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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
John 1 wrote:

Hi remember me?

How could we possibly forget? Nice to have you back! Smile

John 1 wrote:

I haven't read all of the last months postings so I may be irrelevant on this but the quote;

"Cerialis with the cavalry escaped into a camp and was protected by the ramparts."

put me in mind of Grahame Appleby's observation that Camden claimed a Roman Battlefield was at Wandlebury Ring just south of Cambridge. Right area, still has great ramparts and is Iron Age with mid first century work to the ramparts and Roman occupation.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandlebury_Hill_Fort

www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=371...=q&recordsperpage=10


It is a possibility (but you would have to come down on the side of the Ninth being ambushed!)

John 1 wrote:

In regard to the "water feature" debate the streams/rivers at both Mancetter and Cunetio are such major features that I too cannot square them with Tacitus. There would need to be a lot of other positive evidence in terms of finds and earthworks to balance the presence of the river beds.
So if Cunetio is out of the running, that leaves us with Virginia Water or no credible western site.

Shall we settle that the Western Theory is a blind alley?


I (of course) cannot agree with that and as I try (but fail abysmally) to convince people that the Kennet was NOT a huge obstruction (It is fed by “Winterbournes” and at the Summers end is very low) I still think that Cunetio is still viable.

For me the main problem is the distance from London / St Albans, which is where Dunstable has the edge being only 30 miles from London but the topography doesn’t work for me. Of course Church Strowe is 65 miles from London (75 miles from Thetford) and Mancetter is nearer 100 miles from London.

John 1 wrote:

It has generated some fantastic analysis of the text but, other than Cunetio, no new candidates.

Yes this is a bit disappointing. Perhaps we need to analyse the areas around Virginia water. There does not appear to be the topography before Cunetio that really fits.

Nathan Ross wrote:

I don't think so. Although I still prefer the north route, the west has a lot to be said for it. I believe that a consideration of the strategic shape of the campaign is possibly more useful than our attempts to accurately identify the site, which rely on a lot of variables (not least Tacitus's powers of description!).

Virginia Water is still very plausible, I think. Perhaps not the exact site suggested by Fuentes, but nearby - there's high ground, valleys, and it's close to London on the Roman road. The topography has been rather altered by development and the construction of an artifical lake, unfortunately!


It would perhaps be my second choice, after Dunstable, which continues to provide the best match for site topography and strategic plausibility...

OK – we will have to agree to disagree on the sites BUT lets have a look at the campaign and what events and reactions drove it.....

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 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
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Deryk - 11-06-2012, 04:11 PM

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