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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
Quote:I think that the very act of SP leaving triggered the attack on London as Pualinus realised it would due to its being undefended. Also the Brythons could leave their homelands because there was no longer a threat to their territories.
The abandonment of London looks like a desperate measure that would only have been taken as a last resort, such as an imminent attack. There would have been no point in leaving it otherwise. As to the Britons, they were on a roll after their successes at Colchester and against the Ninth Legion. It is unlikely that they would have hovered on the outskirts of London waiting for Paulinus to move. Seeing that he had insufficient troops, they would surely have attacked. If they had retired to protect their homelands, they would have been miles away from London and no immediate threat.


Quote:It is Tacitus who mentions the "small army" and "scanty numbers" and compares it to the lost Ninth Legion and that care needed to be taken. Seutonius Paulinus obviously did not think that he had enough men then to fight or to approach the Brythons even in a fixed battle, so what changed his mind to decide to fight with the same number of men and an increasing number of the enemy from 120,000 to 230,000 (Dio).
I assume that by "small army" and "scanty numbers" you are referring to Ann. 14.36 (modica manus) and Ann. 14.33 (infrequentia militis) respectively. The second of these, dealing with troops in London, need only mean 'insufficient number of soldiers'. The first (if I have identified it correctly) is pre-battle rhetoric ("We few, we happy few, we band of brothers" sort of stuff) and, in any event, modicus means 'middling, average, not excessive'. As to the number of Britons, Dio's figures are unreliable but let us assume that he has the proportions about right. The first figure represents the force that Boudica had at the beginning of her campaign, the second the number at the final battle. The first, therefore, would be the Iceni alone, the second the Iceni and Trinovantes combined. This second figure would represent the number threatening London, whether you assume (as I do) that the two tribes combined and approached from the east or that the Trinovantes approached from the east and the Iceni came down Watling Street. From Paulinus' point of view, nothing had changed in terms of numbers. The difference was that he had given up hope of being reinforced by the Second Legion and that he had chosen a tactically more advantageous site for the battle.


Quote:SP would have either taken the grain and armaments or destroyed them. To not to do so would risk giving an edge to the rebels which he could not afford.
Paulinus would certainly have taken or destroyed the weapons but I think that he would have left the foodstuffs in the hope that collecting it would delay the Britons or that it might satisfy their lust for plunder, so that they returned home leaving him free to gather his forces for a counter-attack.


Quote:Regarding the site - that's what we are all loooking forward surely. :wink:
Of course but we have to accept that we will probably never identify it with certainty. The best that can be offered are possibilities.
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 - 09-25-2012, 01:36 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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