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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
Some interesting thoughts here.


Quote:I wouldn't confine it to one ala, though, and I wouldn't rule out his having auxiliary infantry too.

Usual complement (i.e. our assumption!) for a Roman force would be, I think, about 10% cavalry, although Paulinus would probably have tried to gather as many alae as possible. I would guess between 1000 and 2000 cavalry in his force of ten thousand, with at least 2000 auxiliary infantry.



Quote:his probable route of march would be along Watling Street as far as Lutterworth and then along the Via Devana... he could have continued to Godmanchester and then turned south on Ermine Street... pressing forward through hostile territory, rather than that the tribes around Watling Street were hostile.

Quite plausible, although there's so much we don't know about the positioning of the various legions that hypotheses start mounting on top of each other. The theory about the veterans seems very sound though.

I suspect Paulinus was quite a bit further south before he heard about the disaster of the Ninth though. He had already been appraised of the threat to Colchester, and I would guess that he would be intending his forces to converge in that region rather than further north. Cerealis was presumably defeated by the rebels at or near Colchester itself, rather than by a separate band somewhere in East Anglia. But, once again, there are too many known unknowns in all this!

I was thinking a bit more about the idea raised somewhere above of a final battle in the Essex region. Most of our theories have supposed that the path of Boudica's advance Colchester-London debars Paulinus from any activity in that area, but it seems to me quite possible that having (for example) withdrawn first to St Albans and sent his refugees northward from there, he could then have marched eastwards into the hinterland of the rebel advance and positioned himself directly behind them - this would have forced the Britons to turn back from plundering the Thames valley in order to protect their rear. There's possibly some explanation here of the note in Tacitus about ensuring the enemy were only in front of him, not behind... I'm sure there are plenty of viable sites in the Epping Forest area!
Nathan Ross
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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 Nathan Ross - 11-10-2014, 11:45 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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