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- [00:00]
Tristan Hughes
Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Teutoburg Forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great? With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe
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- [02:01]
Tristan Hughes
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- [02:39]
Tristan Hughes
The smoke comes first. It rises above the timber roofs of Roman Britain, darkening the sky over Camaludunum, modern day Colchester. The air is thick with fire, iron and rage. A woman, a leader now, a warrior with hair as flaming as the inferno ablaze around her has been Pushed beyond breaking point and the Romans must pay. Boudicca was queen of the Iceni, who had united Britons to lay waste to Roman settlements. But her story is not only one of revolt, it is also one of family, of identity and of the brutal cost of surviving within the iron grip of empire. When Roman Prussia turned to humiliation and her daughters became part of that story, Boudicca rose in fury from eastern Britain. She gathered an army that would shatter Roman control. Cities would burn, legions would stumble. And for a moment, the greatest imperial power in the Western world would meet its match. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. Welcome to the Ancients and today I'm delighted to be joined by historical best selling novelist Elodie Harper, who has been researching who Boudicca was before legend claimed her. We'll explore what Boudicca's revolt reveals about Roman Britain, the Iceni, and how Rome itself perceived this barbarian upstart. Elodie, welcome back. It's been too long. Welcome back to the show.
- [04:22]
Elodie Harper
Oh, it's an absolute delight to be with you again. Thanks so much for having me on.
- [04:25]
Tristan Hughes
You're more than welcome. And to talk about Boudicca, Elodie, I feel her story, it will never lose popularity. Yes, the revolt is brutal, it's bloody, but it's also personal, it's poignant. She's a rebel with a cause.
- [04:40]
Elodie Harper
She is. And there are so many different ways of approaching her story. And over kind of the centuries in Britain, people have done that in multiple ways. You know, the reason we think of her as red haired is because Elizabeth I used her as propaganda, another warrior queen, and projected her own physical attributes onto this ancient warrior queen. In fact, the only Roman source, which is, you know, hundreds of years after the fact, says she was blonde. I mean, who knows, she could have been a brunette. But this is all part of the storytelling. And then the Victorians who erected that incredible statue, designed it that faces the Houses of Parliament. Boudicca and her daughters, she was a very strange figure for them because they identified as an imperial power, Britain then very much with the Romans. And yet Boudicca was a rebel. So her legacy in that time period was, was quite complex. And then I would say, now one of the reasons I was so drawn to her story is with recent archaeological discoveries, we're finding out that powerful warrior women were much more common in this time period than perhaps was thought. And rather than being a kind of mythical outlier, Boudicca represents a different cultural phenomenon to that of ancient Greece and Rome.
- [05:56]
Tristan Hughes
Yes. And her story is kind of a glimpse into that world. Yeah. Where we know in some cases, women could become queens, could become rulers of particular areas of Britain at that time when the Romans are arriving. And, you know, even they note this is. This is strange to us. This is different.
- [06:14]
Elodie Harper
Yes, absolutely. I mean, it's. I think one of the most fascinating lines in Tacitus in his agricola, is when he says that the ancient Britons don't distinguish between the sexes when choosing commanders. And he says that in reference to Boudicca and her rebellion. And it's a throwaway line, but the significance of that in this time period is really immense. I mean, it is impossible to imagine a Roman emperor or a Roman legate commanding legions and armies and being a woman. Just unthinkable. And yet in ancient Britain, this was really common. We don't just have Tacitus word for it. You know, we're aware that there was Cartimandua, the queen of the north of the Brigantes, the original Sansa Stark, although she was a collaborator with Rome, unlike Boudicca. But, you know, we have other female rulers recorded and we also have the archaeology. Last year, the Duotrigis tribe, who were in the west of the uk, were found to practice matrilochwy. So their whole societies, it's not just that random rulers might be a woman, but their whole societies were based upon the idea that power was vested in the female line, which is such a different way of living to what was happening in ancient Rome at that point.
- [07:35]
Tristan Hughes
Yes, the idea of matrilocality. Fascinating DNA evidence coming from the southwest. Elodie, you mentioned how Boudicca story, it comes to the fore again and again throughout the many centuries of British and English history. And you mentioned that statue from the 1800s by embankment today, which is Boudicca and her daughters. And I guess that is a key part of her story, is the fact that she has these two daughters who play a prominent role and yet at the same time are still very mysterious to us today.
- [08:05]
Elodie Harper
Yes, absolutely. And, you know, this was another thing that drew me to this story, is that it wasn't just a political rebellion. This is really a family drama, what happened, and, you know, deeply personal in the relationships between all the. All the people involved. So the statue too is very interesting in the sense that it looks like Boudicca is about to attack the Houses of Parliament. So she's a British heroine, yet, you know, seems to be about to launch war on her. But that's weirdly apt for what happened in the rebellion because they had aspects of it that were close to civil war in the sense that there weren't kind of neat lines between coloniser and colonized. There would, by this point, have been a degree of intermarriage, a degree of cultural exchange between people, and the presence of the two daughters on that statue, you know, somehow they've had a wardrobe malfunction, so their boobs have popped out, you know, nice and objectifying. But anyway, different time period, but they're crouching in their mother's shadow. And this is really what they're doing in the historical record as well, because they played such a key role in the rebellion, and yet we don't even know their names. We just have the barest bones of their story from Tacitus. And so, obviously, as a novelist and massive ancient history nerd, this is just too tempting to pass up the idea of filling out the monumental gaps in this extraordinary story.
