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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
Quote:rather than look at one valley it is possible to have 3 forces in 3 valleys and also using the platea next to Valley 2.

I remember this rather complex plan, and I would still stick with the objections I outlined here

There is Dio's odd note about the three-part division, but I think your suggested plan only further exposes the problems facing any project of turning the whole hilltop into a kind of reboubt and defending it against all angles of attack: in the second image, the fairly gentle slopes in the top left corner of the picture would offer an ideal approach from the direction of Akeman Street, and would bring the Britons right into the Roman camp!
Nathan Ross
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Quote: all taken from Venta Icenorum

This is interesting, thanks! I do wonder whether Thetford was a more likely Iceni capital and mustering point - Caistor being the later Roman tribal capital?

Could you also give distances to Virginia Water, Dorking and Silchester, just for the sake of completeness? And, not wanting to be a bore, but my battle site at 'Dunstable' is at Manshead, a few miles short of Dunstable itself, making it slightly closer to St Albans than Tring :grin:
Nathan Ross
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Quote:generally, if there was a forest there in pre-industrial times, I think we could guess (unless there is evidence to the contrary, later plantations etc) that there were trees there in the Roman period too.
More difficult, I suspect, is to identify areas that may have been forested in Roman times but which were cleared in mediaeval and subsequent periods for agricultural and other purposes. What look like easy open approaches now may have been quite difficult in the first century.
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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Quote:So the distances doubled up make for some quite long marches.

Only if they go back the way they came. I've always envisaged the Britons (provided they went north from London) intending to head back homeward through unplundered country along the general line of the Iknield, like this:

[attachment=11985]REBELRETURN.jpg[/attachment]

That would work for both the Iceni and the Trinovantes, I think, and make for a shorter overall trip.


Quote:the Roman stronghold and RV to be no further south on Watling Street than the Nene Valley.

This would need the Romans and Britons to be coordinating their movements in order to arrive at the same far-flung place to fight the battle, wouldn't it?


Attached Files Thumbnail(s)
   
Nathan Ross
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Nathans Mileages;

VI to Virginia Water ...............203km.......126 miles
VI to Dorking..........................202km.......125 miles
VI to Silchester......................245km........152 miles

Thetford Colchester..............60 km..........37 miles
Thetford to CS via Stonea... 126km..........78 miles
Thetford London....................143km.........88 miles
Thetford St Albans................172km.........106 miles
Thetford Dunstable...............198km..........123 miles
Thetford CS (parade style)...246km..........152 miles
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The Icknield way return is a small discount on the doubled mileage as mentioned here "bit of a discount to short cut via Arbury Banks for Mr Appleby's sake". It is probably the most likely intent of any parade, if there was a parading horde, did the whole horde really go to London and St Albans? The route south of the Wash wouldn't have yielded a great deal of plunder as it was Trinovanti territory (allies?), striking north to the Stonea route exposes a whole different group of unsuspecting neighbours.These are all parallel theories there is no killer blow for any site in this strategic stuff, some moves more likely than others. We're not going to get an answer from this just campaign theories which may provide new sites or new justifications for old sites. We should keep as many routes on the table as possible.

"This would need the Romans and Britons to be coordinating their movements in order to arrive at the same far-flung place to fight the battle, wouldn't it?" well that's what they did didn't they? we're just quibbling about which particular far flung place it was.
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John,
Recent posts have come near to answering some of my following questions but please indulge me. I would like to have a single source that I can refer to. Please explain:
1. What you mean by the 'parade theory'. I know what I think you mean but I do not want to pre-empt your reply.
2. What your objections to it are.
3. What you propose as an alternative.
4. Assuming (as I do) that Church Stowe is integral to your theory, how it fits into 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
1. What you mean by the 'parade theory'. I know what I think you mean but I do not want to pre-empt your reply.
Parade Theory, a description of the dominant movement model that has been applied to this campaign since before Websters time. The theory is there was a single unified block of Britons moving together en masse along a known linear route.

2. What your objections to it are.
a) It assumes a single group can be brought together in an effective force at the same time , this doesn't account for the reported increase in numbers over the campaign. Furthermore it does not recognise the logistic effort that would be required to keep such a host together in the field for the weeks the theory implies.
b) the roman road network is new, small, inappropriate for hordes with carts and plays entirely into the Romans geography and control mechanisms. Whilst some Roman Roads followed older routes there would be many pre-Roman routes that were equally or better suited to the nature of the group and the direction of travel, hence my interest in river vallies.
c) it does not account for different groups acting in different ways, different squadrons of Iceni heading off fast in very different directions and torching distant places. If this is the case, the burning of London and St Albans does not reflect a map of consequential movement, as "parade-istas" assume, but a series of isolated incidents in no particular order undertaken by different groups with different approach routes and speeds.

3. What you propose as an alternative.
see "c" above. With the addition that the majority of the group that hit Colchester in a rage returned home with plunder before setting off on a second broader expedition drawing new recruits and family from home. This group/groups could have advanced on Roman territory on a very different timeline and along very different routes ie through the Fens via Stonea or via Ely, hence my interest in the Fens. Once in Fenland, which is looking increasingly like Iceni territory, they would have the upper hand.

4. Assuming (as I do) that Church Stowe is integral to your theory, how it fits into it.
The parade theory outrageously, and unnecessarily, simplifies the geographies and potential strategic options of the campaign. Church Stowe sits in a cluster of proposed sites, but well south of Mancetter that is still the favoured location by an academia unwilling to challenge the 50 year old Mancetter dogma. CS has probably the best topographic fit of all nominees to date, it is close to/on the known Roman route, there are features that might be interpreted as Roman field fortifications, but critically it sits at the junction between the known Roman route and the Nene valley one of the key northern routes into Iceni territory. This location makes it a point where the Romans can strike into a vacated Iceni homeland and a point which, if they pass, they risk exposing their rear. So on many points CS is a very strong site and strategic candidate but a poor fit for the parade accolites as it is too far north if the only route available is Watling Street. So I bend the approach theories to fit a good site and it would seem you don't have to bend them very far to make CS a good candidate either by a real Iceni approach from the East, a threatened Iceni approach from the East or a real Iceni approach from the south by extending the linear parade into a circular parade.

I don't contend CS is the site, but I use CS as a test of strategic assumptions, this is helping me make new large scale observations about the site and it's context. Ultimately in CS we have a very interesting landscape that needs to be understood better. This debate is good for that, Boudicca or no Boudicca, it is throwing up new strategic identities for the site. Maybe the blatant use of the B word will one day justify the resources to look at the known features as has happened at Mancetter, Cuttle Mill and Dunstable. Merely talking about the site at the Warwick conference has engaged a whole new range of people with Church Stowe.
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Quote:The theory is there was a single unified block of Britons moving together en masse along a known linear route.

There I was, just about to fulminate at you for continuing to use that daft phrase, and you actually make your case quite well (still don't agree with you though). ;-)

I liked the last paragraph about goading and challenging assumptions, but you seem to have cut it!



Quote:We're not going to get an answer from this just campaign theories which may provide new sitres or new justifications for old sites...

I think all we've learned after six years of discussion is that we're not going to get an answer to this at all... :grin:
Nathan Ross
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I know I'm stuck in the lair of the Parade-ista's, so why not keep poking you with a pointy stick. Goading removed because it's only you I'm goading Nathan (sneer alarm went off), so please fulminate away.

we're not going to get an answer to this at all.. but we may score a grant to get some ditches dated and that would be a real victory, long live the Bou hunt as a mechanism for profile raising of forgotten sites.
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"I think all we've learned after six years of discussion"

You are kidding right? today (about an hour ago) was the threads 5th birthday, don't tell me you forgot? Aren't you coming to the party? Have you not invited Professor Bishop?

:woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot: :woot:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY THREAD
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Quote:so please fulminate away.

Well then... I've made my objection to this idea several times, so I won't repeat myself. Basically it's a straw man argument, a deliberately absurd exaggeration designed to make the opposing views appear ridiculous, and your own sensible by comparison... Wink

But you're right, of course, that there's plenty we don't know about this whole affair - plenty of known unknowns, to use a Rumsfeldism. As Renatus pointed out some time ago, though, we only have the texts to go on - once we start ignoring bits of them and making up our own stories about what happened, we're completely up in the air...



Quote:don't tell me you forgot?

Ah yes... :whistle:



Quote:there may be some mileage in debating the old chestnut

Some chestnut, as they say...
Nathan Ross
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we only have the texts to go on

I don't agree with that statement, we have some hints in the text and the texts are not truth nor the solution, they are a great jumping off point but encourage a narrow mind set if strictly adhered to. Loosen up a bit, give the texts the latitude of interpretaion their brevity requires.
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Quote: today (about an hour ago) was the threads 5th birthday, don't tell me you forgot?

Plumbata
Topic started 11 years 11 months ago by Anonymous :whistle: :whistle: :whistle:
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
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Robert Vermaat wrote:

Is there any poof that shows that these forests were even there at the time?

Nathan’s answer fits for forestation but regarding de-forestation the Grimms Ditch area is thought to have been dug in a deforested area for the “line of sight” to be in a straight line for the distance of the ditch.

Nathan Ross wrote:

.......the top left corner of the picture would offer an ideal approach from the direction of Akeman Street, and would bring the Britons right into the Roman camp!


We are no doubt going to have to differ here but this is I believe easily defendable with physical defences.


John 1 wrote:

see "c" above. With the addition that the majority of the group that hit Colchester in a rage returned home with plunder before setting off on a second broader expedition drawing new recruits and family from home. This group/groups could have advanced on Roman territory on a very different timeline and along very different routes ie through the Fens via Stonea or via Ely, hence my interest in the Fens. Once in Fenland, which is looking increasingly like Iceni territory, they would have the upper hand.

I agree with John that a combined force of the Iceni and the Trinovantes took control of all the forts in their territories then destroyed Colchester.

They were now back in control of their lands, the Iceni returned home and the Trinovantes took back their farms and estates.

The Iceni then returned home with their spoil and either encountered the 9th on its way to Colchester, or the 9th were ambushed by a border force of the Iceni at Wixoe.

I favour the latter as the Brythons (having fought the Romans for 18 years) would have known that as soon as messages had reached the Roman Administration of a suspected uprising that a Roman army would be sent to protect the Colonia.

Catus had sent 200 troops (which was all he could spare) and perhaps Cerialis had no idea of the strength of the Iceni / Trinovantes army and was confident that he had enough force to deal with it.

The Brythonic skill was in ambush and it was this point that the Roman Army was at its weakest.

Even after this neither tribe could leave their territories for the fear of being outflanked by the next Roman Army.

I am not convinced that London or St Albans at this stage were as important as keeping their own land.

John 1 wrote:

it does not account for different groups acting in different ways, different squadrons of Iceni heading off fast in very different directions and torching distant places. If this is the case, the burning of London and St Albans does not reflect a map of consequential movement, as "parade-istas" assume, but a series of isolated incidents in no particular order undertaken by different groups with different approach routes and speeds.

Once the next Roman Army appeared (in this case at St Albans and then London) and was seen that it was of a limited size, that soon withdrew from London, the race was on to come to grips with this small force whilst it was on the move.

The chariots may have been sent to harass the Roman column and London was just collateral damage

The rest of the army of the Trinovantes mustered.

So the Trinovantes chariots may have gone to London, the Trinovantes infantry across to Braughing and on to St Albans

The Iceni chariots may have gone down the Icknield Way towards Dunstable to harass the retreating column (or further North along Watling Styreet if intelligence was gathered).

The rest of the Iceni army mustered and marched westwards.

If the Iceni had gone down the Icknield Way to Dunstable and SP was waiting for them there, SP’s forces would have been caught between the Trinovantes and the Iceni.
Deryk
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