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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
John,

You've been busy.

Thought I'd start by mentioning things we don't know (in case any new readers think otherwise):

1) Suetonius' route from N. Wales to London

2) the size and composition of Suetonius force in London

3) Suetonius' route when marching away from London (and the time he took before offering battle)

4) who were the hostiles that Suetonius marched amongst on his journey to London

5) what the Ninth was doing after its defeat (the last report says it escaped to a 'camp' [possibly fort])

6) where the tribal boundary was between the Catuvellauni in the west and the Iceni and Trinovantes in the east

7) the extent of the low-lands south of the Wash (The Fens). Your map shows the Fens extending a little too far to the east onto the chalk (where Icknield Way traverses north). Plus, in 60/61 AD the whole land area would have been roughly 1.4 metres higher relative to the sea-level - this is an approximation based on my calcs for the areas around London and the SE of England (Kent, SUssex, Hants). And, although generally the water-levels peaked during the the Iron Age it might be that Summer passage was relatively easy for 'war-bands' (units smaller than a horde)

8) the rebels motive(s) after destroying London

9) the time-table of events (even the sequence can be questioned)

10) where was the 2nd and what it was doing

11) what Suetonius' original plan was before the loss of the Ninth and destruction of London

The above are in no particular order. Other unknowns are available.

Just to help a little: Cambridge borders the Fens to the north and sits on Grey Chalk outliers and the Gault and Upper Greensand, i.e. it is/was relatively dry. Icknield Way (the Romanised trackway) passes 11 km to the south-east (nearly always routes across the White Chalk as far south as Tring [may have gone further]).


“We know the horde followed him”. Well we might have to differ here, we know he was harried, this need not have been a horde as this would have been too slow harry effectively and we don’t know the threat was from the South, it may have been from the East. (unleash the Cavalry dash argument).

Just to be clear, the cavalry-dash was a wicked, modern contrivance to support a battle-site somewhere (take your pick) along Watling Street.


Your idea of a general, diffuse flow of rebels across their western homeland boundary is designed to support Church Stowe but it is not really supported by what we do know. At Colchester Tacitus says, "Surprised, as it were, in the midst of peace, they [people of Colchester] were surrounded by an immense host of the barbarians. All else was plundered or fired in the onslaught; the temple where the soldiers had assembled, was stormed after a two days' siege. The victorious enemy met Petilius Cerialis, commander of the ninth legion, as he was coming to the rescue, routed his troops, and destroyed all his infantry. Cerialis escaped with some cavalry into the camp, and was saved by its fortifications."

An immense host suggests a horde at Colchester and to destroy units of a marching legion, the Ninth, would also require a large body of warriors - a horde. No sign here of a general flow. But then we should not expect otherwise, because that was the form of movement the barbarians in Europe were reported to have used by the Roman writers. There would have been a lumpen mass of men with the carts and faster-moving young warriors pushing forwards and outwards (even some crossing the Fens to become the hostiles worrying Suetonius as he marched to London).

For what it is worth, I do think it possible that there were two hordes; a largely Trinovante one at Colchester and another of Iceni progressing from the north-east. The second I presume destroyed the Ninth. Both arrived at London because their target by that stage was Suetonius.

You say, "I would anticipate a weighting [of an attribute called 'distance to tribal borders'] to significantly favour any site close to the known positions of the protagonists." You then request the downrating of sites more than 75 km from the border and south of the Thames. 75km - that's convenient for Church Stowe! First problem is that you are now talking of two attributes, tribal boundary and south of Thames. How many more? Second problem is how do you propose to weight the distances - linear, log, exponential, inverse distance? Anything other than linear will drop Church Stowe even further down the ranking (unless you choose an arbitrary distance cut-off point - but that is simply a special pleading too far).

And that encapsulates the problems we get into when having a favourite site: first pick site and then make facts, ideas, speculation fit the site (just like the cavalry-dash for Mancetter).

Oh and you use the word recce for the motive behind the cavalry-dash. Recce - you subltly invoke the concepts of speed, elan, youth and glory - hah! - when it would have been more like a fortnight long pony trekking expedition.

Sorry John, I'm not convinced by your arguments in favour of another attribute 'distance to tribal borders' and I'm definitely against another attribute designed to downgrade sites south of the Thames [in part because that was the mistake I made in earlier essays] - far too partisan.

Regards, Steve
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 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 Steve Kaye - 03-06-2015, 10:12 AM

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