- [09:33]
Tristan Hughes
Now, of course, in your most recent work, all about Boudicca and her daughters, you explore the world of her people, the Iceni or the Iceni. We talked about this just before going on air, that Iceni is more well known, so we're going to say Iceni today, but different versions of how to say it. But can you give us a picture, Elodie, of what the Iceni lands looks like? I mean, what do we know about this part of Britain, you know, before Boudicca comes to the fore with her revolt, you know, in the early first century ad?
- [10:03]
Elodie Harper
So there was quite a lot of cultural exchange going on between Britain and Rome before Rome's conquest of parts of the British Isles, you know, in exchange of trade. The Romans were pretty snooty about the Celtic cultures of Gaul and ancient Britain. So one of the difficulties is that all the written records come from them. So, you know, you can see their snootiness even in the words that they use. They say oppida rather than cities or town, which is kind of like calling them settlements.
- [10:34]
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- [10:35]
Elodie Harper
You don't have to take the Romans, you know, completely at their word as to what these people might have been like. So, you know, the idea of these oppida, I called them cities in the book and towns, because why should they have a different terminology? It was a very different culture from ancient Rome. We don't have the same visual representation of it. Round houses was kind of still the predominant building at this point, but the idea that they were kind of scampering around in mud huts and this being a very sort of primitive society is, I think, completely unjustified, given the archaeological remains and also the complexity of the social structure. It was a society where women appear to have had much more power. It was a society that produced some incredible pieces of artwork. Boudicca specifically, you know, of this time period, there's the Snetisham hoard in Norfolk, this incredible collection of golden torques and jewellery that was found buried, possibly for religious reasons, possibly as a means of hiding material from the Romans. I mean, I think the stress is probably it was a more religious moment, perhaps left as an offering before the rebellion. So we know that they were a complex society, but the detail is lacking. You can get a kind of atmospheric sense of it if you go somewhere like Butser ancient Farm that has recreated roundhouses. But even the round houses are surprisingly hard to pin down in that. One of the key buildings for Boudicca and her family, which was in Thetford, was a potentially multi story roundhouse, which is not kind of how we think about it. And this was some sort of political or religious gathering centre, probably built by Boudicca or Prasatagas, her husband, who was the client king to Rome and the father of the two daughters. And I think if we just kind of look at the bare bones of the sort of family story of Boudicca and her daughters at this time, that, you know, Prasutagus was the Iceni king. He was a client king to Rome, which meant that he was ruling on their behalf. Rome would be extracting taxes and financial gain from this society, but at the same time probably benefiting by collaborating with Rome. The hope would be a slightly less repressive regime where the Iceni would retain some autonomy. And when he died, he left the kingdom to his two daughters, who I named Selina and Bolenia. They're not named in the record. In the hope that he would be able to continue this client relationship with Rome after his death through his daughters. And it wasn't unusual for ancient Britons at this time even to send their sons to Rome as a type of cultural exchange to sort of build alliances and have a cultural interplay of some type. So he wasn't wildly deluded in trying to do this. But the Romans reacted very violently. The procurator Decianus, who was in London, responded to this will of Prasutagus by sending Roman soldiers to the family home. The two daughters were raped, Boudicca, the mother was flogged. They stole a bunch of stuff, rampaged around, insulting and stealing from other members of the family. It was a very kind of repressive, violent response. And this was what led to Boudicca, to the revolt. It was what happened to her children, basically. And she took the two daughters with her on her kind of famous mustering trip round the east of England to try and encourage people to join the rebellion. And this is all we know about the daughters. After that, they disappear from the historical records, whether they fought in the rebellion, whether they survived it, how old they were, none of that we know, as I say, not even their names.
- [14:40]
Tristan Hughes
We cover so much ground there. Really interesting to get more of a sense of the relationship that the Iceni had with the Romans before the revolt and just going to get a sense of dates. So the Roman invasion of Britain is traditionally 43 AD, the revolt of Boudicca, 60, 61 AD. So less than 20 years after the Roman invasion. And the Romans don't control the whole of Britain. It's kind of the south, into Norfolk, East Anglia, where the Iceni are as a client kingdom towards the Midlands and the West. So Roman Britain at this time, it's still not quite the great juggernaut that it will be in future decades. So I don't want to say it's weaker. I guess it's earlier in the story, definitely.
