as domestic and imperial, mirroring Queen Victoria ("Victoria is Victoria") and the era's values (39:16–40:13).
  • The famous statue outside Parliament cements her as both symbol and spectacle.
  • Richard Hingley: "In England in late Victorian times, she's an imperial icon ... she becomes a symbol of British imperialism when her major act was to fight against a world empire" (40:25).

The Power of Boudica's Ambiguity

• Boudica remains a recurring figure because her fragmented legacy and ambiguous character allow successive generations to reinterpret, mythologize, and utilize her for varying ideological ends (41:28).
  • Juliet Wood: "There's an ambiguity at the start. This is always a very good thing if you're going to be a myth ... you can put her into the public sphere, into the domestic sphere, into the sphere of imperial and into a cultural sense sphere as well ..." (41:31).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Miranda Aldhouse-Green on Britain's complexity:

  "On the one hand you have a very rural, non urban society, but ... already beginning to get influenced by Rome..." (02:05)

• Juliet Wood on Roman sources:

  "They are very much writing from an outside perspective ... The perspective they have on Britain is the classical world's perspective." (05:37)

• Richard Hingley on archaeological evidence:

  "The only archaeological evidence that we might try and tie in with her is a number of Iron Age coins which have a name ... which has been taken to represent Prasutagus ..." (09:51)

• Miranda Aldhouse-Green on the outrage committed:

  "In flogging Boudicca and the rape of the daughters, if that happened, that is ... violating the whole of Icenian tradition and the whole of the Icenian future..." (18:23)

• Juliet Wood on Romanization and the rebel's rhetoric:

  "...the rhetoric that we actually get from Tacitus is very, very Roman rhetoric." (29:43)

• Miranda Aldhouse-Green on Boudica's impact:

  "...it was crux time for the Roman Empire and for Nero who almost decided to abandon Britain." (31:19)

• Richard Hingley on her legacy:

  "...she becomes a symbol of British imperialism when her major act was to fight against a world empire." (40:25)

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Segment Timestamps

• 00:38 – Introduction by Melvyn Bragg and panel introductions
• 02:05 – Social and political structure of Britain before the Roman conquest
• 05:06 – The reliability and bias of Roman sources
• 09:51 – Archaeological versus textual evidence for Boudica’s existence
• 12:23 – Female leadership in Iron Age Britain; Roman attitudes
• 14:58 – Prasutagus' death and the insults triggering rebellion
• 19:05 – The rebellion begins; sacking of Colchester, London, Verulamium
• 22:07 – Archaeological search for evidence of the slaughter; battle site mysteries
• 25:09 – The numbers at the final battle and the issue of historicity
• 27:01 – Boudica’s pre-battle "speech" and its significance
• 31:19 – The aftermath and political consequences for Rome
• 33:28 – Boudica in later myth, Renaissance to Victorian era
• 39:16 – Victorian Boudica and her transformation into an imperial/domestic icon
• 41:31 – Why Boudica’s myth endures and adapts over time

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Conclusion

This episode offers a rich, critical examination of the tangled lines between history and legend in the story of Boudica. The panel engages deeply with questions of evidence, gender, myth-making, and cultural memory, highlighting Boudica’s lasting power as both national symbol and cautionary tale. By unpacking how Boudica has been reimagined through each era’s needs, the discussion turns her into a prism for understanding how societies choose, use, and reinvent their past.

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Panelists:

• Juliet Wood, Associate Lecturer in Folklore, Cardiff University
• Richard Hingley, Professor of Roman Archaeology, Durham University
• Miranda Aldhouse-Green, Professor of Archaeology, Cardiff University
• Host: Melvyn Bragg

For further exploration, listen to the full episode at BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time.

Transcript

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

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[Richard Hingley]

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[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our Terms of Use, please go to BBC.co.uk radio4. I hope you enjoy the program. Hello. In 61 AD, an East Anglian queen took on the might of the Roman Empire and lost. Her name was Boudicca. The events of Boudicca's rebellion and defeat are graphically related by the great Roman historian Tacitus and are set against the backdrop of an empire in decline. It's a tale of a leader fighting for freedom against an ancient superpower. But it's also the story of a woman savagely wronged, wreaking horrific revenge on the state that had promised to protect her. Boudicca's resistance has been retold and re edited throughout history. She's been depicted as a freedom fighter and a barbarian queen, as an icon of British strength and independence and as a warning against the corruption of female power. In the 19th century, she was immortalized as a statue outside the Houses of Parliament, ironically transforming the rebel against the Roman imperium into the champion of the British Empire. To this day, she stands guard over the city that she destroyed almost 2000 years ago. With me to discuss the life and mythologization of Boudicca, I'm Juliet Wood, Associate Lecturer in Folklore at Cardiff University, Richard Hingley, professor of Roman Archaeology at Durham University, and Miranda Oldhouse Green, professor of Archaeology in the School of History and Archaeology at Cardiff University. Miranda, before we talk, can you give us some idea what Britain was like in the first half of the first century ad?

