Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[Nathan Ross]

She suggests that the sacking of Colchester may have taken some time and that, as fragments of Claudius' equestrian statue have been found in two places in East Anglia, some at least of the rebels may have had time to return home.

This is an interesting point to pick up on - I like the idea of the rebels dismembering the emperor's statue and carrying off bits of it as trophies! The fragments mentioned here are (presumably) the bronze head found in a river at Saxmundham, Essex, and the bit of a bronze hoof found at Ashill, Norfolk. We could also perhaps add the pieces of segmentata hinge found in a hoard at Santon in Thetford forest, not far from Ashill - combined they might represent the spread of battle loot from the fall of Colchester and perhaps also the defeat of Cerealis.

However, identification of these bits and pieces is not certain. This article - Claudius, oh aye?! - questions the identification of the bronze head and its links to the hoof. Incidentally, the Professor Haverfield mentioned in the article as the first to declare the head as Claudius is the same person who originally came up with the 'cavalry dash' theory later adopted by Webster...

The segmenta hinge comes from a hoard that includes British metal-working tools, so perhaps was just a bit of broken old armour acquired by the natives as scrap.

But if this was battle plunder, the spread might explain why the rebels took so long to reach London after sacking Colchester.