Boudica

Summary

Short History Of... Boudica

Podcast: Short History Of...
Host: John Hopkins (Noiser)
Date: January 15, 2024
Episode Theme:
A vivid, dramatic retelling of the legendary revolt of Boudica, the warrior queen of the Iceni, against the occupying Roman forces in Britain. Through immersive storytelling, expert interviews, and the latest archaeological findings, the episode explores Boudica's motivations, the brutality of Roman occupation, her bloody uprising, and her enduring legacy as both a British icon and a figure of myth.

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Overview of the Episode

This episode plunges listeners into first-century Britain, recounting the extraordinary story of Boudica, her revolt against Roman rule, and the devastating consequences for her people and her legacy. The episode combines Roman historical accounts, archaeological evidence, and modern interpretations to unravel fact from legend, questioning what is known, what is surmised, and why Boudica’s story continues to resonate.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Britain Under Roman Rule and the Iceni Context

• Setting the Scene:
  The episode opens in the marshy lands of eastern England, immersing listeners in the daily life and anxieties of the Iceni tribe, setting up the tension between Roman occupiers and local rulers [00:01-07:30].
• Importance of Britain to Rome:
  Professor Miranda Aldhouse-Green explains the lure of Britain—its wealth of minerals, fertile land, and the allure of conquering a mysterious island beyond the known world.

  “For the Romans and the Greeks, the known world was surrounded by a big river called ocean and Britain was beyond that. So it did seem to the classical world that Britain was—ooh, we’re not really sure whether they’re human or not. They may have tails, but they paint themselves blue and it’s all a bit scary.”
  (Miranda Aldhouse-Green, 08:23)

2. The Iceni and the Death of Prasutagus

• Client Kings and Roman Betrayal:
  The Iceni prospered through trade in salt and gold, remaining proudly independent [10:22]. King Prasutagus tried to safeguard his tribe by making Rome a beneficiary in his will, splitting his estate between Emperor Nero and his daughters.
• Roman Response:
  Upon Prasutagus’ death, the Romans saw the will as an affront; under Roman law, women could not inherit. Brutally, the Romans flogged Boudica and violated her daughters in a calculated move to subjugate the Iceni [14:02-15:20].

  “He [Decianus Catus] did a very stupid thing. He captured Boudicca and flogged her...You can't do that to Roman citizens. So the whole thing was an absolute disaster...It was just a tinderbox waiting to be lit."
  (Miranda Aldhouse-Green, 14:48)

3. Boudica, the Person and Her Motivation

• The Mystery of Boudica:
  Her life is largely undocumented; some argue she is myth, others, including Aldhouse-Green, assert her reality citing Tacitus and Dio Cassius as reliable sources. Her name itself means "victory" [13:11].
• A Female Leader:
  Unusually for the Roman world, Britain boasted multiple powerful women leaders. Boudica’s ability to rally and lead was exceptional [16:25].

4. The Revolt Begins

• Inciting Events:
  The combination of financial oppression (taxes, recalled loans), religious desecration, and personal violence sparks revolt. Neighboring tribes like the Trinovantes join under Boudica’s command [16:56-17:09].
• Religious Overtones:
  Boudica invokes the goddess Andraste, associated with victory and blood, even conducting (possibly) Druidian-style divination [20:52].

  “Boudicca was calling on Andraste, who was a goddess of victory and of blood...She might very well have been part of the druidic order.”
  (Miranda Aldhouse-Green, 20:52)

5. The Destruction of Roman Britain

• Sacking Camulodunum (Colchester):
  The fatally under-defended garrison town falls swiftly. The Iceni massacre soldiers and civilians, even refusing to loot—choosing to destroy [22:57-26:53].
• Londinium and Verulamium:
  Boudica’s army overruns the nascent city of London, burning it so thoroughly that a blackened archeological layer (“Boudican burning band”) persists today [30:50].
  • Notable detail: The scale of slaughter is vast; Dio Cassius and Tacitus report the deaths of women, children, and non-combatants (later considered both atrocity and retribution).

  "She basically committed awful acts of human sacrifice to the high born Roman women...impaled as though they were being raped. And I think that was a personal thing because of what had happened to her daughters."
  (Miranda Aldhouse-Green, 31:57)

6. Roman Counterattack and the Battle of Watling Street

• Governor Suetonius Paulinus Returns:
  Leaving his campaign in Wales, Suetonius marches to intercept Boudica. Choosing a battlefield with a bottleneck, he leverages Roman tactics against the numerically superior, but less disciplined, Britons [34:38-38:02].
• Bloody Outcome:
  Roman discipline prevails; the Britons, hemmed in and unable to maneuver, are slaughtered. Roman losses are minimal compared to the reputed 80,000 Britons killed (numbers considered exaggerated) [39:50].