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

I think the first thing perhaps to say is that Britain was not an entity. It was very fragmented. There were tribes, polities all over Britain, and the area which I think interests us today is the southeast, which by the time of the Claudian invasion in AD 43 was already becoming very sort of softened up to Rome and there were aristocrats. It was a very elitist society and people were already beginning to turn their eyes towards so on the one hand you have a very rural, non urban society, but on the other, there are certain people who are already beginning to get influenced by Rome to have Roman goods and perhaps send their sons to Rome to be educated. So it's already, by the time of the Claudian invasion, becoming quite a kind of almost a Roman part of the world.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Why did that happen? Is that because they were just drawn to the center of power, like people? I suppose that's where they are. They always are, aren't they?

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

I think it's partly that and I think it's. It's a new way for aristocratic Britons to show how they are. Rome is new and exotic. And whereas people used to show their, their wealth and their power by the ownership of land, kind of new ways began. So people began to think, well, if I become sort of Roman and sophisticated and urban, then I will gain more power.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

You've said the southeast, but the Iceni who we're going to come to, we're talking more about east, what we now think of as East Anglia, aren't we?

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

That's right. They're almost at a periphery of this. The Icena are quite interesting because the archaeology shows that they are really quite separate. They are becoming part of the sort of Roman orbit, but they are also very distinct in terms of their identities and they remain somewhat separate and somewhat aloof from what was going on further south.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

So we're talking about tribes, several tribes, maybe a dozen or more tribes who have allegiance to the tribe. And their idea of a Britain in England, of course, is completely remote, doesn't exist at all. What's the shape of the Roman Empire at the time and was Britain significant in it? Why did Claudius want to invade it? Claudius the Stabberer people will remember from Robert Graves.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

Well, that's the whole point, I think. Claudius needs a Persona, he needs some, some credibility. And so what he does is to look towards the very edge of the known world. Britain was regarded as almost mythical. Some people, some Greeks and Romans thought that Britons were not even human, that had sort of tails and, you know, were, were very peculiar, waded about in the mud all day, covered in tattoos. And so the idea of conquering the uncivilized, the edgy places, the dangerous places across the ocean, over the edge of the known world, was something which would give Claudius immense credibility. So psychologically, Britain was immensely important to the Roman Empire.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Slightly dodged with what you said at the beginning though, isn't it, that the English aristocrats were sending their sons over to Rome and Presumably telling people that we don't wear tattoos and wait around in monarch. Got to hold back on that one.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

There may be, but most Romans would believe that Britain was very uncivilised. These were very exceptional people who went to Rome. And Claudius, I think, would hype up the idea of the mythology and the edginess of Britain.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Juliet Wood. The evidence of Boudicca's life is drawn from two Roman writers, Tacitus and Cassius Dio. Can you tell us about them and how strongly they are as evidence?

[Juliet Wood]

Well, one of them writes in Latin and one of them writes in Greek, although he's a Roman writer. Neither of them are there at the time. Although Tacitus sources are probably sort of closer and more authentic.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

He's not too far away, if you give listeners an idea.

[Juliet Wood]

They're not. I mean, he's within a century. They're kind of within a century, and with Tacitus, considerably less than a century. But I think the thing is that they are very much writing from an outside perspective, and I think that's really the critical thing, is the perspective they have on Britain is the classical world's perspective. So this business about Britain being an edgy place, a dangerous place, a place that needs to be civilized, is what is critical about them. So they sort of see these people as other, what anthropologists would describe as other, as people who are not Roman. The other thing, and it's particularly strong, I think, in Tacitus, is that Tacitus is also using his position to criticize the Romans. He's basically sort of saying, look, you're in danger of getting soft. Look at the dangers, in particular with Tacitus. Look at the dangers of female rule. And this is where specifically Buddha comes. Comes in, because she's seen as an offense to the Natur order, which is male rule, not female rule. And he implies that if you have a female ruler, you're going to have decadence and destruction and chaos and all of the things which he actually ascribes to Boudicca.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Can we just talk a little bit more about Tacitus? He's thought of as the greatest prose writer, the greatest historian by some people, but he wasn't too far away. I think what we underestimate completely is the strength of the oral tradition. The problem that we have with Boudicca and all that lot there is they didn't put anything down in writing, not in inscription, so we think we don't know about. But the oral tradition can be very, very strong. And he was well within sight of that. And he got the letters from his relation Agricola, who had. And he got all those wonderful war reports they kept sending back. So he had plenty of stuff, it's true.

[Juliet Wood]

But I think you have to be careful with oral tradition, because oral tradition is not necessarily unwritten, written, traditional. And I think it is very, very easy for it to become channeled. And I think certainly with Boudicca, one really has to ask questions. What exactly is it that they're. What exactly is it that they're doing, even to the point of sort of questioning, you know, was Boudicca. Boudicca. Tacitus may actually be farther away from this. Although he's close to the events, he may be farther away from any sense of what the Iceni were like than we realize.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Well, can you tell us a bit more about the Iceni?

