Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[Renatus]

I may have misunderstood your comment about the camp being behind the line.  I took it to mean more or less directly behind.  That could well be the case with the traditional open battlefield but the situation here is different.  Here the topography dictates everything and a valley suitable for Suetonius' limited force might not allow for the placing of the camp directly behind him.  A position somewhere to his rear might be possible, however.  Looking at the map, a camp on the plateau would serve Positions 2 and 4 and, at a pinch, 1 and 3.  It certainly would not serve Position 5, which would require a site somewhere to the north, towards Aldbury perhaps.  I suggested that Suetonius may have reconnoitered several potential battle sites but only chose the final one after he knew where the rebels had positioned themselves.  Perhaps more plausibly, in reconnoitering the general area upon his arrival there, he selected one site where he would fight if forced to do so and positioned his camp accordingly.  

Regarding Position 5, I was thinking of your Lidar scan.  That and the site map in your latest post show the position better than the original map, although the topography does not seem to match exactly.  Of the two positions, I prefer the more northerly one.  The high ground on the flanks seems more pronounced and I think the wooded area, as you have placed it, seems too far away from the other position.  I also do not like the idea of Akeman Street running through it, even if the Roman line only just clips it.  I have long thought that the battle site might have been in a valley running away from the Roman road.

Thank you for posting the details of the finds of military equipment.  They certainly add to the credentials of the site.  I must now read the Britannia article.  I will have seen it when it first came out but have long since forgotten it.  Like you, I have imagined the Tring helmet as having originally belonged to one of the colonists at Camulodunum.  However, more recently I have wondered if it might have belonged to one of the veterans of the 14th or 20th Legion, who was still using the equipment issued to him 20-odd years previously.