  "The Roman legion worked as a single unit...they would work as a machine. And in the end, that machine won."
  (Miranda Aldhouse-Green, 41:17)

7. Boudica’s Fate and Aftermath

• Ambiguous End:
  Some say Boudica died of her wounds, others that she took poison rather than be captured—her body’s resting place remains a mystery, mythically associated with King’s Cross Station [42:18-43:46].
• Roman Reprisals:
  Retribution for the Iceni is harsh—villages burned, survivors enslaved, hidden hoards of coins left behind by those fleeing [44:31-45:32].
• Rome's Lesson:
  The revolt almost leads Nero to consider abandoning Britain. Instead, stricter but more conciliatory leadership is installed. Rome learns to partially accommodate native populations [45:32].

  "Nero learnt from his mistakes and that's how the province was turned around."
  (Miranda Aldhouse-Green, 45:32)

8. Boudica’s Legacy

• From History to National Myth:
  Boudica’s story survives exclusively in enemy (Roman) texts. Later British chroniclers and poets recast her as a symbol of freedom, sometimes twisting her original anti-imperial context [47:42].
  • William Cooper’s poem, Boadicea, cements her as a founding mother of “British” identity, notably during the rise and decline of the British Empire.
• Cultural Icon:
  Statues and stories from Elizabeth I to Margaret Thatcher have claimed her as a symbol.

  "Boudicca is a personification of Britannia, somebody living in a rural backwater in Britain taking on the might of Rome...And here was somebody who just said, excuse me, I’m not having this. And that’s wonderful."
  (Miranda Aldhouse-Green, 49:41)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Roman Views of Britain:
  “For the Romans and the Greeks, the known world was surrounded by a big river called ocean and Britain was beyond that…If we can conquer them, that's going to be really fantastic.”
  (Miranda Aldhouse-Green, 08:23)
• On the Mistreatment Sparking Revolt:
  “...You can't do that to Roman citizens. So the whole thing was an absolute disaster...It was just a tinderbox waiting to be lit.”
  (Miranda Aldhouse-Green, 14:48)
• On Weapons as Psychological Warfare:
  "A lot of the decoration is either red enamel or red coral to simulate blood...It's going to scare you to death."
  (Miranda Aldhouse-Green, 22:29)
• On Boudica’s Legacy:
  “Boudicca left her mark in a way that very few others have done...And here was somebody who just said, excuse me, I’m not having this. And that’s wonderful.”
  (Miranda Aldhouse-Green, 49:41)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:01-07:30 – Dramatic introduction: daily life and crisis in the Iceni village
• 08:23-11:50 – Rome's interest in Britannia, Iceni wealth, and Prasutagus as client king
• 13:11-14:48 – Boudica's identity, existence, and the disastrous Roman punishment
• 16:25-17:09 – Boudica rallies the tribes; female power in Iron Age Britain
• 19:32-22:29 – Conflict with Druids, Boudica’s religious motivations and status
• 22:57-26:53 – Sack of Camulodunum
• 30:50 – Archaeological evidence for the revolts
• 34:38-41:17 – Battle of Watling Street: Roman military tactics and Briton rout
• 42:18-44:31 – Boudica’s death mysteries and Roman reprisals
• 45:32-46:41 – Roman policy shifts post-revolt
• 47:42-50:29 – Boudica’s afterlife in myth and national identity

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Conclusion: Boudica in British and World History

While the exact truth of Boudica’s biography can never be fully known, her story—rooted in trauma, vengeance, and defiance—left a dramatic scar on Roman Britain and echoes through centuries of storytelling. Her revolt forced Rome to re-examine its colonial tactics and created a figure who could be claimed as both a nationalist heroine and a feminist icon, despite the moral ambiguities of her rebellion.

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For further exploration:

• Read Tacitus and Dio Cassius’s accounts for early perspective
• Professor Miranda Aldhouse-Green’s book Britannia for archaeological context
• Visit Colchester or the Boudica statue near Westminster Bridge for a physical sense of her legacy

Transcript

[John Hopkins]