[Juliet Wood]

Yes, I can sort of say that we don't have any sort of direct archaeology. I mean, this is another problem is that we kind of have to reconstruct the Iceni in terms of what we have elsewhere. So we tend to present them as a rather more generalized Celtic tribe rather than sort of a specific archaeological tribe. And I think there, again, we have problems. If you look at what we know about Boudicca and her speech and the battle. Well, what we know from other sources about Celtic battles doesn't suggest that this is a particularly credible thing that Tacitus is doing. We know from other sources that before a battle, the Celts, there would be a lot of noise, a lot of music, the individual fighters would be sort of boasting one against the other. And this picture of them sort of standing there while Boudicca and her daughters kind of take. Make a chariot, circle around the field doesn't necessarily ring true. So the answer.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Are you actually saying. I mean, it's quite interesting, we could all go home, really. Are you actually saying that you don't think that Boudicca exists, even though Tacitus, a totally respectable historian, writing just a few years after her death, talked about her and described battles in which she took part? He couldn't get away with it, could he?

[Juliet Wood]

Well, I suspect he probably could. There are other sources where they are sort of describing things which we, several hundred years later, sort of assume were true about the Celts, which now we kind of look at and we think, well, maybe the Romans kind of. It isn't as if Tacitus is making her up or lying. I'm not questioning Tacitus kind of belief in what was going on, but I do think that we sometimes assume oral

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

tradition, sometimes it's not the end of that. We're just talking about Boudicca here. I mean, does she or does she not exist? It's a very good starting point for the program. What do you think, Richard? Richard Hengley?

[Richard Hingley]

I'd talk about the archaeology, really. And the problem we have with Boudicca is that we have no archaeology. So we have the textual information and we have three accounts, two from Tacitus in different writings and one from Cassius Dio, but we can't locate her archaeologically. Now, the only archaeological evidence that we might try and tie in with her is a number of Iron Age coins which have a name on them which has been taken to represent Prasutagus, who Tacitus tells us was Boudicca's husband or partner. Now, that's the only archaeological evidence, and even that issue is debatable, that she existed. I mean, I'd probably take a slightly different track. I understand what you're saying and I don't strongly disagree, but I think Tacitus readership in Rome would know about what had happened in Britain 30 or 40 years before. So I don't think we can dismiss Boudicca as a historical figure, but we can't locate her archaeologically. The one thing that we can use to locate her which is archaeological is some thick layers of burnt deposits in the three towns that Tacitus tells us that Boudicca destroyed. Colchester, London and Verilamium, which is modern day St. Albans. Now, these layers of destruction seem to occur about 60 to 61 AD. We've got dating material in those deposits in London. They're up to half a meter thick and they cover destroyed buildings. And that is some quite impressive evidence that some of the actions that Tacitus writes about did occur. But if we look for Boudicca herself, really, we can't locate her archaeologically.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

And does this worry you?

[Richard Hingley]

I don't think it worries me. I think it has worried archaeologists in the past. I'm interested in Boudicca as a historical figure and the way she occurs throughout time in history. I do believe she existed. We don't know that Boudicca is a name. It means victory. So she may be partly a historical elaboration. Doesn't worry me.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Well, let's talk about the historical elaboration as well as Buddhick herself. If she did exist. It's getting more and more interesting. But she had a husband. If she existed, Prasatagus, who died in 60 AD so when she was about 30 and according to Tacitus, she became leader of the Iceni. How unusual was it to have a female leader at this time?

[Richard Hingley]

Boudicca is made to say by Tacitus that it's common for the Britons to follow women into war. Now, we have to bear in mind the points that have been made already to the effect that the Romans, or Tacitus, actually is fascinated by female rule. The Romans found female rule abhorrent as a concept. They were really worried about the idea of female rulers.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Why were they so worried?

[Richard Hingley]

Cleopatra, partly Cleopatra of Egypt, was a very negative figure in Roman terms. So there's a Roman concept that rulership is wrong. The emperor is not a king. Kings themselves are difficult figures. In Roman terms, a female leader is more problematic. Now, it's interesting, just to complicate things a bit further, we do have evidence for another female leader in late Iron Age Britain. And this is Cartimandura in the north with the Brigantes. Yes, that's right. Cartimandua is a pro Roman woman, but she still gets turned into effectively a monster by Tacitus in his writings. But there's another reference which I bring up which I think is problematic and it's been ignored because Tacitus, writing in the Agricola, talks about a queen of the Brigantes who ran a war against the Romans. Now, it tends to be assumed that Tacitus is making a mistake, a means of queen of the Iceni, but he says the Brigantes. It could be that we've got a third female war leader in late Iron Age Britain fighting the Romans and we know nothing further about it. Or it could be that the reference to the Iceni in Tacitus Agricola, and that's, sorry, Tacitus annals, that's the only reference to the Iceni. Linking the Iceni to Boudicca is actually a mistake for the big grantes.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Well, let's assume there was a Boudicca. Let's assume she was married to Prosotagus. Let's assume he did die in 60ish admiration and he left his country to half to Boudicca and his tribe and half to the Roman emperor, which was one of the traditions at the time because they were a client state. Clever Claudius came in and instead of wasting time conquering people, he just federalized them and made them client states and let them get on with being what they were to a great extent. So he did that. Let's take the story as we have it, as it were from Tacitus with amendments, but let's Take that story. Can you explain, Miranda, what happened then?

