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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
Plumbata
Topic started 11 years 11 months ago by Anonymous :whistle: :whistle: :whistle:

Can anyone please show me this thread? I would like to start from the beginning again (;
Davidus
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Quote:Can anyone please show me this thread? I would like to start from the beginning again (;

Sure!
Eleven years worth of Plumbata thread.
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
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John - are your distances standard English miles or the known shorter Roman mile?

Of course, we have no idea what unit of measure the Iceni used except the length of the day from dawn until dusk.
Moi Watson

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, Merlot in one hand, Cigar in the other; body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, what a ride!
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Lovely to see you back Moi, now we know who has been looking in enough to get us to 40k views. :wink:

They are standard "magic.gov.uk" miles and km's, it's dead easy to measure nice straight Roman Roads with their "click the blue line" tool.
http://www.magic.gov.uk/
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"Are we there yet"
Kids in a car....people, on the Boudica thread. I don't think we will ever be there.
I must admit, I have given up on this one. Why?. 5 years is as good enough reason why.
Its a tremendous effort from all involved, so lets go back to page one, read it and reconsider everything and all that everyone has said here.
This thread has gotten to big for anyone over too much time. Repetition has to be a classic diversion and so has "diversion".
Possibly this is my way of disapproving of this thread due to the lack of........Progress.
So much info has been passed, im trying to keep this general, so bear with me.....I honestly do not believe, or have read, that anyone is willing to give a compromise or consolidation on any info given to relate it in a greater manner. Now some may disagree with me instantly. That's not my cause. I appreciate all contributions to this thread, some being ,to lack an adjective, great, understatement. But all this info needs to be Combined. No more theories please.
Lets consolidate the 5 years worth of info, stop putting forward new suggestions and get a grip on what all have said over the years.
I await your grief and insults........
Kevin
A summary on this thread would read.... :woot:
Kevin
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"lack of........Progress"
not sure I agree with that, we've had Steves paper, Stonea and a case for Tring mulled over in the last few days, those issues alone have opened up new perspectives to me and I think previously the thread has impacted on both the composition of the Warwick Conference and the survey of Dunstable.

I don't think we have a specific mutual mission, or a need to agree, to me this is just an open talking shop regarding all aspects of the subject, cultural, geographic, historical and statistical. If that's a problem kill the thread, but I've found this a fascinating corner of the web for the last almost 5 years. I've learnt a lot, met fascinating new people (many virtually) and been insulted a bit, on balance it's been a very good armchair for me, sorry if it's been frustrating for others. I guess I will shut up and see what others think. Cry
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Quote:Its a tremendous effort from all involved, so lets go back to page one, read it and reconsider everything and all that everyone has said here . . . Lets consolidate the 5 years worth of info, stop putting forward new suggestions and get a grip on what all have said over the years.
I await your grief and insults........
No brickbats from me; I have been thinking on the same lines for a couple of days. What we need is for someone interested in the subject but without an axe to grind (not one of the main protagonists, therefore) to go through the whole thread, draw it all together and turn it into a thoroughgoing study of the campaign and the battle. Maybe Karwansaray would publish it. Perhaps academia would then realise that there are alternatives to the 'cavalry dash and Mancetter' dogma. It is a major disappointment to me that the papers from the Warwick conference were not published.
Michael King Macdona

And do as adversaries do in law, -
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
(The Taming of the Shrew: Act 1, Scene 2)
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The Warwick papers, in edited form by the conference organiser Margaret Hughes, are being published through the Battefields Trust, the editing was several month ago so it should be imminent.
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Thanks; that's good to know. Please keep us posted on progress, as you hear it.
Michael King Macdona

And do as adversaries do in law, -
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
(The Taming of the Shrew: Act 1, Scene 2)
Reply
Quote:I don't think we will ever be there.

I don't think there was ever much chance we would be. ;-)

There are so many unknown factors in this, and some pretty basic questions with no agreed answer, that (barring some spectacular archaeological discovery) we won't reach a consensus opinion, and all we're ever going to be able to do is talk around the subject.

But I'd agree with John - these five years of debate have been engaging and fascinating, and probably generated more new ideas about this (fairly obscure) conflict than the majority of recent published history. A page or so ago I grumbled about people 'making up their own stories about what happened' - it occurs to me that this is all any of us can do. Personally, I'm fine with that! :-)



Quote:alternatives to the 'cavalry dash and Mancetter' dogma. It is a major disappointment to me that the papers from the Warwick conference were not published.