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That's 20% off your first purchase with Code Short History at LiquidIV. It is the year 60 AD in an iron Age village in the marshlands of eastern England. Sunset is falling. A tall woman with long, loose hair wearing leather leggings, makes her way between thatched roundhouses. Their conical roofs rise up from the ground to peaks twice her height where smoke puffs from chimney holes. The smell of roasting meat kindles her hunger. She's been working all day with horses and chariots and is still carrying her metal tipped javelin. Suddenly, a scream comes from one hut. An old man rushes out, tearing at his hair in a frenzy. Moments later, his family emerge too, encircling him gently and ushering him back inside. The disturbance is over as quickly as it began, but the woman with the javelin, who is a leader of this community, puts down her weapon and goes to check if all is well inside. The man is being comforted, but his distress is palpable. His adult daughter takes their visitor aside and explains to her that he's been this way since he got home. He'd been working in the fields. He witnessed a terrifying sight as the sun dipped in the sky. He claims the clouds burned red and the marsh waters turned to blood. The old man whispers that it is an omen. The woman leaves, snatches up her spear and marches to her own roundhouse. The village has been on edge ever since her husband, their chief, died the previous year. He left no sons to be his heir. A power vacuum makes the community vulnerable to outsiders who want their resources, their crops, their horses, maybe even their children. She comes to her own hut where her adolescent daughters have just finished preparing mutton stew. The family eat together, then settle down for the night. But when the girls are safely in their beds, the woman hears a noise that makes her snatch up her javelin again. A steady tramp of leather clad feet. A rattle of metal helmets. Shouts in a strange language. Romans. And they're coming this way. She hurriedly wakes her daughters and orders them to hide in a store cupboard before slamming the door firmly behind them. Then she rushes outside and sounds the alarm by banging her spear tip against a metal pot. As the clanging echoes into the night, the villagers emerge. The man who witnessed the omen ushers his family away towards the moonlit marshes, hoping his local knowledge will keep them safe from sinking mud and thrice goblins who lurk in the water. He'd rather face these dangers than the Romans. The other neighbors respond just as urgently, some galloping up on horseback. She orders everyone to ensure they are well armed. Then she waits. Her husband had been a friend of Rome and even left half these lands to the Emperor Nero. In his will. She had hoped that her family remain in good favor. But as the Romans enter the village, she realizes her mistake. The soldiers fan out. Some engage in fights. Others duck into huts. There are screams, dogs barking, the clash of blades as her people make a stand. She runs to defend her girls. The Roman commander cuts her up before she reaches the roundhouse and points a sword at her throat. His eyes gleam between the metal panels of a helmet that covers most of his face. He says he has come to teach her a lesson. He knows that she is the one they call Boudicca. She is dragged away by more men than she can outmaneuver. And soon she's being tied to a post. A shirt is ripped from her back, and she gasps as a whip lashes her bare skin. But Boudicca only screams when she sees soldiers rush into the roundhouse where her girls are hiding. She knows what comes next. Amid the din of her home being ransacked, all Boudicca hears is their cries for help. Although she struggles against her bonds, she cannot save them. As the Roman commander flogs her, his slaves violate her daughters. And Boudicca vows to have her revenge. Boudicca is celebrated as the warrior queen of a fiercely independent Celtic tribe known as the Iceni. In protest at the imperial brutality of the Romans, she made a stand even when neighboring tribes were willing to collaborate to exchange their freedom for material gain. That saw the elite grow rich while others were subjugated. But so little is known about Boudicca that even her name is a mystery, remembered in the history books by various titles, including the Latinized version, Boadicea. There are no surviving sources from her time to tell us when, where and even if she really lived. The light of Boudicca's legend has shone for two millennia. A beacon of national liberty, personal defiance and female power. So who was this woman who razed to the ground three cities, including London? How does modern archaeology provide evidence to support her folklore? Can we call her a feminist icon when she was willing to slaughter women and children? And how did her actions alter the course of English and Roman history? I'm John Hopkins from Noiser. This is a short history of Boudicca. On 26 August, in 55 BC, a Roman general by the name of Julius Caesar boards a boat in northern France. He sets sail towards a mysterious island across the channel, which they call Britannia. Sailing alongside him are two legions of soldiers, some 10,000 men plus cavalry. But terrible weather hinders his landing and the local warriors who stand guard along the white clifftops prevent a full scale invasion. A year later, he returns with more firepower, some 800 ships this time. He marches inland and meets tribal chiefs. Caesar describes them as frightful savages who paint themselves blue with a dye called woad. Despite their primitive ways, Caesar the Roman Emperor doesn't manage to conquer this backwater outpost of semi naked, illiterate, mud dwelling heathens, the so called Britons. But that won't stop the Romans from trying again. Miranda Oldhouse Green is a professor of archaeology at Cardiff University and the author of the book Britannia.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

It was deemed legendary that Britain was very rich in minerals, very rich in wheat growing, and so in terms of economics, it made sense. So there are a lot of things that came together fairly near the beginning of the first century AD for Rome to cast covetous and slightly frightened eyes at Britain. Don't forget that for the Romans and the Greeks, the known world was surrounded by a big river called ocean and Britain was beyond that. So it did seem to the classical world that Britain was. Ooh, we're not really very sure whether they're human or not. They may have tails, but they paint themselves blue and it's all a bit scary. And if we can conquer them, that's going to be really fantastic.

[John Hopkins]

It will be another century before the Romans come see and conquer. In 43 AD, the Emperor Claudius is in need of metals, slaves and tales of glory on the battlefield to impress his people back home. These are all available in Britannia, the island that his predecessor Caesar Found failed to subjugate. In high summer, Claudius sets sail. His ships land on the east coast of Kent, in a place called Richborough, which now lies inland. He brings an army complete with war elephants, almost certainly the first time native Britons have seen such a creature. Claudius himself spends only two weeks in Britannia before returning to Gaul on the continent. But his legions go on to defeat tribes in the south before heading north across the River Thames into the unexplored interior. In the years that follow, Romans subjugate many local communities and strike treaties with others. One early ally of Rome is the Iceni, ruled by a chief named Prasutagus. The tribe live in what is now East Anglia, the marshy fenlands northeast of London.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

They lived in a very rich part of Britain. I think a lot of their wealth depended on the provision of salt, which of course in those days was terribly valuable as a preservative for meat and other comestibles. They also had a lot of gold, so it was a very prosperous stand. But East Anglia has always been slightly on the edge and therefore, as well as being fairly rich and powerful, they didn't have an awful lot of truck with their neighbours. They were sort of out on their own.