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

Well, Prasutagus was a client king, as you said, and when he died, he actually left his estate. He was very wealthy. The Iceni were very wealthy, perhaps gained a lot of their wealth from salt, salt production and distribution. And he actually left his estate partly to the Emperor Nero and partly, not actually to Boudicca, but to their two daughters. And so she was cut out of this will, which is quite interesting.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Now, the treaty, how old are the daughters? She was only 30. How old were the daughters?

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

Well, I think they were sort of prepubescent. I think they were around about 11 or 12, 13, that sort of age. And what I think we need to remember is that the client kingship, the treaty that existed between Presatargas or any individual client king and the emperor was a personal one. So at Prasadaga's death, Rome was technically within its rights to reassess the situation and have the option of turning the Icenian territory into part of the province. And as it was wealthy, that was something that was very attractive. There is a saying that says it's only under bad emperors that parents leave half their estate to an emperor. And I think what Prasatagas was trying to do was to safeguard at least part of his estate by giving half of it to Nero. So we have a situation where you have tremendous instability, volatility. And what happens is that while the Roman governor Suetonius Paulinus is up in northwest Wales trying to beat hell out of the druids on Anglesey, the finance officer, like the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Dcaenes Catus, decided that Iceni was right for the pickings. And he goes in with soldiers and slaves, decides to mop up Icenian assets. Boudicca objects, saying, I'm a queen. He says, no, you're not. And she is flogged and her daughter's raped, according to the writers. And that is huge humiliation, because if we read between the lines, Prasutagus was almost certainly a Roman citizen. And if he was a Roman citizen, the chances are Boudicca was one as well. And that is something you don't do to Roman citizens. So Dicienus Catus was worked, Was operating totally illegally in the treatment of Boudicca herself and, of course, the daughters.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Can we take that up a little, Richard? Let's say she was a Roman. Let's go along with the story. Why, it's already. Miranda's already raised that. Do you want to elaborate on that? Why that would be so offensive to Roman citizens? Reading Tacitus or hearing of this at

[Richard Hingley]

the time, Although female leaders were abhorrent to Romans, the Roman Empire believed in cooperating with pro Roman local people. Now we know that Prasutagus must have been pro Roman. He couldn't have been a friendly king of the Roman Empire without being pro Roman. So his wife and his children would have also been clients and friends of the Roman Empire. So to have Roman officials and slaves actually abusing the family in that way would be an absolute, absolutely abhorrent thing for Romans in Rome, the Roman elite in Rome. And it would have shocked them deeply.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Especially if we're talking these. I didn't realize. It just occurred to me a few minutes ago, these children must have been very young, their daughters, if we're talking in that way, extremely young.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

And he's. In fact, what you're. What you're doing in. In flogging Boudicca and the rape of the daughters, if that happened, that is something far more than rape, because what you're actually doing is interrupting and violating the whole of Icenian tradition and the whole of the Icenian future, because you're actually compromising, you are taking away the children's virginity, possibly impregnating them, and therefore you are humiliating to the nth degree, the Iceni. And that is, I think, what is so abhorrent.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Juliet, we're going along with the story. So Buddha Kana, it does. They joined with another tribe. So we read the Trinovantes. Then can you tell us what happened? She rose up against this outrage.

[Juliet Wood]

She did. And she rose up quite quickly against the outrage, according to the sources, and moved very, very quickly, first to Colchester, where not only did they sack Colchester, but they also destroyed the temple in which there are a number of retired Roman soldiers and their families. So you begin to get a balance between what has happened, the insult that has been sort of done to Boudicca and her daughters kind of balance with insults against sort of other Roman citizens. So they're kind of beginning to kind of balance these scales. Once she does that, she then moves to. Towards London, sort of. Suetonius comes back onto the. Onto the. The scene, but knows he can't defeat her. He comes down from the Druid from Anglesey Downs. From Anglesey, yeah. Knows he doesn't have enough. Enough soldiers, and so he sort of allows her to sack London. And then there is a brief period while Suetonius kind of gets his soldiers together, gets his plan together, and then she sacks Verilemium. And then is the final battle. This is the side of which we don't know this very, very contentious final battle in which Boudicca's forces are defeated and they're defeated, it's very clear from the, from the sources they're defeated because Rome is the better fighter, the better organized, the more civilized. And by this time there have been enough atrocities on Boudicca's part for the scales to be balanced. It ends by saying either Boudicca takes poison, she and her daughters take poison, or she dies of grief or she dies of illness, but certainly she's removed.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

