Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[Renatus]

I don't see any problem with defining the plain.  If we assume that it was generally a flattish piece of ground without much in the way of vegetation, its boundaries would be defined by land that did not meet that description.  It could slightly higher ground or land with more bushes or trees, anything that broke up the broadly even nature of the plain.  Access into it need not be a problem either.  It could be over the higher ground, if it were not too rugged, or between the bushes or trees.  There could be a track-way leading into it or perhaps even defining one of the boundaries of the plain.  It could very probably have been behind the line of the wagons anyway.  In any event, it need have no bearing on the conduct of the battle.

As to Suetonius's choice of the battleground, he knew that he was vastly outnumbered and that, if he offered battle in the open field, he would almost certainly be outflanked and overwhelmed.  Hence he chose a position in a defile where the enemy would be forced to engage him on his own frontage.

[Theoderic]

Renatus wrote:

Hence he chose a position in a defile where the enemy would be forced to engage him on his own frontage.

This is unfortunately the problem.

Immediately they broke out of the defile unless the plain was delimited they would have been surrounded and overwhelmed, which is what I am referring to.

Seutonius Paulinus would have recognised this.  I think Dio also recognised this which is why he breaks the army into 3 divisions but in reality they would have been too small to survive as there would have only been 3,500 men in each one.

I suspect we are going to have to disagree on this.

[Renatus]

I agree that Dio's tactics would not work.  He says that Suetonius split his force into three to avoid being overwhelmed but that simply allows three smaller forces to be overwhelmed instead.  We justifiably assume that Tacitus got his information from Agricola who, if he was not at the battle himself, would certainly have been in a position to discuss it with those who were.  Accordingly, it is reasonable to accept that his account is likely to bear some resemblance to reality.  I do not see the Romans emerging from the defile until the Britons were in retreat, after which they carved into them without giving them the opportunity to regroup.  It is important to remember that Boudica's forces were not trained soldiers but essentially civilians in arms.  They had not engaged in serious warfare for a generation and, up to that point, had encountered no serious opposition.  In their one engagement with a Roman army, Cerialis's part-legion, they had easily prevailed.  It would have come as a complete shock to be confronted by battle-hardened legionaries, fresh from campaigning in Wales.

[John1]

WOW the thread is back !!!!! Great to see everyone has survived... 

"It was whilst I was revisiting some of the posts that are here and an explanation of John .....'s (... surname redacted 'cos I don't want any more hate mail from Atherstone) regarding the difficulty of understanding the translation of “faucibus” as in plurals and explanation of defile/s and gullet that I ran the Latin through a computerised translator and instead of a defile the translation mentions  a narrow isthmus as an access to the site as opposed to the standard translation of a  defile" - Deryk

Can you remind me where I was dealing with this? I must stress I am no Latin scholar and go to great lengths to defer to others. I struggle with a valley and a half at Church Stowe but generally accept the possibility of there being more than one  for the narrative, but my interpretation of the primary valley at CS remains unchanged for the purpose of this pursuit.

In terms of Hingley's position regarding Mancetter, he presented at the Mancetter conference and was a "neutral". In his "In Or Time" performance that started this whole thread  I thought,  he did lean towards "West Midlands" which implied Mancetter to me, at Warwick he was neutral. I cannot find any reference to him advancing any position in recent years, and the Nat Geo thing he did a couple of years ago was also neutral-ish (from memory). I don't think he can be used as a "patsy" for any "down south" theory unless there is a more specific more recent quote.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b00r7lr9   at about 22:00 minutes in.

570,582

[Theoderic]

Renatus wrote:

Accordingly, it is reasonable to accept that his account is likely to bear some resemblance to reality.  I do not see the Romans emerging from the defile until the Britons were in retreat, after which they carved into them without giving them the opportunity to regroup. 

The more you delve into how the Roman army prevailed in this engagement, the more you realise the importance of the topography.

Seutonius Paulinus was a great general, one of the best, if not the best of his generation according Tacitus. He would have realised that that just bursting out of the defile onto a flat plain into a host he would have been surrounded. This is probably why he abandoned both London and St Albans as he would have been surrounded and like the 9th Legion, slaughtered (although my preferred version of events is that they were ambushed near Wixoe).

He could not rely on the baggage train being there to act as a convenient barrier so he must have had some topographical features that helped him. Also on a flat plain the people would not be able to see the battle properly so it would indicate that the wagons were on raised ground that surrounded the position .

Renatus wrote

It is important to remember that Boudica's forces were not trained soldiers but essentially civilians in arms.  They had not engaged in serious warfare for a generation and, up to that point, had encountered no serious opposition.  In their one engagement with a Roman army, Cerialis's part-legion, they had easily prevailed.  It would have come as a complete shock to be confronted by battle-hardened legionaries, fresh from campaigning in Wales.