[John Hopkins]

The Iceni's remote home on the dangerous, waterlogged eastern Fens makes them independent, insular even. Other tribes are by now enjoying new continental foods, such as wine and olive oil. Some adopt advanced technologies like the pottery wheel. But the Iceni stick to traditional ways. They stamp their name proudly on their coins and add a trademark image of a horse or sometimes a vicious snapping dog with raised hackles called a Norfolk wolf. Hoards of Iceni coins have been found buried in the area throughout the centuries. As recently as 1982, a cache of over 800 silver coins were found in a ceramic pot in a field near Cambridge and are now held by the British Museum. These coins show that the Iceni are wealthy and that wealth draws the attention of the Romans.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

The interesting thing about the Iceni was that the king Prasutagus had decided that he would like the tribe to be friendly with Rome. And so he was a so called client king. Now, a client king was somebody who went into a relationship with the Roman Empire, basically a quid pro quo. And that worked quite well. The problem was Nero came to the throne in 54 AD. He decided that he would actually quite like to have the riches of the Iceni.

[John Hopkins]

Prasutagus dies of natural causes. In his will, he leaves half his kingdom to Nero, but the other half he leaves to his Daughters whose names are lost to history. His wife Boudicca is not named in the will. We don't know why, but perhaps King Prasutagus knew that she would never collaborate with the Romans. In this respect and many others, Boudicca remains a mystery. There is no record of her birth or marriage or any other biographical detail until she's recorded in her encounters with the Romans after her husband's death. Some historians question her very existence, suggesting she might be a myth or a composite character inspired by various female leaders of the time.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

I think she was real. We've got two main writers who talk about her, Tacitus in the first and early second century ad and we've got then Dio Cassius who is writing much later in the third to fourth centuries ad. And they both have slightly different takes on Boudicca. I think, yes, she did exist. And one of the reasons why we think that is that Tacitus himself was a very straightforward historian. He didn't have baggage, he told it like it was. Whereas some other authors would aggrandize things and make a lot of stories out of nothing. But Tacitus, he was a down to earth historian, so I think we can believe him. The other thing which is interesting about Boudicca, the word Boudicca actually means victory. Whether or not she acquired that title for herself or whether it just happened to be her name, we really don't know.

[John Hopkins]

But according to Roman law, a woman cannot inherit a man's estate. When Boudicca's husband left half his assets to his daughters, it is seen as an insult to the emperor and Nero is not a forgiving man and orders that the king's family and community must pay the price. A Roman officer called Decianus Catus is dispatched to East Anglia to take what rightfully belongs to his emperor. Choosing a heavy handed way to make his point, he strips and whips Boudicca. The humiliation is symbolic. Flogging is what Romans do to slaves. By subjecting her to such a punishment, he hopes to show all Britons that they are the servants of Rome.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

Decianus Cassius, who is the person involved in actually going into Icenian territory, he did a very stupid thing. He captured Boudicca and flogged her. And also because Prasutagus, her late husband, had been a Roman citizen, the chances are she was also a Roman citizen. You can't do that to Roman citizens. So the whole thing was an absolute disaster in terms of pr. It couldn't have gone worse. It was just a tinderbox waiting to be lit.

[John Hopkins]

Meanwhile, Rome is also applying financial pressure to other tribes who do not toe the line. Taxes are imposed while rich benefactors like the statesman Seneca recall loans and withdraw investments in Britannia. But Boudicca protests that overtaxation is as much a form of servitude as slave labor. She knows that her southern neighbors feel the same way. The Trinovantes have been forced to cede land and pay tariffs to Roman occupiers. Even Roman historians recognize that there are many provocations that incite Boudicca to put into motion what comes next. Tacitus links her action to her own violation and that of her daughters. Diocassius blames it on the financial stranglehold. Either way, Boudicca reaches the end of her tether. Although she is not technically a queen, which is a title bestowed by Rome, she's influential enough in her local area to raise an army.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

She was a very powerful lady, and she's one of several female leaders that we know about. In Britain, we don't have them in France, in Gaul and Germany, we don't have any references to powerful women. But in Britain, we've got two. We've got Boudicca in East Anglia and then we've got Cartimanja up in the north. And she was also. She was a client queen. And she was extremely powerful. And we know from tombs, early Iron Age tombs. Some women in Britain were regarded as extremely high status.

[John Hopkins]

The beleaguered Iceni and Trinovantes are fed up of the Romans. And now the time is ripe to strike back.