Miranda, I think there are a couple of things to say there. One is that it's not just the insult to Boudicca and her daughters, it's also the context is, and this is why the Trenizantes come in is because of huge taxation. So the Trenovantes a are dispossessed from their ancestral town.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

So many English uprisings have been about taxation. I know.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

So first of all, Camiludunum or Colchester is taken over by legionary veterans and settled. So they're dispossessed from their lands. They are then made to pay for the temple of Claudius, which is, you know, an insult to them. So they made to pay for this hideous sort of icon of Romanitas in Colchester. So there's already a lot of bubbling up from the tribes about taxation and about how hideous that was. But the other thing to say about the, the sacking of the cities that Juliet mentions is that Paulinus, the governor, quite clearly was interested in conquest, conquest, conquest and no consolidation because none of those Roman sitters had defenses and so Boudicca and her troops could just walk in and take them.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Can you tell us on the archaeological evidence you'd expect they took the temple which we, we read rather. I wish there was just an oral tradition we didn't have to refer to these. Much more reliable. There's actually people who had an oral tradition thought that words were more reliable than text, as texts could be corrupted anyway. You'd have thought there'd been lots of remains of bodies. Now there aren't, are there? So what are we talking about?

[Richard Hingley]

No, there are very few remains of bodies in the three towns that were sacked. There are a few human remains in Colchester in the correct layers, but the. The towns will have been cleared up by the Romans. They're all rebuilt later on. So we wouldn't necessarily expect large numbers of dead bodies. I think the thing I would expect is large numbers of dead bodies on the final battle site where the runs to find defeat. The Britons now we have some figures from Cassius Dio.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

He's about a century later than Cassius.

[Richard Hingley]

Yes, he is. He's far less reliable.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

He gives us the flame, had fierce talking, fierce eyed, but so we owe him of debt.

[Richard Hingley]

Yes, I mean he had a major impact on later representations of Boudicca because that's the only description we have really of an ancient Britain, that vivid description of Boudicca's appearance. But the battle site itself should actually be very helpful to us if we could locate it, because we do have a number of Roman battle sites in Germany from the first century ad. Now if we could find Boudicca's battle sites, and we don't know really where to look, should be in the West Midlands. Perhaps we might find pits full of dead bodies, animals and humans and broken armor and weapons. If we could find that, that would really help us to answer some questions.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Is anybody looking for it at the moment?

[Richard Hingley]

A lot of people have looked for it and a lot of people claim to have found it. But the description we have with the battle site from Tacitus is very, very general and nobody has found any convincing archaeological material. It may turn out one day, but

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

it's now suppose anyway at one stage it was anywhere between Primrose Hill and North Wales, but now they think it could be a roundabout rugby, don't they?

[Richard Hingley]

Yeah, there's a very strong idea that the battle site was close to Mansittur in Warwickshire. The trouble is that Tacitus description is very, very general. He describes a valley with trees to either side and open ground in front. And there are thousands of places within the territories that we might look which fit that description. And really Mansur, there, there's some, there's some reasons to believe that could be a good place to look. There's no conclusive evidence, Miranda.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

I think the other thing that perhaps is the case is that the Romans would not wish to allow the battlefield to become a kind of martyr's site. So there may very well have been a deliberate cleaning up process that took place after the final battle to make sure that it didn't remain as a kind of monument to British freedom.

[Richard Hingley]

I agree with that. But there's another possibility which is that there might be a victory monument. I mean, victory monuments are built at battle sites sometimes. And actually building a victory monument to illustrate this major victory over a much, much larger army of Britons might actually be a Roman statement of power. We know they're supposed to have actually attacked the Britons after the battle and really, you know, set back the recovery of Britain through their military actions against the surviving Britons. So a victory monument could be a possibility, but we haven't found it.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Juliet. The numbers that have come down to us from These writers are 230,000 Britons and 10,000 Romans, which is the wrong way around for British history. We're supposed to be the underdog, but still. And the 10,000 trained Romans, as Richard's mentioned, they put themselves, so we told, in front of a thick forest behind them on either side. So they're protected from the back with a plane in front of them, and they're trained soldiers, and the Iceni are used to just rushing ahead with inadequate weapons, and they are slaughtered.

