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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
Here are a few random thoughts that occur to me as a result of recent posts.


Quote: 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! ;-)
St Albans would hold few attractions for Paulinus. He knew from his journey to London that the country to the north was hostile, even if not in active revolt; the east was in open rebellion and, with the rebels about to occupy London and its environs, withdrawal to St Albans would leave him in danger of being cornered in a small pro-Roman enclave, surrounded by the enemy. If the troops that he had with him were insufficient to defend London, they would have been no better able to defend St Albans. Going to St Albans would have been potentially suicidal.


Quote:Firstly I have a problem with the idea that the Iceni and the Trinovantes strategy originally included marching on London . . .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 . . . The Brythons were no doubt waiting for him to attack and had the access roads to their borders covered but he never came.
It is clear that Paulinus was expecting an attack upon London. He must have had grounds for this and the obvious explanation is that the rebels were advancing upon it. If they were intent upon plunder and revenge, as seems to be the case, their targets are likely to have been the most Romanised centres of population: Colchester, St Albans and London. If they feared Roman retaliation against their homelands, they are more likely to have returned than to have hung around waiting for Paulinus to make the first move.


Quote: 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)
The fact that Paulinus decided against trying to defend London implies that he had at least given this some consideration. That in turn implies that he had a reasonably substantial force with him and that this included a significant number of infantry. I see him having all the legionary troops with him that he later had at the final battle. He may have subsequently collected a few additional auxiliaries but I do not see him being substantially reinforced between his leaving London and the final battle.


Quote: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.
Paulinus was prepared to surrender London to the rebels but, if this was in order to save the province, he must have left them something worth having. This suggests that London was left intact with its stocks of booty. He no doubt hoped that the rebels would either halt their advance there and occupy London or be satisfied with their plunder and return home. At least, he may have expected that the sacking of London would delay them sufficiently to enable him to link up with the troops, including leg II Aug, that he had ordered to join him.

Too much emphasis must not be put on ‘season’ in the Loeb translation; this is just the translator’s choice of word. In the original Greek, the word kairos does not imply the campaigning season; it means ‘the right season’, ‘the right time for action’ or ‘the critical moment’. In fact, it would have been unwise for Paulinus to delay taking retaliatory action until the next year, as this would have given the rebels the chance to consolidate their gains and to persuade other tribes to join them.


Quote: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.
We do not know that Paulinus adopted a scorched earth policy and it is most unlikely that he would have done so in the territory of the Atrebates, if he wanted to retain the loyalty of Cogidubnus. Similarly, it is highly unlikely that he fired Silchester. If Silchester was threatened by the rebels, one would expect Cogidubnus to have marshalled forces to defend it. We hear nothing of this but the nature of our sources is such that they probably would not have mentioned it anyway. Nevertheless, there is nothing to suggest that the rebels met any form of opposition before the final battle and the reason for this may be that they had not penetrated far into the territory of the Atrebates before the battle took place. Personally, I believe that the battle took place somewhere east of Silchester but, unfortunately, I cannot offer a site.
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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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 Renatus - 09-24-2012, 03:16 AM
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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