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[John Hopkins]

the Roman governor of Britannia, Suetonius Paulinus, is distracted by another conflict 300 miles away to the west, the island of Mona is the stronghold of the Druids, the religious leaders of the Celts. Off the north coast of Wales. It's known in English as Anglesey, although it's still called Morn in modern Welsh, taken from its ancient name. Suetonius has taken the majority of the Roman army to the island to wage war on the Druids who refused to submit to Rome. Out here, the priests carry out human sacrifices to pagan gods, a practice that is taboo to the Romans. Even Julius Caesar, when writing his war journal back in 50 BC, was horrified by what he referred to as their dark arts. These include the Druid Wicker man, in which priests burnt people alive inside a huge human sculpture made from osier, or willow branches. Now, a century after Caesar, the Romans still see the powerful influence of the Druids as a threat. They act as the healers, soothsayers and storytellers of Celtic folklore. The Druids of Mona may even inspire Boudicca on the other side of the country in the eastern Iceni homeland, the

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

Britons in general had a number of gods and goddesses. The goddess that Boudicca was calling on was Andraste, who was a goddess of victory and of blood. And she fairly demanded human sacrifices because that's what she got from Boudicca. So she was a very ancient goddess, the goddess of the sacred grove. And there's also some very, very tentative evidence to suggest that Boudicca herself might even have been a Druid. In one of the passages in the literature, she's predicting the future. She has this hair, this wonderful little animal that she holds and then releases and then she divines by which way the hare runs as to whether she's going to be victorious or not. And that's something that Druids did. So she might very well have been part of the druidic order.

[John Hopkins]

In 60 AD, Boudicca finds herself at the heart of a perfect storm. Roman appropriation of lands, a war against the Druids and the destruction of holy sites, loans recalled, taxes raised. Not to mention the unforgivable violence against a tribal ruler and her daughters. The Romans may see the Britons as subhuman barbarians, but the indigenous peoples see them as immoral intruders who will stop at nothing in their lust for wealth. So when Boudicca makes a call to arms, her Iceni and the neighboring Trinovantes respond in their tens of thousands. They are not professional soldiers, but the first century is a time of perpetual conflict between tribes, meaning they're already armed and dangerous.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

We know from the archaeological record that an awful lot of weapons, about the weapons and the shields and so on, that we find archaeologically they're all absolutely beautifully made and highly decorated. And what's really interesting was that a lot of the decoration is either red enamel or red coral to simulate blood. So you've got these psychological warfares. So if you're going at your enemy with a sword that's full of sort of bloody red blotches, it's going to scare you to death.

[John Hopkins]

Boudicca's army set off to a town called Camulodunum, the capital of Roman Britain. It lies near the coast in Essex, northeast of modern day London. Camulodunum is a colonia, a military stronghold from which we get the word colony, now known as Colchester. Two thousand years later, it is still important to the military, home to several British army sections, including the Elite Parachute Regiment.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

Now, Colchester was a special place because it's always been a garrison town, and it was a garrison town in the Roman period. So what the Romans did was when they came into Colchester, they pinched land from the Trinovantes and they settled their veteran soldiers so that they all had a little spot of land and they would retire. So they were a veteran group of people who would be there at need. Also, they would have land of their own to till, all taken from the Trinovantes. Now, that wasn't just a secular seizing of people's land for the Britons, their ancestors and their gods would have been in the landscape. So the Romans were taking that away as well. So they were taking away their very identity.

[John Hopkins]