[Juliet Wood]

Yes, it's a kind of classical military maneuver of how a disciplined group of people can outmaneuver a far larger but undisciplined enemy. And I think you can really see kind of Tacitus playing the Roman card here, so that it also. It's one of those areas which kind of fulfills some of the notions of what the Britons were like, what sort of Celtic tribes generally were like large numbers of people, but with no kind of coherence, which, of course, is actually to some extent at odds with what Tacitus tells us happens before the battle, which seemed to be quite an organized one, in which kind of Boudiger and her daughters make the circle with the chariot. So one feels that, you know, again, so often Tacitus is trying to do two things at once. He has a certain sneaking admiration for the noble savage, and he's worried that the Romans will become corrupt. So he's kind of emphasizing that if you remain civilized, if you remain strong, if you don't get soft, this is the kind of success you can expect. But on the other hand, he also wants to say, look, you know, these savages have an element of nobility about them, which you also should be. Should be following. So I think one has to take that in context, not in accurate numbers, but in terms of what Tacitus is trying to tell his audience.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

What about that magnificent speech, Tacitus? Speech? It isn't all that long, but it is not. This is Boudicca just before the battle. It is not as a woman descended from noble ancestry, but as one of the people that I'm avenging lost to freedom, my scourged body, the outraged chastity of my daughters. Rome has gone so far that not our very persons, nor even age or virginity, are left unpolluted. I mean, and then she gets cracking after that, doesn't she.

[Juliet Wood]

It's wonderful, but it's like nothing else I've ever come across in any Celtic source anywhere. It. Again, it's much more Roman ideas of good kingship than it is anything, anything else.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

There's a rush to get in. We'll start with Miranda, then to you, Richard.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

One of the fascinating things about the Roman writers, and particularly Tacitus, is that you've got some wonderful gender bending here because you've got Boudicca as a very masculine woman, but on the other hand, the antithesis is Nero, the emperor, who is effeminate and decadent. So you've got a wonderful play on gender there. So you've got this sort of male woman among the Britons pitting herself against an extremely female, effete and effeminate emperor. So you've got this lovely sort of juxtaposition and contrasting everything being turned on its head.

[Richard Hingley]

Richard, I agree with Juliet that we can't trust Boudicca's speech at all. I mean, we don't know that anybody at the battle who would have heard Boudicca would have been accessible to Tacitus or the sources that Tacitus uses. However, there's another angle which I think is worth bringing in. Prasutagus must have been pro Roman, as I mentioned earlier. Now Boudicca is Prasutagus partner would probably.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

I'm not being silly here, but she's not his wife. Do we know? We don't know, do we? No, we don't.

[Richard Hingley]

No, no.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Let's not go down there again, all right?

[Richard Hingley]

I think what I'm trying to think about is that Boudicca would have been exposed quite largely to Roman culture. Boudicca might well have been literate. We would expect Prasutagus to be a Roman citizen. Now, Boudicca may be thinking in Roman terms. Partly we see her as a violent ancient Britons through Tacitus, or a noble warrior through Tacitus, but she may have actually been quite Romanized.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Miranda, then. Julia.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

One of the things that I've been playing with is the idea that perhaps Boudicca was not ever pro Roman, because we've got evidence from the Brigantes and elsewhere that very often, even within families there'd be pro and anti Roman factions. And one of the things that would explain explain the extreme treatment of Boudicca and her daughters after Prasadaka's death was that she was actually anti Roman and that she was part of an anti Roman faction. And that actually makes a lot of sense. Even if she were a Roman citizen, she may well, have been waiting for her chance.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Julia?

[Juliet Wood]

Yes, I think, I think this is again, assuming Boudica is real. And I think it's perfectly sensible to assume that for this discussion, the sentiments, the rhetoric is very much Roman rhetoric rather than Celtic rhetoric. And the reason I keep hopping on about that is because that really becomes important when Boudicca becomes subsequently seen as a mouthpiece for Celtic or British or kind of different sorts of ideas. But I think the rhetoric that she actually, that we actually get from Tacitus is very, very Roman Roman rhetoric.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

I mean, it was a technique that he used several times. Is it not permissible as a legitimate historical imaginative leap?

[Juliet Wood]

I think it's absolutely permissible. I think the problem becomes not so much what Tacitus has permitted, but how we kind of are trying literally to interpret Tacitus and reconstruct this picture of Boudicca and this picture of a kind of ancient British Celtic past. So I think the subsequent is the problem.

[Richard Hingley]

I don't think, I'm not arguing with you, Miranda, but I don't think we can separate things too simply because we can't assume, if Boudicca is anti Roman, which she may well be, that she'd necessarily not be knowledgeable about Latin ways. I mean, you know, learning Latin is a way of fighting Rome too. Learning Roman ways, military ways. You know, if the Britons had actually followed Roman military examples, they might have won that battle in which they largely outnumbered the Romans. So, you know, I'm drawn to what you're saying, I think, particularly because we find it quite difficult to find very much evidence in the territory of the Iceni for much in the way of Roman culture around the time of Boudicca.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

How significant was this rebellion in terms of Britain's relationship with the Roman Empire? Miranda?