- [15:25]
Elodie Harper
And, you know, this is why the Boudicca's rebellion was so impactful, because she had a real chance actually to drive the Romans from Britain. Their hold on the territory was quite tenuous compared to later centuries. They'd only been kind of dominant there for the past 20 years, as you say. And one of the reasons why her rebellion was initially successful is that the Legate of Britannia, Paulinus, was off fighting rebels and Druids in the West. So, you know, the power was spread quite thinly. The military might was spread quite thinly over the British Isles at this point, and their control was far from certain. And in fact, I realized that I rushed to the family story with your last answer. But one of the key things that we know about the culture in Britain at that time was the power of the Druids. So Paulinus was specifically fighting the Druids in Anglesey, in Mona, at this point, where they had a stronghold. And it's because of the hold that the Druids had religiously, but also politically and probably judicially as well. So, again, we know very little about the Druids apart from what has come down to us through Rome, who were very prejudiced about them. You know, Tacitus records both men and women in Mona fighting against Paulinus or resisting him. And Prasutagus, the father of Selina and Belenia. His name means magic chief. So there's a possibility that he was also a Druid, that far from being these just purely mystical figures, as they have kind of come down in popular imagination, it might have been more of a kind of caste system. They were the repositories of knowledge, learning, the law, power. And so I made Prasa Targus a Druid and I also made Selina a Druid because this seemed like a possibility. We don't know entirely how their power structure worked, but we know that the Druids were very important and that this wasn't just a purely kind of religious thing. I guess, you know, with all ancient cultures at this time, that the separation between religion and. And politics and legal systems is not fully separated.
- [17:46]
Tristan Hughes
And I think that's a very fair portrayal to make because the evidence is becoming more and more clear that, yes, the old image that it would have just been old men as druids in Britain is very much being pushed aside because we know that it would probably have been powerful men and powerful women being these Druids. And as you say there with the archaeology and how difficult it is the Romans mentioned the Druids, I think we can presume that there were these really important figures who are labeled Druids, but archaeologically, it's so hard to find evidence for them surviving. So they still remain enigmatic, mysterious. And in those years before the revolt, when you have Prasutagus as the king of the Iceni, as a client ruler with the Romans, can we imagine that there must surely have been quite a lot of interaction between not just the Iceni royal family and the highest Romans in the land, but also between everyday people in Iceni territory and Romans that had settled nearby.
- [18:52]
Elodie Harper
Definitely. And I think that's one of the things that makes the rebellion very complex, quite morally grey and, you know, not just a story of kind of plucky rebels and thuggish Romans, is that there must have been a fair degree of intermarriage by this stage. When you look at Colchester or Camalodunum, that Boudicca sacked in the Boudican lair of destruction, where everything was burned, you know, some of the surviving treasures from that time, like the Fennec hoard, suggest, you know, the suggestion is that that might have been treasure belonging to a family in which the. The woman, the wife was British and the father a Roman veteran, and that perhaps many of the women in the town might well have been local, married to Roman settlers whose children were both Roman and British, and where their allegiances might have lain, some of the women or the children or even people who had made a living or a business out of trading with the settlers, collaborating with them. It all becomes very murky and messy, I think. And, you know, the Romans first push into Britain was not military, it was more via trade of trying to sort of soften up the native, you know, rulers and people by gifts and interchange and trade. So the idea that they were wholly separate, I think, is not correct at this time period. There would have been quite a lot of muddled communities going on at this point, if muddled up is not quite the right word that I was looking for. But, yeah, communities where the lines were perhaps less clear. Having said that, I would say that Colchester, which was the most powerful colony or colonia in Roman Britain at this time, was symbolic of oppression and colonialism in the sense of this massive temple that had been built, that was built by the local people, they were forced to pay for it. And it was a massive, massive monument that would have dominated the landscape. And yeah, it's not surprising that this is the target of Boudicca's rage. It's what she destroyed. It's the current foundations of Colchester Castle today is the foundations of that Roman temple. But she razed it to the ground because it was such a sort of powerful symbol of oppression. So, yeah, it's. We don't know exactly where that line was between intermarriage, a mixed community versus a very imposed settler colonial rule on Britain at this time.
- [21:39]
Tristan Hughes
Yes. Idea of some local Britons buying into it and staying in this very new, clearly much more Roman settlement built on top of an old Iron Age British centre as well, but very much now in the Roman image and as you say, the building of that massive temple to Claudius. And one last question before we delve into the the revolt itself, Elodie, once again, kind of setting the scene of the Iceni landscape you mentioned earlier, that location of Thetford so people can go today, is it believed that that was a key center of the Iceni at the time of the revolt.
- [22:14]
Elodie Harper
So it is thought that. And one of the things that's interesting, I mean, anybody who wants to sort of read more about the archaeology of this period, I really recommend Duncan Mackay's Echolands. But it's thought that the Romans didn't just destroy this centre that was built at the time of Prasutagos and Boudicca, they essentially uprooted it. They dismantled the foundations. You know, the wooden stakes were taken from the ground rather than just burnt. The idea that it was completely erased in my version of the rebellion and its aftermath, I them before this point, before they dismantle it, using it as a Roman garrison in a sense of kind of completely taking it over, repurposing it, Romanizing it, polluting it in a sense because it was likely a religious centre because there was this artificial grove that was built there. And again because it's so nebulous exactly what went on with the Druidic religion. But you know, Pliny writes about the importance of the oak tree, the importance of forests to the ancient Celtic peoples of Britain and the rest of continental Europe. So you know, the idea that there was this artificial grave here, there was this massive multi story roundhouse, a political and religious center.