Although most of the papers seem to agree with the dogma, more or less...
Nathan Ross
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Quote: They are standard "magic.gov.uk" miles and km's, it's dead easy to measure nice straight Roman Roads with their "click the blue line" tool.
http://www.magic.gov.uk/

I think you've missed my point a little but never mind.
Moi Watson

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, Merlot in one hand, Cigar in the other; body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, what a ride!
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Kevin Mills wrote:

No more theories please.

I think that theories are essential to any investigation.

Theories are often the fore runners of great archaeological discoveries and until there is definitive proof it is the theories that try to fill in the gaps of what actually happened.

Even today new forts are being discovered because someone has a theory about the location of a fort based on their own ideas.

The fort/s at Llandeilo would be one example comparatively recently but that is only one of many, some of the more recent have been based on distances between forts

When the last of the legions left under Constantine III it was thought for a long time that there were no Roman soldiers left in Britain but this has since proved to be incorrect due to coins found on Hadrian's Wall.

So much of our history is based on theory accepted by the establishment but often without definitive proof.

This thread has tried at least to shine a light in an area that even the most established historians have not managed to ascertain for certain.

Kevin Mills wrote:

Possibly this is my way of disapproving of this thread due to the lack of........Progress.

I find it difficult to understand why anyone would disapprove of a thread and use the excuse that little progress had been made.

There have been numerous different sites proposed and discussed including Virginia Water, Dorking, Ogbourne St George, Mildenhall, Dunstable, Church Stowe, Tring, Paulersbury, Mancetter, High Cross and Arbury Banks amongst others.

In fact if we take on board Steve Kaye’s sites there are many more options which have never been discussed before - ever.

It has also made us look at the various components that make up a successful campaign by both the Roman Army and also the locals.

I think that it has also changed ideas regarding why Rome had to station between 30,000 and 40,000 troops (let alone their support services) in Britannia for over 350 years and why so many great generals found it difficult to defeat the Brythons (for want of a better word),

This thread has applied some of the practical information from other threads on RAT in trying to understand why Rome was so successful or indeed what were the Legions movements in this turning point in the war.

This thread has been hugely informative to many – you only have to look at the statistics – 40,000 views........ so it has a certain popularity.....

Renatus wrote:

What we need is for someone interested in the subject but without an axe to grind (not one of the main protagonists, therefore) to go through the whole thread, draw it all together and turn it into a thoroughgoing study of the campaign and the battle

Why Not? (Although I am not convinced that they will come up with a definitive view that has escaped so many) :-)

John 1 wrote:

I don't think we have a specific mutual mission, or a need to agree, to me this is just an open talking shop regarding all aspects of the subject, cultural, geographic, historical and statistical......I've found this a fascinating corner of the web for the last almost 5 years. I've learnt a lot, met fascinating new people (many virtually) and been insulted a bit, on balance it's been a very good armchair for me,

I would agree with this statement (although I have only been in it for a comparatively little time) but not to be outdone by John have managed to attract at least a similar number of insults :?

Nathan Ross wrote:

I'd agree with John - these five years of debate have been engaging and fascinating,


I have nothing to add, no insults or grief – apart from the observation that if people really have “given up on this thread” there are plenty of other excellent ones to choose from to keep them entertained and of course they don't have to follow this one if they really disapprove. :wink:
Deryk
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"So much info has been passed,"

I think that's the most remarkable thing about this thread and RAT, it's been research in real time with no-one being precious and hording material for research points through a traditional paper, probably because no academic that deals in that currency has joined in. It'll be interesting to see if any of these RAT original ideas ever surface in mainstream academia, fortuantely they are RAT time stamped so attributable and demonstrably in the public domain. The thread is an active research tool and a way of getting attributable authorship without going through the glacial timeline of peer review. Maybe this is a future model for crowd sourced research well away from the politics, egos and REF (shudder) of academia.
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Quote:The thread is an active research tool

That's a good way of looking at it. It's also very entertaining, of course! Wink


Quote:RAE of academia.

Now called the REF (shudder), and one of the principal reasons that so little genuine new research is being done in UK universities...
Nathan Ross
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Extended data figure 7b (4th page from the end) certainly gives the Wash to the Iceni extending their territory to Peterborough;

http://www.nature.com/articles/nature142....bbc.co.uk
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