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

I think it's fair to say that it was crux time for the Roman Empire and for Nero who almost decided to abandon Britain. And it was touch and go as to whether Britain remained part of the Roman Empire at all, because the catastrophe of the Boudican rebellion was such that Britain was left extremely weak and the Empire was left weak because there was always the possibility that other recently annexed provinces would look to see what was happening in Britain and think, ah, it is actually possible to overthrow our Roman yoke. So it was an extremely dangerous time for the Emperor. And what's interesting is that just after the Buddhican rebellion, Nero puts in a new finance officer who is actually a Gaul. He is not a Roman, he is a Gaul. And that is very much a Gesture of reconciliation for to try and rebuild Britain. The other thing Nero does is to recall Paulinus.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Paulinus went on a savage slaughter freak after Boudicca.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

I mean he really sort of completely sort of went off the rails. Then he was recalled and the next thing. Few governors of Britain are people who are administrators, they are conciliators, they are consolidators. Totally different from Paulinus who is a flamboyant conqueror. And it's clear from those governors and from their curriculum vitae that these were chosen in order to try and rescue Britain.

[Richard Hingley]

The other factor in that equation is that there are pro Roman Britons at the same time. I mean we believe that Toga Dubna's lived through this period and actually probably cooperated with the Romans. Again this is, you know, this is debatable but we shouldn't imagine that the whole of Britain is rising up against the Romans. There are people within Britain who are probably siding with the Romans and helping the Romans. If Boudicca had won that would have fallen apart and that supports the idea that then the Roman Empire would have had a major problem. But you know, it wasn't the Britons fighting the Romans which is a point that was made early on. It was some tribes in Britain fighting the Romans.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Juliet. So we're moving on to what happened to the name, what became of her as a myth and as an important player in our history from then on. There's a little reference from gildas in the 6th century saying there was the

[Juliet Wood]

lioness but he doesn't mention Buddha, doesn't

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

mention Boudicca taken to mean it has. Maybe we had lots of different lionesses.

[Juliet Wood]

I think we must. I think we might have.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

I don't spend too much time on him.

[Juliet Wood]

No.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Then she. We lose out. We don't. No mention at all. We lose the classical writers really. It's a so called Dark Ages which is debatable. Doesn't other matter. They come back in the Renaissance and Polydore Virgil much as then we get going. What do we get going with? It's to do with the. It's partly to do with ironically the beginning of the British Empire. It does Drake and Raleigh and those people.

[Juliet Wood]

It's Britain kind of refining its past. I mean having lost the Geoffrey of Monmouth myth, the Trojan origin myth, Britain has to kind of find another national myth. And interestingly Polydore Virgil knocks the Geoffrey on the head and reintroduces the notion of Boudicca. The classical sources. The reason you get so many different names is that there's no, sort of. They're reading different kind of classical sources. There's no kind of good edition of Tacitus and they don't have paleographical techniques. So you get Boudicca, Voidicea, Voada, Bundaker. I mean you do all kinds of things.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

And then you get the idea that the word means victory and then you

[Juliet Wood]

get the idea that the word means, means victory as well. Because they're starting to speculate on the sources of these. They're applying the techniques of modern history in their infancy, but they are applying the techniques of modern history but they are actually having trouble with the past because they still have many of the same attitudes as the Romans do to the nature of rulership, which is queens are a bad thing and that female rulers are an affront, a danger to the natural order. So they present Boudicca as negative, not quite so negative perhaps. And of course they run into this problem that this is happening during the Tudor period. And up pops Elizabeth I, who claims

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Boudicca as some sort of ancestors, I understand it. Miranda indeed. Example, Great source of strength. Look, you had a great queen and now you've got another one.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

Yes. And she's been red haired like Boudica as a golden haired assassin. And interestingly, if you actually look at pictures of Mary, her half sister and Elizabeth, whereas Mary is presented as a stern but very female person in images of Elizabeth, she's seen as very, very masculine and extremely powerful in a kind of male way. And there. So you've got the sort of Boudica myth reenacting itself, reinventing itself in the Persona, in the projected Persona of Elizabeth I.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Can you give us a bit of detail of how this is taken on by Elizabeth or her court or her spokespersons?

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

I'm not sure how direct it is. It is very much. We've been here before. It is admissible because it's happened before in the remote past.

[Juliet Wood]

Well, there is one very direct one in that after the defeat of the Armada, there's a poem where Boudicca's speech at before the Romans and Elizabeth's speech at Tilbury are paralleled, at least by implication. And you get this notion that kind of Elizabeth is Boudicca, but she's not destructive because she's the Virgin Queen and Britain is inviolate, whereas Boudicca is the totally unruly woman. So they kind of keep the good bit of Boudicca and drop it. The other one where you get it, which is quite amazing is this picture of Boudicca in Hollandshed's Chronicles, which is clearly based on Elizabeth's portrait when she was first. First a young queen. So she's got flowing hair, but tucked under her arm is this hair that Boudicca released before the battle. So you. They're trying to.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

She released the hair.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

She released H A R. Yeah.

