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Boudica ... - AD 60
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Image
Above
Boudica's Statue in London
Diane Earl |
Boudica was a British queen, and she can also be spelled
Boadicea or Boudicca.
From the Roman historian Cassius
Dio we learn that,
[...] Buduica, a Briton woman of the royal
family [...] possessed of greater
intelligence than often belongs to women.
This woman assembled her army, to the number
of some 120,000, and then ascended a
tribunal which had been constructed of earth
in the Roman fashion.
In stature she was very tall, in appearance
most terrifying, in the glance of her eye
most fierce, and her voice was harsh.
A great mass of the tawniest hair fell to
her hips; around her neck was a large golden
necklace; and she wore a tunic of divers
colours over which a thick mantle was
fastened with a brooch.
This was her invariable attire.
Cassius Dio,
Roman History, Book LXII, 2
Boudica's husband was
Prasutagus, ruler of the
ancient
Iceni
tribe. The Iceni populated what is today's Norfolk,
eastern Cambridgeshire, and northern Suffolk.
Prasutagus was a knower of his place under the collective
Roman thumb. His was a policy of
obedient submission, which backfired for his people the second he
died.
The Romans thought his passing to be an opportune time
to simply annex Prasutagus' realm, completely overlooking
the spunk value Queen Boudica brought to the political
table.
Even though Prasutagus had
willed his kingdom to the Emperor Nero and his two daughters
as co-heirs, Boudica was flogged, her daughters raped, and
the family's estates plundered.
Led by Boudica, the Iceni
revolted in AD 60. Although costly for the Romans, they
eventually managed to put down the revolt. Boudica took
poison and that was that.
And speaking of zesty British queens of ancient times.
There also was
Cartimandua, the queen
of the Brigantes tribe
in Northern Britain. She ruled around AD 47 to 69.
But unlike Boudica, Cartimandua
was very much pro-Roman. She even captured a fellow British
ruler and delivered him on a plate to the Romans. This was
the British king Caratacus, the leader of the Catuvellauni
tribe.
See also
Roman Britain
Here are the maps
Britain AD 60
264 BC
- 180 AD Rome's Expansion
Ancient Britain - Tribes
More History
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