- [23:38]
Tristan Hughes
But the majority of the people of the Iceni, let's imagine that as a key centre of the royal family of Prasutagus, Boudicca and her two daughters. Their two daughters. And then elsewhere as you mentioned, people in their round houses, smaller farming settlements. Yes, dotted across around the landscape in smaller farmstead settlements. The majority are farmers in that majority
- [24:02]
Elodie Harper
of farms and they also on the Norfolk coast, you know, quite a lot of industry around Salturns. So salt extraction which was, was very valuable and it's thought, you know, one of the punishments for the Iceni after the rebellion was having their ability to extract salt from the marshes was. So that's possibly one of the reasons the Iceni were quite a wealthy people within ancient Britain was their access to salt. I mean the Romans salary that the soldiers were paid in comes from the word for salt because it was such a valuable commodity. So although it's an agricultural society at this time, you know, they did have means of having quite a lot of clout in trading terms with some of their materials.
- [24:48]
Tristan Hughes
Let's get to the revolt itself. So Elodie, can you refresh us with how this revolt breaks out? How is it linked to Prasutagus, to Boudicca and her daughters and yes, the Romans deciding that enough is enough.
- [25:03]
Elodie Harper
So there are two sort of main accounts of the rebellion. There's the one that I drew most heavily on because it's almost contemporary. So it's written by Tacitus, whose father in law, Agricola was actually who actually fought against Boudicca with the Roman forces of Paulinus. So although you know, Tacitus's speeches he gives to Boudicca. No, Agricola wasn't there with a notepad writing it down in a. Presumably a language he didn't even speak. But nonetheless I think you know, he was a contemporary witness to the fighting and to the general mayhem of this period. And then we have Cassius Dio, who was writing, you know, significantly later, and it's a much more lurid account. But one area where they agree is on the idea that there was a great deal of financial extortion going on. So, of course I've chosen to focus on the family drama aspect for my novel. But looking at the history of it, it's likely that widespread discontent at financial oppression was going on. You know, people were forced to take out loans, Those loans were then being recalled. They were being forced to. To pay for building projects like the Temple of Claudius in Colchester. Local men were being rounded up and taken off to be kind of conscripted into Rome's armies. The natural resources of the land were being taken, people were being stolen from. So it was a lot of unhappiness at how things were being done. And within this context, then Tacitus tells us there was this ruling family in the Iceni heartlands, which is kind of Norfolk, Suffolk, some of Essex, possibly some of Cambridgeshire as well. I think it's really interesting that it is thought that Prasutagus and Boudicca themselves, potentially even before the rebellion, had different attitudes towards Rome. So the idea is interesting. Yeah, which is very interesting. So the idea is that perhaps Boudicca was always more warmongering, had a more negative feeling about Rome. Prasutagus did not join in the rebellion of Caratacus some years against Rome. That was an earlier rebellion against Roman rule in Britain. And so it's possible there was some tension within the family. And I chose to portray that as the idea that both of them kind of had a favourite out of the two daughters. So Prasutagus favourite in my version is Selina, who is the eldest daughter. She's a druid, she's very like her father. And I made her the main character of the book because I also thought it was interesting if Boudicca's daughter had a more strained relationship with her very famous mother. And then the second daughter, Belenia, the younger one, I made more aligned to her mother. Whatever the truth of this family, we know there were these two daughters, and the reason why some historians think that there may have been tension within the family itself is the fact that Prasopagus left the kingdom to the daughters and not to his wife, because potentially he thought that that might not go down well with Rome. Perhaps Boudicca was already known as being quite hostile, or perhaps Prasutagus knew She was quite hostile either way. He left the kingdom to his two daughters on the understanding they would be client rulers for Rome because the kingdom is jointly left to them and the emperor Nero. It's. It's hard to see how the Romans took such profound offence at this, or whether it was just an excuse for more stealing and financial extortion. As to why it provoked this incredibly violent response from the procurator who was the kind of financial admin guy in Britain at this time. Paulinus was the military and judicial commander who was off fighting the druids in Wales and Desianus sent these, these soldiers to have raped the two daughters of Boudicca and have her flogged and that this is what provoked Boudicca into launching the rebellion. But presumably the reason why she was able to muster so many enraged Iceni and also Trinovantes people, so she didn't just muster troops in her own tribe, is because it wasn't just about one family's woes, it was much more widespread discontent than that. So although, you know, it's useful to pin the story on a specific family drama, there may have been many similar stories of outrages against, you know, people who were aware of their neighbors being stolen from, or their uncle was killed, or, you know, their sister was raped, or violence and aggression by Rome was probably quite widespread.
- [29:52]
Tristan Hughes
But how does Boudicca use this to incur. To encourage more and more Britons to join her? You know, kind of that part of the story alongside the fact that it was probably more than just grievances to the royal family, that the local peoples had also suffered at the hands of the Romans too. How is it portrayed that she, she uses the assaults on her daughters to gain more support for her revolt?