[Juliet Wood]

H A R E. Yes. She's got long hair as well.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

It wasn't a seven head.

[Juliet Wood]

The bunny rabbit. She's got the money ran. She's got the hair.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

No hair is more important than the money ran. She let it run because this is important. And which way it run determined the

[Juliet Wood]

fate of the battle, determines the battle. So they get this notion of a battle leader, but Elizabeth never actually leads the battle. She gives this speech at Tilbury, or we think she gives this speech at Tilbury. She never actually leads the battle. She allows the men to lead the battle. So she's kind of the good bits of Boudicca without the bad bits of Boudicca.

[Richard Hingley]

Yes. The other thing that struck me is that it's easy to use the positive aspects of Boudicca because she's a very complex figure. So you can draw on those positive aspects and ignore the negative, or you can draw on negative aspects and ignore the positive. And the other representation of Elizabeth's Boudicca or Boudicca is Elizabeth is actually later in Elizabeth's reign. It's by John Speed in the early 17th century, who again illustrates Boudicca as a clothed woman, using the account from Cassius Dio, the description of Boudicca's appearance. And she's very much addressed as a fairly civil Briton. She's still barbaric, but she's not as barbaric as her predecessors.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

And then we hear the Beaumont Fletcher play on Bonduca. But that James I. Her role shifts then, doesn't it? On when James comes in.

[Richard Hingley]

Yes. I mean, that play is actually roughly contemporary with John Speed, but unlike John Speed, who makes her very positive, Fletcher makes her a very, very negative figure.

[Juliet Wood]

He actually calls her a virago. That's the word he used, which is a woman with masculine characteristics that had a very, very specific meaning.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

And then Queen Victoria. Sorry to jump and never mind. I mean, Queen Victoria adopts Boudicca and what does she see? Why does she. What does she see? Boudicca as well, She's Bodhis here at this time. Which is a much nicer word.

[Juliet Wood]

Yes.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Tennyson writes a poem. Have a little relief from Boudicca. Shall we back to the five syllables.

[Juliet Wood]

Well, Boudicca has become Boadicea basically, by now she's become very domesticated. She's no longer fierce. This is what's happening in the. In the 17th century with speed. So by the time it comes to Victorian times, they can make a play on the name. Boudicca is Victoria, Boadicea is Victoria. Victoria is Victoria. And, of course, Victoria is both the leader of the empire and a good woman at home. She's the perfect wife. So really, our Tacitus figure has changed tremendously by this time. And you really get her being both imperial and domestic at the same time. And the thing there that it becomes very interesting is she becomes a pageant figure. And you get all these wonderful Victorian Edwardian ladies dressing up as Boudicca, using their pony carts as chariot and putting their baby brothers in, you know, the slave cages, and it's all terribly, terribly proper.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

And great statue is raised, great statue is raised. She's given a Persian size, she is.

[Juliet Wood]

But in Wales, the statue of Boudicca, and Cardiff shows her as a mother between her two daughters, not a chariot inside.

[Richard Hingley]

Really, in England in late Victorian times, she's an imperial icon. And the reason is because she's seen as partly ancestral to the current British, and she fought a massive empire, but she's actually sort of dislocated from that idea of resistance and warfare and built into the idea that the British have inherited their imperial mantle from the Romans. So, ironically, she becomes a symbol of British imperialism when her major act was to fight against a world empire.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

MIRANDA There's a wonderful stained glass window in the town hall in Colchester. It's the Queen's window, and it represents all the British queens that had an influence on Colchester. And it was dedicated or given to the town by a committee of Ladies in 1902. And Boudicca is mentioned as Baudicea. And underneath or above that inscription is a picture of a very young, very beautiful woman with long golden hair and a large spear.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Why do you think she keeps recurring?

[Juliet Wood]

JULIET Well, I think because there's an ambiguity at the start. This is always a very good thing if you're going to be a myth, because it allows space for kind of reinterpretation and because she's part of a past. You can do kind of more things with the past than you can with the present. I mean, you know, it's very much the other country concept, concept of the past. And also because you can put her into the public sphere, into the domestic sphere, into the sphere of imperial and into a cultural sense sphere as well. She kind of fits because of her fragmentary source.

[Host (Melvyn Bragg)]

Well, you started by telling me she may not be real. Juliet, you've ended up by. We've had her realized anyway in this program. Thank you all very much, Miranda Alders Green, Juliet Wood and Richard Hingley. Next week, we'll be talking about the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch and his most famous work, the Scream, thought by some people to be to capture the torment of existence in a godless world. Thank you for listening.

[Richard Hingley]

If you've enjoyed this Radio 4 podcast, why not try others, such as Thinking Aloud, where Laurie Taylor discusses the latest social science research? To find out more, visit BBC Co UK Radio 4.