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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
Just read John1's comment. As I remember, Paulinus lost his job not much later, according to Dio, something to do with loosing 'some ships on the shore', so he was obviously in bad odour in Rome already.
As for heading South, it's a matter of choosing where to fight. He thought London was indefensible, so he had to find somewhere he could fight Boudicca on his terms and not hers. Romans liked commanding the high ground and there's plenty of high ground along the North Downs. I would suspect that he had no idea of abandoning his troops, he just wanted to split Boudicca's force and deal with her piecemeal so that his men had the advantage of numbers.
The Second didn't march, so they were out of the picture anyway, unless, as I suspect, Paulinus had the Legate and a goodly chunk of their forces with him already. The Ninth had been mauled, but it was still in fighting order and may well have become Paulinus' rearguard. Thar leaves the Fourteenth and the Twentieth and one or both may well have been with him, too
Naming a site is a bit of a problem, because I remember reading about the discovery of a battle site in a very (very) old edition of Arch Cantiana, but I can't remember anything more about the details, other than that spears and armour had been found, I think it was a good 150 years ago, if not earlier and I do remember thinking that it was odd that the author had not ascribed the site to 'The Battle of the Medway'.
The problem with heading North from London is that Paulinus was likely to run into Boudicca a lot earleir than he wanted to !
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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
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Dana Adler - 07-24-2015, 02:41 PM

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