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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
Nathan wrote:


I doubt every family had their own wagon, actually. Patterns of property ownership in Iron Age British society are an unknown to me, but I would guess only one family in ten had wheeled transport.

Of course all we need to know now is the number of families and how big they were Sad

Nathan wrote

Colchester would have been bigger, St Albans much smaller, but I don't think we're looking at more than 15-20,000 potential civilian casualties maximum.

This seems to be a much more reasonable number - Thanks for this.


Nathan wrote:

I could mention here that St Albans was the only known municipium in Britain at the time, and shows evidence of early Romanised urban growth. If Paulinus was casting about for friendly natives with a 'special relationship' to Rome, he wouldn't need to go as far as Silchester!

Interestingly St Albans was made a municipium when Caratacus attacked so was possible a political statement rather than much else however you are right. In this case though, could they rely on the population and perhaps SP had already seen that the locals (apart from the rich)were not that pleased to see them as Tacitus indicates.

So why did SP go to Silchester and not St Albans?

Firstly I have a problem with the idea that the Iceni and the Trinovantes strategy originally included marching on London. The Brython's military strong points were made up of ambush and siege. Typically their successes were in opportunism, striking at poorly informed marching columns and not in full frontal attack. In effect they practiced guerrilla warfare.

The Roman Army on the other hand like the Super Powers of today preferred to fight "toe to toe" and the difficulty (as in today's Afghanistan or the Iraq War)was actually getting the enemy to "stand and fight" mainly because the Romans always won because of superior weaponry and tactics.

The one way that the Romans could get people to fight them in a "battle" was to march onto the homelands of their enemies and destroy them until people came and fought them.

In AD60 they had been doing this for 17 years in Britain; the locals would have known this and perhaps we can see this in the way that the Ninth Legion were destroyed on the borders of the Iceni on their way to Colchester in a typical Brythonic ambush.

The Iceni and Trinovantes were prepared and I believe that they were expecting Seutonius Paulinus to march on them perhaps at Colchester and also at Thetford. For them to have marched on London would have left their own lands, which they had literally just taken back from the Roman State open to attack with no one there to defend them.

This seems to be supported by the fact that SP was able to travel 250 miles (which if he was mounted would have taken at least 8 days after Colchester was burnt to the ground) or if he had infantry about a fortnight just to get to London.

It may have taken longer.

He apparently only had a "little army"(perhaps the Batavians - a mounted general utility force and some infantry perhaps 3,000- some men would have been lost in the fighting at Anglesey, some would have been left to garrison Anglesey and the wounded would have been left at Wroxeter).

This perhaps would have left him with 6,000 men (we cannot assume that the Twentieth were with him at this time) a big enough force if the Ninth and the Second had joined him giving him a large army to take back the territories lost.

He must have been devastated when no one turned up and no doubt would have waited, sent more messages before making the decision to abandon London.

The Brythons were no doubt waiting for him to attack and had the access roads to their borders covered but he never came.

The first they would have known that something was different to the normal was when they saw the smoke rising from the granaries and armouries as SP left with the refugees leaving only those who wanted to fight for London or those who were too infirm. There would not have been many as most rich refugees (like the Procurator and his cronies) had already fled.

Tacitus states that he lost a town to save a Province but the reality is of course that he had to regroup. He was prepared to leave London and the East of the country to its fate and seems to have decided according to Dio to retire for the season.

At this point apart from the recent losses at Anglesey and part of the Ninth Legion he has 6,000 troops with him and about 30,000 troops scattered around the country but mainly in the North and West.

To put a good distance between himself and the main rebellion he goes West on the road to Silchester. If he goes North he can be cut off from the East by the Iceni and the Trinovantes using their warbands that are guarding their frontiers.

If he goes to Silchester he immediately gains at least two days start over the Brythons (remember that he has refugees so is likely to be travelling at 10 miles per day or so). First Stop Syon Park, then Staines, Caesars Camp at Bracknell and then Silchester.

The Brythons only realise he has gone once their scouts get back. It is my contention that the Trinovantes war bands march on London and the Iceni go to St Albans to cut off SP. At London the Trinovantes meet limited resistance and destroy the place and its inhabitants no doubt furious that there are no supplies or armament.

When the Iceni war bands reach St Albans it has been evacuated and the gtranaries have been emptied. They burn it.

Interestingly Tacitus states that the Brythons did not attack the well defended places but equally the Romans did not attack the Brythons.

Now both War Bands have a problem. They are not geared up for pursuit because they were waiting for SP to attack and therefore have not stockpiled food for travel.

It is my supposition that this is what SP had planned on. He thought that they had no food and would therefore be satisfied with looting these two towns and then return back home.

SP not for the first time, under estimated the Brythons. They were determined to continue with their campaign. The Romans were weak, spread all over the country, the nearest army only had 6,000 men and they were leaving without a fight.

The Brythons would have had to send for supplies to get baggage trains to the warbands with wheat and fresh meat where possible. This would have taken about a week to get the supplies to the army. Water was not a problem in either city.

The scouts by this time would have reported that SP was in Silchester so both armies would have proceeded there one following SP via Staines and the Iceni going down in 10 mile stages using local water holes / rivers via Rickmansworth, crossing the Thames at Cookham, then on to Twyford, then Theale and finally meeting at Silchester around 2 weeks after SP had arrived - only to find that he had fled again - three days previously.

SP of course would have realised that his plan of retiring for another season was not going to happen once he realised that the armies had not returned home but were continuing westwards. His troops and the refugees would have been rested for a few days and he would have realised that it would take several days for the Brythons to reach Silchester but that it wasn't defendable and any way he had a place in mind 25 miles away.

We will never know if SP set fire to Silchester or whether the Brythons did but sgain the archeology supports destruction around this time but cetainly in later days this area was rich in wheat production (much being stored in the later fort at Cunetio) so it may have been part of a scorched earth policy to deny food to the Brythons who were perhaps also running short by now.

Perhaps the civilians from Silchester were evacuated or fled to the South and the Roman Army left for Cunetio one days forced march away.

SP sent to the local forts for reinforcements from Gloucester (2 days from Cunetio) , Bath and Cirencester (around 1 day from Cunetio)to meet him at Cunetio.

It is my supposition that the auxilliaries came from Silchester, two Allae from Cirencester and Gloucester and the Twentieth either from Bath or Gloucester.

If he had 6,000 men in London,then 2,000 of the Twentieth, 1,000 Auxilliaries, 1000 Cavalry which would bring him up to 10,000 men.

The Fourteenth and the Batavians would have 4 days to prepare the site before the Brythons arrived to find SP backed into a corner in a siege position based around an old hillfort and the Brythons had the water!

The rest is history Wink

Like so much concerning Boudica this has to be conjecture but there is nothing here as far as I can see that conflicts with the written word or the archeology as we know it at this time......

Something to mull over for the weekend.......

Kind Regards - Deryk
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 Deryk - 09-21-2012, 09:47 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

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