- [30:21]
Elodie Harper
So in Tacitus's telling of it, it is very much like this is such an outrage. It's an outrage on every sense of, you know, coming into somebody's home and behaving this way. The fact that they're girls, Tacitus portrays it as a kind of outrage of virgins, which would be a very culturally resonant thing from Rome, like the rape of Lucretia. But the Iceni were a different culture. So I saw it more as they came into the house and they stole the daughters honour as warriors. So a key scene I have in the book is the daughters fighting to regain their honour as warriors, that they didn't have the same notion of sexual honour as the Romans, but they did have a notion of honour, of having been defeated by Rome and needing to rectify that. In terms of what Boudicca actually said to people and how she used it, we can't really know. But I think it's, you know, it's a safe assumption that the account by Tacitus of showing up with her daughter saying this is what happened to us, you know, this will also happen to you. It probably has already happened to you. Look at how monstrous Rome is. They even do this to women, you know, there's no getting away from their tyranny. If you want to be free, you know, you have to fight. Frit, I think she said it says in Tacitus has her say something like, you know, it's better to be dead than to be enslaved. And you know, the historic Boudicca is believed. Well, Tacitus says she took her own life after defeat, so which again fits very much into the ancient world mentality. And again in terms of my own book was something I wanted to challenge. That Selina does not make that choice to take her own life would be quite a short book otherwise I wanted to explore what it might mean to survive after the rebellion and to deal with the aftermath and the compromise and yeah, all the issues that that would throw up.
- [32:23]
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Elodie Harper
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- [34:29]
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- [34:55]
Tristan Hughes
Foreign it's always interesting when tackling the story of the Buddhican revolt because as you've made clear, Elodie, our surviving literary sources from it are both Roman. One writing quite close to the time and as you said, had a family relation who may well have been in the combat against Boudicca, and then one writing much, much later. And yet both of them give her speeches. And it also feels like both of them this procurator that you mentioned earlier, Elodie, the person who seems to be very much at the forefront, at least in the sources, as the figure once pressy Targus dies with deciding how dare you give your two daughters command of the control of this particular territory, of the Iceni. He's the one who oversees the kind of the the infamy, all of these horrific acts. Do you get a sense there at all, Elodie, that the Romans are trying to portray this as this was one stupid governor doing this, whilst the Roman commander in charge of the troops is far away. And then this guy has just decided to do this. He's done it on his own back and then he has caused this massive outrage led by Boudicca, what he does to the daughters and so on. The Romans are trying to even at the same time in their sources as they're kind of building Boudicca up, they're actually kind of creating a scapegoat in definitely of their own in the procurator.
- [36:26]
Elodie Harper
And I have to say I found it quite convenient to go down that path as well. But if we were to look at it as journalists, and my other hat on, I used to be a journalist for many years working for itv. Yeah, it's very convenient, isn't it, if it was all this guy. And, you know, I think it's fair enough to imagine that perhaps Paulinus over in Wales, for purely selfish reasons, probably would not have wanted to be causing a lot of trouble on a second front. So perhaps he wasn't involved. But it's entirely possible that back in Rome, if Nero was aware of the will, maybe he was like, well, this is an outrage. No, I don't want it. I mean, we can't know. There was quite a fair amount of devolution in terms of provinces at this time and decisions that people took. But equally, as you say, having kind of one bad apple is a better story for Rome, isn't it, than the idea that the whole structure of command in Britain was rotten and oppressive at this time. Decianus did flee to Gaul afterwards. So, okay, which does look a little bit guilty. This is all part of the joy and the frustration of dealing with very ancient sources is not only have we got the passage of time and the patchiness of the records, there's also, you know, that Tacitus and Cassius Dio, or any of the chroniclers, they have their own propaganda, their own axis to grind, their own constraints as to who they want to offend, who they want to make look bad. I would say, however, in the case of Tacitus, I mean, he doesn't hold back, making Nero look like a fiend. So I don't think he would have minded too much blaming it on Nero. So maybe. Maybe the procurator was particularly horrendous.
- [38:08]
Tristan Hughes
It could be. And does this then explain, though, those motives, Boudicca's early actions? Because Elodie, once all of these Iron Age Britons are gathering around Boudicca as this figurehead. You mentioned Iceni, but also the neighboring tribe of the time, the Trinovantes and so on. All these people are coalescing around Boudicca, tens of thousands. Where do they direct their anger, first and foremost?
- [38:33]
Elodie Harper
So probably quite sort of isolated forts and farmsteads and settlers who had ventured further into the countryside before they kind of overwhelmed Colchester. I think there is some debate as to whether Boudicca might have sacked even more towns like Chelmsford. But yes, I mean, the traditional route that we believe she took was, you know, after mustering everyone, rampaging down towards Colchester, destroying Colchester, heading to London, Destroying London, St Albans, possibly not completely destroying St Albans. Oh, and I managed to miss out her very famous destruction of pretty much the entirety of the Ninth Legion between destroying Colchester and London, widespread destruction, and then Paulinus defeated her after St Albans in. You know, there's a lot of debate about where that final battle was. Again, I went with Duncan's argument in Echolands that that's probably a lot closer to St Albans than was traditionally thought. Just also, because why was Boudicca rampaging as far north as Peterborough at this point? You know, that just doesn't seem as likely. So regardless, it's a very intense period of destruction in a fairly concentrated area. And I think of all the sackings, it's London and Colchester that generate the most fascination, I would say. I mean, for me in particular, the destruction of London is really interesting given it's the current capital city. And, you know, one of our most famous kind of British folk heroes destroyed the capital city. It's just because, of course, at this point, it wasn't a native capital city, it was a colony that had been imposed on Britain.