The retired soldiers live in relative comfort on appropriated land, demanding taxes and supplies from local farmers, bleeding them dry until the peasants suffer famines. To make matters worse, the Romans conscript local youths and force them to fight against their own people. A final insult comes when the Trinovantes are obliged to construct, at their own cost, a temple to Claudius, the Roman emperor, who is worshipped like a God. So now Boudicca has a target in sight. Camulodunum. The town is strategic, but also symbolic. The colonia represents the entire Roman colony of Britannia. It is the middle of the day and the rain is falling steadily. A sentry stands atop the red brick town wall, his woolen cloak growing heavier with each hour of drizzle. The retired legionnaire is thousands of miles from home, tired of a sky that is the same color as his graying hair. He hears a whistle from further along the wall, with a look of alarm. A fellow soldier is pointing towards the River Colne. A sound drifts on the wind, a mass of shouting and clattering. The legionnaire climbs down from the wall and hurries to the barracks to raise the alarm. The Home Guard immediately rally and soon a few hundred soldiers are snatching up shields and gladius swords. While the troops march at the double out onto the wall. The sentry dispatches a rider to nearby Londinium to call for reinforcements. But he already knows it will take too long. The rest of the army is hundreds of miles away, fighting druids in Wales. Here there are no archers, only retirees, the injured boys, women, the elderly. And as the horde descends on the settlement, he realizes just how outnumbered they are. In the front is a chariot carrying a tall woman with a spear and long wild hair. She is chanting as she advances, a war cry echoed by drummers and warriors clad in skins and furs. They carry axes and cudgels, weapons made somehow more terrifying for being so primitive. They do not have armor. It is as if they have no fear. The column of Barbarians stretches as far as he can see, a line of ants, relentless and inhuman. When they reach the gates of the city wall, they do not hesitate, but break through with a battering ram. It takes seconds. Countless people now wash through the streets, as though Britannia's endless rain has brought a flood. Hurrying over to the woman, the old legionnaire raises his hands and tries to reason with her. But she silences him with a blow to the head. He slumps, mortally wounded, and watches as she spears another legionnaire, then turns her wrath on a Roman woman. Her victim's blood soaks into the wet mud. All around, barbarians set fire to wattle and daub buildings. Even in the rain, the timber and dried dun go up like tinder. Soon the city is aflame. Through sword in swirling smoke, the dying man sees Iceni warriors pour into the temple of Claudius, where residents seek refuge, praying to the emperor and the gods to save them. Inside the sanctuary, the only sounds are swords and axes, screams cut short by violence. Only the Iceni will emerge from the Roman temple today when reinforcements arrive, members of an elite Roman squad of 5,000 soldiers known as the Ninth Legion, they too are routed in a second famous victory for Boudicca. She simply overwhelms them with numbers reflecting the strength of her support. Her army kill 80% of the Legion and the commander is forced to make a humiliating escape. Boudicca then takes two days to slaughter every person in Colchester, not just Romans, but anyone working for them who she deems guilty of taking the Roman shilling. She draws a pitiless line between those who sell themselves for money or influence and those who would die for freedom. Boudicca even refuses to loot the town. She would rather burn it to the ground than profit from the Romans in any way. But if Boudicca wants to lure Suetonius away from his war against the sacred druids, she has to keep up the pressure. So now her army marches another 50 miles south to Londinium. This colonia is unique in the Roman Empire, as the invaders established a new town rather than occupy an existing settlement. Londinium began as a pontoon bridge over the River Thames, which allowed the troops of emperor Claudius in AD 43 to cross the water while remaining safe and dry. The need to maintain the bridge meant that a town developed, supporting riverside wharves where supply ships could dock. By the time Boudicca arrives with her army 17 years later, the hub is a densely populated town of 10,000 residents with shops and offices, a forum or marketplace, and a basilica or public hall. But Boudicca has 100,000 warriors and the might of the Roman army is far away in North Wales. There is nothing to stop her. Her destruction of Londinium is so thorough that the Romans must later rebuild it from scratch to a new footprint. Only two of its original streets remain, what are now Cheapside and Bishopsgate, close to modern day St. Paul's Cathedral. While some historians question the truth behind the mythology of Boudicca, there is hard archaeological evidence of her army's assault on these towns. Buried deep in the earth that has accumulated over 2000 years lies a black layer of debris left behind by what must have been a catastrophic fire. It corroborates the stories told by Tacitus and Dio Cassius and gives credence to the legend of the Revolt of Boudicca.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

We have got the archaeology to prove it. I mean, if you go into Colchester, there is a Boudican burning band that you can actually see in the soil. So much had been burnt. It does corroborate it. Where it differs is that according to these two writers, Dio, Cassius and Tacitus, the whole of Colchester, the whole of Irelanium, the whole of London was put to the flame. But in fact, if you look at Colchester, there is a lot of burning, but it wasn't the entire city. There were pockets that were not burnt. So it wasn't quite a complete razing of the ground of the city, but it did an awful lot of damage.

[John Hopkins]

But Boudicca is still not satisfied. She marches another 25 miles northwest to Verulamium, now called St. Albans. Again she sacks the town, but the level of destruction here is less well documented. According to Tacitus, Boudicca takes no prisoners and is only interested. As he writes in Gibbet Fire or Cross, her motivation is not gain, but revenge.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

She basically committed awful acts of human sacrifice to the high born Roman women who were in Colchester. And I think what she was doing was an absolute tit for tat in terms of her daughters being raped, because these women were impaled as though they were being raped. And I think that was a personal thing because of what had happened to her daughters. And also it was her power that was being threatened and also her gods. And 2000 years ago, you're living in a landscape which is full of religion. You don't do anything without the gods. And once your lands are threatened, because that's where your gods live. Every tree, every field, every, every river, every spring has its own divinity. So when the Romans come along and try and destroy all that you are actually destroying the whole identity of the people

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[John Hopkins]

Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full [e-mail] it's not just Boudicca who is enraged. The Roman governor of Britannia, Suetonius Paulinus, is on the march. On hearing about the burning of the Southern colonia, the General turns his back on the Welsh Druids and sets off with the entire army. Suetonius moves south, Boudicca heads north. Both make good time along a route known as Watling Street. This paved road runs for 250 miles starting at Portus Dubris or Dover on the south coast. It passes through Londinium and then follows a diagonal line across the center of the country until it reaches Vyraconium, now the village of Roxeter in Shropshire. Here the road splits. Travellers can continue west to the Druids in Wales, or north via Dewar, now Chester, from where they can push on through a crossing at Hadrian's Wall to meet the Picts in Scotland. The route of Watling street had been a grassy track for untold centuries, but Roman ambition has developed the path into a transnational highway. In places, the carriageway is 8 meters wide, paved and topped in gravel. It allows two marching armies to move fast. It is not known exactly where Boudicca meets Suetonius for the Battle of Watling street, but wherever she is, the Iceni queen is far from home, in unfamiliar territory, with very different challenges to the treacherous marshes that she knows so well. In East Anglia, Governor Suetonius Paulinus rides at the front of a column of foot soldiers that stretches out of sight. Behind him, the legions are on a forced march, covering up to 30 miles a day. On the paved route of Watling street, the men are silent and grim. The only sound is from the thud of leather sandals and the rattle of chainmail armor. As each mile passes, Suetonius expects to see Boudicca's army rise over the next hill. And he knows that he will be outnumbered. Though he has 10,000 soldiers, reports tell him that Boudicca has 10 times that number. But as the strange countryside of Britain passes by, so damp and green compared to his coastal home in Italy, Suetonius has plenty of time to think about tactics. A roving battle would be disastrous for him. Even if the barbarians are poorly trained and have rudimentary weapons, they could overwhelm his men with sheer numbers, just as they did to the Ninth Legion. He needs to find an advantage. As the land grows more undulating and he has to urge his horse up a steep incline, he has an idea. He gives the command for the legion to halt. Then Suetonius leads a small team off the highway on a foray into the nearby countryside. Suetonius follows forest paths that lead him downhill into a rugged, craggy valley. When he finally reaches the floor of the basin, he gallops for a flat mile between rocky outcrops until the ravine opens onto a wide plain. This is what he needs. It's what military commanders call a defile, a narrow pass that can act as a chokepoint, a bottleneck. He can tuck his troops deep in the gorge, where the steep sides and trees will prevent an ambush from Boudicca's horse horsemen. Then they can level the playing Field. He sends messengers back to Watling street to call for the legions to descend into the gorge and meet him here. Soon the Romans are in place. Suetonius orders his men to adopt a close formation, ready to burst forth from the mouth of the valley. Out on the plain, the Britons amass. As well as warriors in chariots and cavalry. There are thousands of foot soldiers. But there are also cartloads of civilians, including women and children. These barbarians are so confident of success they have brought their families to watch. Suetonius turns to address his troops. He scoffs that this ragtag army is so ill disciplined that it is spread out like a drinking party. Some of his men laugh, but others are stern faced. They know what this army has achieved. In the south, angry soldiers are dangerous soldiers. Soon it is time. With a great cry, Boudicca's army charges. Her chariot leads the way, soldiers streaming behind her, filling the valley with war cries. The Romans hold the line and let the heathens come to them, funneling themselves deeper into the gorge. Soon Boudicca's warriors run out of space. Not until they are crushed into the bottleneck do the Romans send spears whistling through the air. The valley is now filled with the sickening rhythm of javelins finding their jackpots. One by one, Boudicca's people fall. Reinforcements stream up the gorge in support, only to meet more Roman spears. Then Suetonius orders the advance, his legions. Superior training and small weapons prove lethal in the tightly packed melee. As the Britons realize they are losing, they try to retreat back to the plain, but find themselves hemmed in by their own carts that carry the audience of onlookers. The Battle of Watling street is soon over. So is Boudicca's revolt and possibly her life. According to Roman reports, Boudicca loses 80,000 soldiers that day against Roman losses of just 400. But it's typical propaganda to exaggerate a disparity in casualties. One fact does remain. The ill discipline of Boudicca's army proves to be its undoing.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

The thing about the Roman army is it was a professional army, so they knew what they were about. They spent all their time fighting or drilling with the British army. It wasn't a standing army, so it would be assembled at need. So these were people who were probably one day working in their farms and the next day were called up. There would have been warriors at the top who were professional, but most of the people fighting were not professional. And so the kind of logistics, the pincer movements, the using of the cavalry to enclose groups of people. All of that would have been a Roman tactic. And also they worked as a team in the way that the British army didn't. The British army were full of individuals all wanting their own glory, whereas the Roman legion worked as a single unit. So you've got the shields that were protecting each other, the swords in the right hands, the shields covering your neighbour, and they would work as a machine. And in the end, that machine won.