I am going to partially agree with you here.

I think that we tend to forget that it was only 18 years before this engagement that Aulus Plautius brought his Legions to Britain and encountered stiff resistance, 14 years previously that the Iceni had their weapons confiscated which led to an uprising and and as you say, the recent defeat of the Brythons in the West that Seutonius Paulinus had just completed.

They had managed to keep 4 full Legions occupied for 18 years and even after this defeat managed to keep on being a thorn in the side of the Governor for a while before peace negotiations were in place.

The Brythonic society had a warrior class based around their chiefs as standard and it is doubtful that these had all become farmers or that the skills were not handed down father to son or daughter.

I see this Brythonic army as similar to Harold’s at Hastings where he was supported by his Earls, Thegns and Housecarls that formed the core of the military and the Fyrd (farmers) that were called on as necessary. Obviously fighting styles were very different, there was no shield wall by Boudicca and her men.
 
You are right that predominantly the bulk was made up of non warriors but the elite would have put up a stern fight even against the battle hardened soldiers of Rome, after all 400 were killed but of course that pales into insignificance in comparison to the Brythons killed.

The farmers would have been the weak link because they would have lacked discipline (as at Hastings) but also because they were only in the field for limited periods before they had to return home to plant or harvest.

[Renatus]

Seutonius Paulinus was a great general, one of the best, if not the best of his generation according Tacitus.

And as such he would have been aware of a fundamental principle of Roman warfare, handed down from the days of Scipio Africanus, namely, that you must always leave your enemy a means of escape.  A trapped enemy will turn and fight, to the death, if necessary, because he has no alternative.  See Vegetius III, 21.

[Theoderic]

 John (? ?) wrote: 

It was whilst I was revisiting some of the posts that are here and an explanation of John .....'s (... surname redacted 'cos I don't want any more hate mail from Atherstone) regarding the difficulty of understanding the translation of “faucibus” as in plurals and explanation of defile/s and gullet that I ran the Latin through a computerised translator and instead of a defile the translation mentions  a narrow isthmus as an access to the site as opposed to the standard translation of a  defile" – Deryk
 
I may have been wrong on this John but it was associated with an article from the Atherstone Society (Margaret Hughes perhaps) – so my apologies if I have blackened your name here inadvertently.

Either way it gave me a new impetus to look at it and to think about the wording.

John wrote 

I struggle with a valley and a half at Church Stowe but generally accept the possibility of  being more than one  for the narrative, but my interpretation of the primary valley at CS remains unchanged for the purpose of this pursuit.

I love the use of the word “pursuit” which seems very apt.


The site I have chosen (Pitstone Hill)  is the only one that makes sense to me but having said that it would seem not to have things that I would have hoped to see and certainly not the fortifications as at Church Stowe, the slope of the land is the opposite as we would expect for the choice of the Roman line but the topography works especially when you try to run the battle through.

[Theoderic]

Renatus wrote:

And as such he would have been aware of a fundamental principle of Roman warfare, handed down from the days of Scipio Africanus, namely, that you must always leave your enemy a means of escape.  A trapped enemy will turn and fight, to the death, if necessary, because he has no alternative.  See Vegetius III, 21.

This site has an exit which wasn’t blocked apart from the fleeing Brythons and the waggons trying to leave. So there was an option to escape the carnage – see diagram


  PITSTONE HILL 10.pdf (Size: 323.31 KB / Downloads: 10)

[Nathan Ross]

Also on a flat plain the people would not be able to see the battle properly so it would indicate that the wagons were on raised ground that surrounded the position .

The position of the wagons might be quite an important factor. I think we've been assuming that they were arranged in a big arc around one end of the battle site - this is the way that Webster's plan of Mancetter had it, mainly as he needed it that way - there was no other way of enclosing such a flat open area.

Tacitus's text does rather suggest this as well - the wagons (plaustrae) were 'placed on the extreme edge of the plain' (super extremum ambitum campi posuerant), and the 'surrounding vehicles... made it difficult to escape' (difficili effugio, quia circumiecta vehicula saepserant abitus).

But how easy would it have been to arrange a large number of baggage carts into the sort of arena or viewing stand that Webster shows in his plan? How long might it have taken? How easily could these wagons have been driven off roads or tracks, across country and up hillsides? Would the Britons really have dispersed their baggage camp over such a wide area, and at such difficulty, with the enemy in sight?

As I've suggested before, the presence of wagons, wives, etc would have impeded the flight of the defeated Britons wherever they were placed, as the fugitives would not want to abandon them. And most of the sites we've been discussing have quite a constricted 'plain' anyway, with high ground on either side that would effectively impede any wide spectrum of retreat for wheeled vehicles. Having a single mass of wagons and carts and families acting as a sort of 'plug' sealing the main route of access to the site would form just as effective a barrier as the sort of enveloping screen that both Tacitus and Webster imply.