- [40:21]
Tristan Hughes
Yeah, absolutely. And a colony that had only been founded less than 20 years earlier.
- [40:25]
Elodie Harper
Yes.
- [40:25]
Tristan Hughes
Remember talking to Dominic Pering about this? But at the same time, although Colchester is the symbolic capital where the Romans had received the surrenders of. Of British chiefs already, by this time, it feels like London has actually outgrown the importance of Colchester and so, you know, as the key port for people coming in, for goods coming in and so on. Boudicca sacking, that. That's a statement in itself. That is such a big moment because you feel, as you read the story of Boudicca, as you say, also takes out part of the Ninth Legion, a big part on the way. You know, it feels like when you're reading this, and I don't know if you. You felt this when you were doing the novel as well. Elodie, and presumably her daughters are with her when she's leading this army and is growing at the same time after all these successes and sackings, that once you've got control of a place like London or destroy that, I mean, Roman reinforcements aren't going to get there in time. It feels like she's winning. It feels like she's so close to kicking the Romans out of Britain at that time.
- [41:22]
Elodie Harper
Yeah, she was. And I think in sort of Roman imagination only maybe Hannibal is a more sort of horrifying figure in terms of the what if? Of humiliation, because Hannibal obviously threatened Rome and Italy itself. But. But still, as a kind of powerful foreign leader that, you know, almost exacts the utter humiliation of defeat. Boudicca is, is pretty high on their list. And she didn't succeed for a number of reasons. I mean, some of the neighboring tribes don't seem to have supported her. So you've got Togidubnus or Cogydubnus down in Chichester and Fishbourne palace which makes an appearance in the book. He probably got Fishbourne palace as a reward for not joining Boudicca. You know, she wasn't. Cartimandua in the north with the Brigantes also stayed loyal to Rome. The rebellion did not happen in all places all at once. So there's that aspect. There's also this sort of the battle techniques. Again, we only have the Roman account of this, but I think it is worth bearing in mind that Agricola probably was present at that battle that Tacitus records. And so Boudicca was defeated in the end probably for a variety of factors. There was the fact that whilst this rebellion was going on, probably they weren't able to look after the harvest or it's possible that Rome was destroying the crops as a means to use famine as a weapon. Either way it was going to run out of steam at some point, possibly in terms of people running out of food and supplies. And then you've got just the battle tactics. Whereas surprising the Ninth Legion or sacking a city was quite different from the very calculated strategy of Paulinus who made the decision to desert London. You know, he arrived from Wales and London to realized I cannot defend this place, destroyed the bridge, so it would kind of minimize the damage. People potentially were bunched on ships so they could hang out in the river and be out of reach of the rebels. But essentially it was damage limitation and anyone who was capable of coming with him left and fled. Other people were just abandoned. Which was pretty shameful, but also suggests a type of ruthless pragmatism for him as a strategist. And he chose the location of the lost and he used the landscape against Boudicca and her forces by having them hemmed in by trees. They would have to have a very narrow head to head meeting as opposed to a situation where because he had far fewer troops than her. I mean we don't have to believe the Romans insane numbers that they always love to fling out there like a million and ten barbarians.
- [44:20]
Tristan Hughes
A million enemy troops.
- [44:21]
Elodie Harper
Yes, and three Romans or whatever. But. But nonetheless, I think it's fair to say they were probably quite heavily outnumbered. And so he used, he used the terrain against Boudicca, he used the tactics against Boudicca that in, in a very narrow pass, the kind of Roman technique of, of sticking very close together and forming a wedge and breaking through the enemy line. Also, the Britons really didn't help themselves. They hemmed themselves in around the back. They had a kind of picnic going on. They'd got all the wagons because they had a very different concept of warfare and perhaps also because it was a rebellion. They'd got wagons full of kids and families and grandmas and granddads all, you know, having their picnic for the day, looking forward to watching Rome be defeated. But what it meant was they couldn't then retreat, were penned in by their own wagons and unable to withdraw. And so it was a particularly horrific slaughter of everyone that the Romans could kill at that point.
- [45:23]
Tristan Hughes
And is it in that chaos, you know, that final battle which we've mentioned Duncan Mackay a couple of times with, Shout him out, we've done an in depth, very, very nerdy discussion of the battle itself and the tactics. So we'll spare that the moment, Elodie. But is it, it's in that chaos when, oh, all of a sudden the Romans are coming down the hill, the Romans have won. Is it in that chaos that Boudicca and her daughters disappear, that we kind of, we don't know what happens next in her story?
- [45:53]
Elodie Harper
Yes, I mean, Tacitus says that she took her own life. Either she was killed or she, you know, it was incredibly common in the ancient world. That was something the Romans and the Iceni seem to have had in common, was this notion that it was better to take your own life than be, than be defeated.
- [46:11]
Tristan Hughes
I just want to explore the aftermath, Elodie, and what happens, because it's really interesting. A couple of things you mentioned earlier that I'd like to pick up on. The first being the fact that not all Iron Age Britons, not all Iron Age chiefs joined Boudicca and her daughters in the revolt. And you mentioned the figure of Togidibnus and Fishbourne Roman palace, which is one of my favorite places in the world as well. So can you explain Fishbourne Roman palace and how this aligns with a more pro Roman Iron Age British chief ruler at that time.
