Thread Rating:
  • 4 Vote(s) - 5 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
Quote:It seems that you are perhaps talking about something that we are assuming took place BEFORE the muster and that this was what was reported up the line to Catus and then on to Cerealis and then on to Paulinus. I feel that if this was the case the 200 troops would have arrived a while before they were attacked and would have organised a proper defence of Colchester. This does not seem to have been the case from the texts which states Colchester was unprepared.
In my suggested timeline, I proposed that the 200 troops reached Colchester about a week after the tribal assembly and the attack upon the town began about a week after that. One might have thought that the fact that there was already a small military force there and that the town was a community of former soldiers would have meant that someone would already have had the nous to put in hand the construction of defences. However, Tacitus tells us that the defenders’ plans were frustrated by a fifth column in the town sympathetic to the revolt. The precise meaning of this is not explained but one may surmise that some of the native population (perhaps the local aristocracy), who were believed to be loyal and trustworthy, persuaded the colonists that the threat of attack was illusory and that there was nothing to worry about. The result was that no defences were constructed and the elderly and the womenfolk were not sent away. It was not that the 200 troops did not arrive in time to organise the defences but that no one realised that it was necessary to do so until it was too late.



Quote:I think you are correct about Colchester being the primary objective not only for its symbolism but because it was the seat of power for Rome, effectively the largest city by far in Britannia and would have had much wealth. It was also where the people who had cheated the Trinovantes out of their land were based. London in comparison was according to many including Webster a comparatively small frontier town with few stone buildings at all. It was not the capital at this time and possibly contained some 4000 people before people had left. Yes there would have been trading goods and some wealth but much of it would have been removed by Catus and Paulinus.
I doubt that London was the one-horse town that some apparently have thought it to be. Tacitus says that, although not dignified with the title of colonia, it was “crowded to the highest degree with an abundance of traders and stores” (copia negotiatorum et commeatuum maxime celebre). Moreover, it was, presumably, where the procurator and the governor were based. We do not know that Catus took any of the wealth with him when he fled and it is unlikely that Paulinus took anything but provisions and that only what his forces could carry. Besides, as I have already observed, the rebels were not to know if anything had been taken.



Quote:I believe that the Iceni waited in their homelands for the Roman attack. I think that in the early stages of the revolt the Iceni and the Trinovantes combined in that the Iceni attacked the forts mentioned in the Agricola “They fell upon our troops, which were scattered on garrison duty, stormed the forts," and protected the borders whilst the Trinovantes attacked Colchester.

Quote:As you can see from the previous posts I feel that it was the Trinovantes who attacked Colchester.
When Paulinus left London I think that the Iceni warbands hit St Albans and the Trinovantes went for London.
Tacitus contradicts himself; in the Annals, he states that the rebels by-passed forts and military stations (omissis castellis praesidiisque militare). Nevertheless, in the Agricola, the attacks upon the troops and the storming of the praesidia appear as precursors to the invasion of the colony, not as separate acts by a different tribe. This aside, I do not see the Iceni letting the Trinovantes get away with grabbing the spoils of the sack of Colchester and London, while they contented themselves with what they could get in Verulamium which, although a municipium, receives only a passing reference from Tacitus and is not mentioned by Dio at all. More significantly, though, is the fact that the sources make it absolutely clear that Boudica was the prime mover and leader of the revolt. She would not have had that status if she had remained in her homelands, even if she did raid a few forts, while the Trinovantes did the bulk of the fighting and carried the war to the centres of Roman influence.



Quote:This keeps bringing me back to the point that he only had a small army with him.
I don’t think that anyone is denying that Paulinus was short of soldiers or that he was vastly outnumbered by the rebel forces.



Quote:Paulinus obviously had a plan in mind that included leaving London and knowing that it would be completely destroyed so he took people with him. Yet under any circumstance they would have slowed him down. So why did he take them? As you said it was harsh time and these were not the rich and powerful so why?
We do not know that anyone apart from Catus had left London before Paulinus arrived there. It may be precisely because they were the rich and powerful that he allowed some of the Londoners to accompany him.



Quote:I think that Paulinus’ problem was that he couldn’t get re-inforcements from the Second – fullstop. It sems to me that the Legions were their own masters and if they didn’t want to go somewhere they wouldn’t. An example would be the Legions embarking to invade Britain in AD43. It took some persuasion before they would go.....
Nothing in the sources suggests that the legion itself was reluctant to march. Postumus fell on his sword because he disobeyed his commander’s orders and thereby denied his legion its share of the glory of saving the province. The situation in AD43 was entirely different. Then, the invasion force was unwilling to embark because it considered that it was being required to campaign outside the limits of the known world. Refusal to fight against the rebels in AD61 would have been regarded as cowardice and would have brought condign punishment down upon the legion. Nothing of the sort occurred.
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)
Reply


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 - 10-20-2012, 01:38 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

Possibly Related Threads…
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Armchair Wall walking mcbishop 3 3,480 01-11-2012, 03:22 AM
Last Post: Vindex

Forum Jump: