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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
Renatus wrote;

This idea of an ambush is a purely modern invention. As previously mentioned, there is nothing in the Latin to indicate that the encounter between the Ninth and the rebels was anything other than a simple face-to-face confrontation.

I think that the reference is as follows:

“The Britons, flushed with success, advanced to give him battle. The legion was put to the rout, and the infantry cut to pieces. Cerealis escaped with the cavalry to his entrenchments.”

The only problem with this argument is that on the one hand we have a mob plundering between Colchester and London for some days and yet on the other hand this same horde is an organised force marching towards Cerialis to give him battle and defeating him.

If the Ninth marched down the Via Devana and was attacked face to face by the Brythons this would not have been on the way to London from Colchester but rather a victorius army returning home.

It is well documented that the Brythons did use the ambush regularly and it was a hugely successful ploy however it may have been that the 2,000 infantry were destroyed in a face to face confrontation as stated which would have been a worry for SP and a reason why he needed to find a site to fight the Brythons which favoured him.

Renatus wrote;

I do think it likely that Suetonius was proceeding down the Via Devana, initially intending to link with Cerialis and the Ninth and to go together to relieve Colchester, but that, on being informed of the fall of Colchester and the defeat of Cerialis, he diverted down Ermine Street at Godmanchester.

Good point but this destroys the “London dash” theory.

Renatus wrote:

We do not know how long he was in London before the rebels arrived but it need not have been very long. They would have been delayed by plundering between Colchester and London, as well as probably moving more slowly anyway.

The rebels didn’t arrive in London until after Seutonius Paulinus left.

There is no reference in the texts that the Brythons moved really slowly, this is an interpretation of a migration that has been applied rather than an army.

Surely there wasn’t that much to plunder on the way to London to slow down the army.

Previous Brythonic armies moved equally as swiftly as the Roman Army for the previous 18 years so why is it assumed that this army was any slower?
Deryk
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Messages In This Thread
Re: Calling all armchair generals! - by Ensifer - 03-11-2010, 03:13 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-18-2012, 06:26 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 12:02 AM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 02:50 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 05:40 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 11:26 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 05:11 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 09:42 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 10:10 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 03:11 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 03:25 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 08:36 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-26-2012, 02:57 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-27-2012, 01:50 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 08-05-2012, 02:24 PM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-07-2014, 02:18 PM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-08-2014, 01:50 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-11-2014, 02:03 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-18-2014, 07:54 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-20-2014, 02:37 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-25-2014, 08:29 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Deryk - 03-21-2015, 01:01 AM

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