- [46:45]
Elodie Harper
So, yes, I mean, the majority of my novel actually is not with the rebellion. That's really just the first third, the other two thirds of the aftermath in Britain and then the aftermath in Rome at the imperial court of Nero, because as often happened, very realistic outcome for a daughter of a high profile warrior like Boudicca. Would be that Selina would be taken either in triumph or as a kind of war booty gift for the Emperor Nero. So that's the route that I decided to go down. That's what happened to Caratacus, for instance, an earlier rebel who managed to avoid execution and win his freedom to live as a kind of. Well, I imagined him almost without wanting to spoil it. But yeah, how would he then live having gained his freedom and being given a pension in Rome? This rebel, what sort of life would he build himself? I mean, there's a whole other fascinating book that I could have written about Coratacus, but I wanted to think about Boudiccus daughter in that terms and the dynamic of being a woman. But returning to the history, so we know that the aftermath for the Iceni was absolutely horrific. It was incredibly brutal repression by Paulinus and the Roman forces in the east of England. So brutal in fact, that a change of policy and a change of command was needed to kind of then reconciliate people. And thinking of Cogidibnus or Togidubnus in Fishbourne Roman palace, you know, that was another form of Roman control to show, okay, these are the benefits if you comply. It wasn't just a personal reward for, for Toky Dubnis. It's also by building this phenomenal palace in Britain for a loyal British client king as a means of saying, this is what you could have. If you play nice and you let us take all your stuff and basically let us get on with oppressing your lands, you can have a nice mansion. And Cartimandua as well. I mean, her story is absolutely fascinating in that Rome actually came and rescued her. Some kind of Roman SWAT team took her out after there was a rebellion against her by her own people much later. I mean, you know, significantly after the Budokan revolt. So there was quite a close tie between the Romans and the British collaborators. And one of the things I wanted to explore in the book is the choices that Selina, as the daughter of the two historical figures of Prasutagus the client king and Boudicca the British rebel, you know, what might her personal attitude to Rome have been? I imagined her, you know, speaking Latin because her father has encouraged her to learn about Roman culture and Roman society. And you know, when you see the impact of a rebellion that fails and the appalling suffering that ensues, does that make you want to seek for more vengeance? Does it make you feel that vengeance is actually a lose lose game? You know, do you continue the cycle of violence, this endless trading in atrocities? Or do you seek a compromise? And for me, that was actually the heart of the book and the source of my fascination with the story of Boudicca's daughters. And in the particular daughter that I chose to focus on was what might that relationship with Rome have looked like afterwards. We know there were these, these high profile Roman figures like Tochidubnus, like Cartimandua, who collaborated with Rome. We know there was Caraticus batting around in the Roman capital, doing his thing, you know, living, living the high life, not living the high life. Yeah. How did people adapt? How did they compromise? What might that have felt like emotionally to compromise if you were the daughter
- [50:42]
Tristan Hughes
of Boudicca keeping on that. Just want to mention one more thing about Fishbourne. It is not just a palace, it's like the largest Roman residential building north of the Alps. And they just designed, they just, just slap bang very close to the West Sussex coast. They just put a massive villa designed for the Mediterranean climate and southern England gets me.
- [51:04]
Elodie Harper
They must have been frozen.
- [51:06]
Tristan Hughes
Well, that's the thing. That's the thing actually, when you look at it and you learn more about the architecture of Fishbourne Women palace, it's really not designed for that part of the world. And yet it's a state. It's. It, it could be a reward for this local ruler, as you say, but it shows how the Romans did cosy up to certain rulers and others, you know, those who, for whatever reason, and whether it is, as we mentioned earlier, in the case of Boudicca, it could be a bit more of a rogue procurator who decides to take matters into his own hands and then causes this outbreak with the atrocities that follow. It's a nice insight into how the experience of the Romans in those early decades, for those at the top, men or women, kings or queens of these very Iron Age peoples, it did very much differ. Cartimander and Togner Dumnus are almost kind of are on one end and then Boudicca is on the other extreme. It's fascinating.
- [51:59]
Elodie Harper
No, that's absolutely fair enough, I think. And then Caraticus, it's some extraordinary figure in the middle, you know, the rebel who's brought to Rome in chains but manages to convince Claudius to free him and then lives a retired life in Rome. It's extraordinary. And I think the thing I also wanted to explore with Selina is that it was incredibly common at this time for conquered people to women in particular be obliged to marry Roman settlers or Roman veterans. And so the relationships become even more murky, morally grey and problematic. And I do think that it's so tempting with the distance of history to tell stories of goodies and baddies and, you know, heroic narrative arcs that we can feel good about as opposed to thinking about just how psychologically messy this period must have been. Also potentially for some of the Romans as well. You know, one of the key things I wanted to portray in this book is the initial section is very much just within the Iceni world and the points of view of Boudicca and her daughter Selina. But then in the later sections I have points of view of Paulinus and Selina. And really, you know, they see one another as barbarians. They see one another's cultures as savage and strange. And so in that's how we see it when it's through their eyes, but then we see theirs as the norm and just. Yeah, just trying to think about the ways in which different people might have found common ground and outside of the elite as well. As we were talking earlier with the sack of Colchester, you know, some people might have gone into business with the Romans who'd arrived. You know, they might have worked for them as craftspeople, they might have done joint enterprises for all we know. You know, there could have been all sorts of stuff happening at all different stages of the social scale. Although it must be said that the Romans were pretty xenophobic about the Britons at this period.
