01-10-2021, 12:59 PM
(01-10-2021, 12:16 PM)Steve Kaye Wrote: I think this pushes the date for the 'cavalry dash' back a little further
It certainly does! Thanks for that, Steve - Haverfield would certainly have read the mighty Mommsen, and no doubt drew his idea of Paulinus's movements from that source. Fascinating to see the way this idea had developed from that root over more than a century.
It appears to me, however, that Mommsen is rather supporting (or inventing!) the 'cavalry dash' idea rather than opposing it: If he really went thither, (meaning London), Mommsen says, he can only have appeared there with a personal escort, without the corps which he had with him in Mona...
But I don't see the idea of Paulinus marching an expeditionary force from his main Anglesey army back into the south-east to counter a native uprising as at all 'without meaning' - and, once he learned of the fall of Colchester, re-routing this force to London to secure the supplies there and protect the citizen inhabitants seems eminently meaningful!
Nathan Ross