[Renatus]

Deryk,

I don't think that there is a major difference between us.  I have pointed out that the Latin does not require two defiles but the fact that your site has a possible entry point that might be loosely described as a defile does not disqualify it.  The major difficulty, apparently, as you have noted, is that the topography of the site would require the Romans to attack uphill.  This is another of the factors that the general principles of Roman warfare would require a commander to avoid.  However, provided that the incline was not too steep, this might have been a problem that Suetonius was prepared to overlook, if the other advantages of the site demanded it.

 

As I've suggested before, the presence of wagons, wives, etc would have impeded the flight of the defeated Britons wherever they were placed, as the fugitives would not want to abandon them. And most of the sites we've been discussing have quite a constricted 'plain' anyway, with high ground on either side that would effectively impede any wide spectrum of retreat for wheeled vehicles. Having a single mass of wagons and carts and families acting as a sort of 'plug' sealing the main route of access to the site would form just as effective a barrier as the sort of enveloping screen that both Tacitus and Webster imply.

As I have suggested above, the boundaries of the plain need not constitute major barriers.  A mere change of vegetation or elevation would be sufficient.  We need not suppose that the wagons would be retreating from the scene.  If they were ox-drawn, as they probably were, they would have been far too slow. so we need not see them as blocking a route of access to the site.  All retreat from the battle would have been on foot or, in some cases, on horseback for which the terrain need not have been an obstacle.  The wagons would have made retreat more difficult, as the Britons would have had to thread their way between them, but did not constitute an impenetrable barrier.  We know that a good number managed to escape and would have continued the fight had not the death of Boudica left then leaderless.  Incidentally, Tacitus does not 'imply' that the wagons were a 'sort of enveloping screen', he says as much and we can't ignore him.

[John1]

"I may have been wrong on this John but it was associated with an article from the Atherstone Society (Margaret Hughes perhaps)" - Deryk

No problem my guess is that it was an implication invented by some "story trajectory" editing in Rob Bells show. The plural came from Margaret regarding Mancetter, that was used to segue to me talking about the relationship between Castle Dykes and Castle Yard (they do edit you mid-sentence if it helps with story telling, irrespective of the context of the words - just part of the game I guess) 

https://www.my5.tv/britain-s-lost-battle...26aa47fb10

Anyway no problem, I just can't hold the whole thread in my head anymore, I no longer have the youthful brain (or anything else) I had at the beginning of this labyrinth.

[Theoderic]

Nathan wrote:

Having a single mass of wagons and carts and families acting as a sort of 'plug' sealing the main route of access to the site would form just as effective a barrier as the sort of enveloping screen that both Tacitus and Webster imply.

I see no reason why wagons couldn’t be surrounding the battle site, leaving the access point clear but this reinforces my point that the plain is contained by topography and not defined by the random placement of the wagons.

I agree with you that as the wagons fled the field through the only access point they could leave through, they created a “plug” which would have only grown bigger as more and more waggons reached the exit point.

No doubt many of the fighting Brythons would have rushed to the waggons to help and would have added to the chaos and the subsequent carnage as the Romans continued the slaughter.

Others (many of them) were able to leave over the hills on foot to regroup much later.   

Renatus wrote:

However, provided that the incline was not too steep, this might have been a problem that Suetonius was prepared to overlook, if the other advantages of the site demanded it.

The site has a slope of 15 metres in 0.41 of a mile towards the Roman army.


  PITSTONE HILL 11.pdf (Size: 89.47 KB / Downloads: 14)
 
Renatus wrote:

The wagons would have made retreat more difficult, as the Britons would have had to thread their way between them, but did not constitute an impenetrable barrier.  We know that a good number managed to escape and would have continued the fight had not the death of Boudica left then leaderless.  Incidentally, Tacitus does 'imply' that the wagons were a 'sort of enveloping screen', he says as much and we can't ignore him.

I agree with you and believe that this site allows for both scenarios.

[Renatus]

There was a typo in the last sentence of my last post which I have now corrected.  I have added 'not' before 'imply'.

---

The site has a slope of 15 metres in 0.41 of a mile towards the Roman army. 

That doesn't look too bad.

[Theoderic]

There was a typo in the last sentence of my last post which I have now corrected.  I have added 'not' before 'imply'.

 
I think that is fine.

The included diagram shows that the wagons could have enclosed the site. 

Where the waggons are situated there is a full view of the battlefield.

As you can see from the Roman lines the waggons wrap around the battle site, because they have to.


  PITSTONE HILL 12.pdf (Size: 216.35 KB / Downloads: 18)

[Renatus]

I've noticed another typo in my post #1,906, also now corrected.  We need not see the ox-carts blocking the access to the site.