- [54:16]
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- [55:59]
Tristan Hughes
So do we then know much? You mentioned how the Roman revenge on the Iceni. It's pretty brutal in those immediate years to completely wrap this up. Elodie, do we have any idea of Roman Iceni relations past that point? Is it clear that the Romans really. No more royal family, no more kind of line of Boudicca or Prasutagus after this point. But is there more of a clear direct Roman control over what was Iceni lands in the decades following?
- [56:29]
Elodie Harper
Well, they didn't rebel again, you know, it's hard to say exactly. I mean, there was this period of famine and horrific repression after the revolt. It seems like, you know, they may not have been able to use their ability to sell salt, but also we then have the much more conciliatory approach of Classicianus, the procurator who came after the one that sent the soldiers off to attack Boudicca. And he was actually of Gallic descent, so potentially had a better understanding of what it meant to be Roman and something else simultaneously. He took a much more conciliatory approach. So, you know, one would hope that it wasn't just endless horror, but it was still pretty hairy in Britain throughout this period and then in the year of the four Emperors, which is what I show in Rome. So Selina's present for another civil war, but this time in Italy is kind of where my book ends. And in Britain at this time there was civil war or rebellion going on against Cartimandia in the north. And then you've got, you know, further campaigns against Scotland and the Caledonians, you know, so it was still a pretty hairy time. It wasn't a settled province for quite some while.
- [57:55]
Tristan Hughes
Eldeep, this has been really interesting insight into your work. How do you find it? You are primarily historical fiction author. You've written many very, very successful novels. As a historical fiction authority, how do you find it approaching these stories, you know, centered on the accounts of Roman writers with so many holes still in them and creating an exciting narrative from them centered around characters like Boudicca's daughter, the one particular one you focus on that otherwise we just don't have too much information about and yet are attached to one of the most well known, well remembered events in ancient Romano British history.
- [58:41]
Elodie Harper
So my passion is really thinking about the lives of women in this period. And I do think that we're in a really exciting period of scholarship at this point. You know, we were talking earlier about the archaeological discoveries that are suggesting women held a great deal more power and that actually they've been buried not only by sexism that was contemporary to them, but like in subsequent centuries, just this assumption that women could not have been a certain way. And I think that the, the archaeology and the scholarship now in the non fiction world is absolutely challenging that assumption very significantly. And so as a novelist, I find that really fascinating to kind of take that and run with it. And for me, the, the huge pull and draw of writing about the ancient world is both the fact that this time is so alien and one cannot impose your own contemporary value system or morality onto it. You have to kind of try and approach the ancient world to a degree on its own terms. So, you know, it's a morally fascinating process in the sense that of course some of the things that you see are absolutely abhorrent, but. But you can't apply the same value judgments because the way people thought and behaved then was just so fundamentally different. And yet at the same time, aspects of human nature do not change in the same way. So, you know, there are certain emotions that are timeless. And this is why the story of Boudicca still resonates. The idea of revenge, of love, of grief, of rage, of justice. You know, these would still have been drivers and motivators for people personally and politically. And so kind of trying to balance those two things, to have a conversation with the ancient past, that's what truly interests me, I guess, in writing fiction.
- [60:39]
Tristan Hughes
Well, Elodie, last but certainly not least, your new book, all about this period in Roman history, Romano, British history.
- [60:47]
Elodie Harper
It is called Boudicca's Daughter. That's what it says on the tin. It's called Boudicca's Daughter. It's out in paperback and it tells the story of Selina, the unnamed but now named eldest daughter of Britain's legendary warrior queen, and her life, her survival, her adventures, what might have happened to her during the rebellion and in particular, what might have happened to her afterwards.
- [61:11]
Tristan Hughes
Elder G. Great as always. Fantastic to have you back on the show. Thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the Ancients.
- [61:18]
Elodie Harper
Absolute joy. Thank you so much, Tristan, lovely chatting with you as always.
- [61:25]
Tristan Hughes
Well, there you go. There was Elodie Harper shining a light on that ever popular topic, that is Boudicca. Thank you so much for listening. If you would like More on Boudica well, we've got good news for you because we have recorded several episodes about her over the years. If you want a deep dive into the strategy, into the battles of Buddha and the theories around where her final stand against the Romans might have taken place, then I would strongly recommend our episode with Duncan Mackay on that very subject. We call it Boudicca's Battle of Britain and we've also done an episode all about the ancient city of Camaludunan, which is modern day Colchester, and Boudicca's pillaging her destruction of that city at the beginning of her revolt. We did an episode all about Colchester's story, including that violent episode from a few years back. We'll also put a link to that episode in the show notes too. Once again, thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you are enjoying the Ancients, please make sure to follow the show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us. You'll be doing us a big favor if you'd be kind enough to leave us a rating as well. Well, we'd really appreciate that. Don't forget, you can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week. Sign up@historyhit.com subscribe. That's all from me. I'll see you in the next episode.
- [62:58]
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