[John Hopkins]

No one knows what happens next to Boudicca. Dio Cassius reports that she dies of a sickness, presumably from injuries sustained in battle. Tacitus records that Boudicca poisons herself rather than be taken prisoner of war. Such an action would be in character for a fiercely independent woman who refuses to be enslaved. Legend has it that her body is taken by her followers and buried in a sacred location. One myth that persists says that her resting place is between platforms 9 and 10 at King's Cross Station in London, coincidentally the site of Harry Potter's magical platform nine and three quarters. The Boudicca burial story is just as much of a fiction. It originates in 1715, when the bones of an elephant and a spear are found buried there, claiming the creature must have been a Roman war elephant. Later theorists argue this could have been the site of Boudicca's last battle. But the animal remains and the spearhead are later proved to be Neolithic. Both the battlefield and the burial site are likely to be in a more northerly part of Watling street, somewhere in the Midlands. We will probably never know. The location of Boudicca's grave would have been suppressed by Romans who did not want a rebel to become a martyr. Her death remains part of her mystery.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

I suspect she fell in battle. People are very quiet about it and I think the Roman sources were deliberately sotto voce about it because they didn't want her to become a beacon of regeneration, of rebellion and struggle and so on. So it was all muted. Suicide was quite rife in the Roman imperial court. If you did something to upset the Emperor, you'd be invited to fall on your sword. It was something that was quite common to shame. If you hadn't succeeded in something, then that would be a way out. And we don't know whether she was helped. We don't know whether there were druids involved, because druids were often part of the battlefield. They wouldn't actually fight, but they would be part of the sort of advisory group. Who knows? We just don't know.

[John Hopkins]

Any survivors of Boudicca's army returned to East Anglia. But the Iceni are punished for their rebellion. Romans attack their settlements, burning down homes and taking people into slavery. The reprisals may explain the high number of buried hoards found in the area over the centuries. As the Iceni fled their villages, maybe they tried to hide the coins to dig up later. The Romans also pour money into certain towns so that the new citizens of Britannia can prosper. But nothing goes to the Iceni. Settlements like Londinium are rebuilt with organized streets and modern conveniences such as baths and heating. Soon the Roman capital relocates to sophisticated Londinium, which spreads and becomes London. Meanwhile, Iceni settlements are left to languish. Boudicca's people suffer, but her bold action does alter the course of history. For other Britons.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

There was a time when Nero seriously considered abandoning Britain as a province. I mean, in a way, Nero could have taken the easy way out and just left the province saying, right, that's it, that's where our barrier is. It was agreed that Suetonius Paulinus was sacked from his governorship. And the procurator, the finance officer who had gone and violated the children and flogged Boudicca, he was sacked as well. And Nero brought in two completely different individuals. They brought in a very slow and steady governor who was the opposite of the ambition of Suetonius Paulinus, because he wanted the province calmed down. And the procurator very interestingly was replaced by somebody who wasn't even a Roman. He was from the tribe of the Treveri in the Moselle Valley. So he was a Gaul. And he was brought in to liaise with the Britons, turn them into friends rather than enemies. So Nero learnt from his mistakes and that's how the province was turned around.

[John Hopkins]

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[John Hopkins]

Queen Boudicca would have been forgotten if it weren't for the Roman writers Tacitus and Diocasius. No ancient texts from Britannia mention her, and the only hard evidence is the burnt layer of soil that archaeologists find beneath the towns she raised into the medieval period. Monks write of a powerful female warrior in their ecclesiastical histories, but her name is not recorded. In 1534, the Italian historian Polydore Virgil describes a British queen called Boadicea, a Latin version of her name. It sticks. And a famous poem by William Cooper published in 1782 recasts Boadicea as the mother of the British Empire, ignoring the fact that the ancient Boudicca fought against imperial oppression. The Cooper poem is even etched on a famous bronze statue of Boudicca that stands beside the River Thames in Westminster. It shows the warrior in a chariot with two bare breasted girls, presumably the daughters she was driven to avenge. The statue was cast as a memorial to another female ruler, Queen Victoria, and erected in 1902 at a time when some Britons feared that the sun was setting on their empire. Over the centuries, the imagery of Boudicca has been used to boost the personal propaganda of other female leaders, from Elizabeth I to Margaret Thatcher. After 2000 years, and despite the scarcity of records of her life, Boudicca is still an icon. She is remembered as a fighter, an avenging angel, a proud patriot who would stop at nothing, not even astonishing acts of violence, to secure her freedom and that of her people. The most determined, terrifying, majestic woman in ancient Britain.

[Miranda Aldhouse-Green]

I think her cultural legacy is a way that Britannia was written into history in a way that without her would not have been so for the whole of the Roman world, which stretched from Britain right through to Arabia, Boudicca left her mark in a way that very few others have done. Boudicca is a personification of Britannia, somebody living in a rural backwater in Britain taking on the might of Rome. And there was so much firepower in the Roman army. And here was somebody who just said, excuse me, I'm not having this. And that's wonderful.

[John Hopkins]

Next time on Short History of We'll bring you a short history of Petra.

[Petra Expert]

The first time I went, I was just shocked at the size of the site. I had no idea that it went on and just on and on and on for as far as the eye could see. Cliffs, you know, with these carved rock cut tombs visible in the facade. I teach at a university and a lot of the university curriculum, not just at my university but in general today, is focused on the contemporary world. And in many ways the study of the distant past, the human past, has become marginalized and thought to be unimportant and irrelevant. And I think that the Nabataeans can show us just how important and relevant the study of the past is.

[John Hopkins]

That's next time.

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