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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
Quote:
Renatus post=321518 Wrote:In the event, if Dio is to be believed, none of this worked.
We ca't know that. It is possible that, although the rebels continued on, their numbers inded diminished, allowing Paulinus not to be overrun. In any case, it did not cause more tribes to flock to Boudicca's banner.
I take your point to some degree. However, I maintain that, if the hope was that the rebels would stop their advance at London or that they would delay long enough for Paulinus to link up with his reinforcements, the ploy failed. If, on the other hand, Paulinus expected that, the longer he drew out the campaign and the further he drew the rebels from their homelands, the more would be induced to desert, it may have been, at least partially, successful. Whether the desertions would have been in sufficient numbers to have had an appreciable effect upon the outcome of the battle must remain a matter for speculation. Deryk believes that after London other tribes would have joined the revolt. Certainly, the fall of three major centres of Romanisation – Colchester, London and Verulamium – would have been an incentive for them to do so but I still doubt that there would have been sufficient time for them to muster their forces and proceed to join the rebel horde before the final battle took place.


Quote:Renatus wrote;

Probably, reports of the impending revolt were sent to Paulinus at the same time, either directly or relayed to him by Cerealis, and he may have been well on his way down Watling Street when news of the fall of Colchester reached him.

I don’t think the timeline fits. Tacitus suggests that the news of the rebellion reached SP in Anglesey.
I set out below an extract from Nathans’s hypothetical chronology originally posted here:


Quote:AD61 - March – After questioning the terms of Prasutagus's will, Procurator Catus sends men to flog Boudica and rape her daughters. Boudica vows revenge and begins to muster her forces.

April – Iceni begin mobilisation, uncovering caches of 'decommissioned' weapons. Catus, informed of this, sends a message to Governor Paulinus at his campaign headquarters at Wroxeter.

May 1st – Paulinus begins his campaign against the Ordovices, marching north and west from Wroxeter.

May 10th – Boudica holds giant tribal assembly. Message sent to Catus from Colchester.

May 18th – Boudica’s force moves south into Trinovante territory. Catus sends 200 men from his bodyguard to reinforce Colchester, and another message to Paulinus.

May 20th – Paulinus’s army reaches the Mona Strait opposite Anglesey. Catus’ 200 men reach Colchester.

May 22nd – Catus’ second message (unrest amongst Iceni, gathering forces, threat to Colchester) reaches Paulinus at his camp on the Mona strait.

May 25th – Paulinus’s army crosses the strait and attacks Anglesey.

May 27th – Romans destroy the remaining enemy forces on Anglesey.

May 28th – Romans burn sacred Druidic groves on Anglesey. Paulinus then pulls his army back across the straits, and sends an express messenger to Cerialis to advance to reinforce Colchester.

May 30th – Paulinus begins a rapid march back towards Wroxeter with the Fourteenth legion and several cohorts of the Twentieth.

June 2nd – Paulinus arrives at Chester.

June 3rd – Iceni attack Colchester. Civilians barricade themselves inside the temple. Cerialis, legate of the Ninth Legion at Longthorpe, receives the order to advance in support of Paulinus's main column.

June 4th – Paulinus arrives back at Wroxeter. Cerialis, outpacing the main column with his lightly-equipped force, marches 22 miles from Longthorpe to Godmanchester.

June 5th – last defenders of the Colchester temple die by fire. Message of destruction despatched to London. Paulinus on the march east down Watling Street. Cerialis marches 15 miles to Cambridge.

June 6th – Iceni looting and burning Colchester. Paulinus arrives at Mancetter. Message reaches the Second Legion base at Gloucester, but their Prefect does not give the order to move. Cerialis marches 20 miles on the Via Devana to Wixoe.

June 7th – Cerealis’s force ambushed and destroyed on the Via Devana between Wixoe and Colchester.

June 8th - Paulinus's advance reaches Towcester. Catus flees for Gaul by ship.

June 9th – Paulinus, still on Watling Street, meets Catus’ messenger coming north with news of the fall of Colchester. Catus arrives in Gaul and sends a message to Rome, reporting the imminent loss of the province. Iceni begin to muster outside Colchester and advance south-west towards London.

June 10th – Paulinus marches into St Albans and meets a second messenger with news of the defeat of Cerialis and flight of Catus.

June 11th – Paulinus marches on from St Albans and enters London. He learns that the Second Legion have not advanced to meet him. Iceni plundering in the area of Romford.

June 12th - Paulinus, deciding that London cannot be held, orders the inhabitants to evacuate the city.

June 13th – Paulinus destroys his supplies and retreats from London.

June 14th – Iceni sack and burn London

One may disagree with some of the detail (I doubt that Paulinus would have embarked upon his Anglesey campaign if he had been informed of trouble brewing in the east and I think that account has to be taken of Dio’s statement that, when advised of the rebellion, he took ship, presumably sailing along the North Wales coast to Chester, which may have gained him a little time) but, on the whole, it seems to present a plausible scenario that allows Paulinus to reach London before the arrival of the rebels (just).


Quote:Renatus wrote:

I do not recognise the quotation, unless it is a very free translation of the passage about abandoning London, which you have referred to. Can you give a reference?

It is a translation that I picked up as follows:

At that place he meant to fix the feat of war; but reflecting on the scanty numbers of his little army, and the fatal rashness of Cerealis, he resolved to quit the station, and, by giving up one post, secure the rest of the province.

Or

Uncertain whether he should choose it as a seat of war, as he looked round on his scanty force of soldiers, and remembered with what a serious warning the rashness of Petilius had been punished, he resolved to save the province at the cost of a single town.

The second quotation is from Church and Brodribb. The first appears much older; “feat of war” looks like “seat of war” written with the long s. Anyway, talk of “small armies”, “stations” and “posts” seems wide of the mark. Below is the Latin, followed by my own more or less literal (and, therefore, rather stilted) translation:

Ibi ambiguus, an illam sedem bello deligeret, circumspecta infrequentia militis, satisque magnis documentis temeritatem Petilii coercitam, unius oppidi damno servare universa statuit.

‘There, uncertain whether he should choose that as the base for war, with the insufficient number of soldiers considered and (bearing in mind)* the impetuosity of Petilius, punished with suitably potent lessons, he decided by the loss of one town to save everything.’
* I think that a verb has to be understood here. Other translators seem to think the same.

I offer this somewhat awkward reading to avoid our being misled by the choice of words and grammatical changes used by other translators to achieve a more flowing and pleasing translation.
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 - 10-06-2012, 01:19 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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