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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
I've been thinking over Deryk's idea about the crop planting and seasons. I'm starting to wonder whether we're completely out on the dates of the revolt and the final battle.

Tacitus says the revolt happened in AD61 (Annals 14.29). The Britons neglected their planting at that time to go off to war, thinking they would take Roman supplies (14.38).

They could only have thought this at the beginning of the revolt; after the defeat of Boudica there would be no possibility of taking Roman grain. So the revolt must have started around one of the two sowing seasons.

This could have been in the spring of AD61, as I've been assuming - but if so the winter crop would still be available for harvest in late summer, so no famine.

So - what if the revolt started in the autumn of AD60 instead?

Dio (62.7) and Tacitus (Agricola 2.15) just say that the legate was away at the time - so Paulinus could have been in the process of concluding his years' campaign in Wales with the conquest of Mona. This would be around September.

Winter crops would be sown in October, so the revolt was already underway by then.

Paulinus, having already completed his Mona operation when he hears of the revolt (Dio 62.8), marches from Mona in October, gets to London, and falls back somewhere. Dio says he was 'inclined to postpone battle to a more convenient season', which would make sense if this was the brink of winter. It might also explain why he was growing short of food.

The final battle would therefore happen in November of AD60.

Tacitus says immediately afterwards (14.38) that Paulinus 'kept the whole army under canvas to finish the remainder of the war' - which would be appropriate if it was now winter.

The reinforcements from Germany, together with the new procurator Classicianus and later the freedman Polyclitus, would therefore turn up in the spring and summer of AD61. Paulinus would have spent the winter conducting punitive operations against rebels (Agricola 2.16 - many 'still clung to their arms' after the final battle), and these would continue into the following year. Somewhere over the winter, Boudica died.

Classicianus reported that 'no cessation of fighting must be expected' (Annals 14.38) - so this post-battle stage of the war could have lasted six months or more.

At some point in the second half of AD61, then, with the Iceni facing famine as they had not sown their crops the year before, Paulinus was ordered to hand over to Turpilianus, 'who had just resigned his consulship' (Annals 14.39: he was ordinary consul for the first 6 months of that year).

Turpilianus took over the army 'as though the war continued' - which suggests that it was actually over by the late summer. The rebels were perhaps too depressed by impending famine to continue the fight!

All this does seem to explain the crop business quite well, although it means disregarding Tacitus's statement that the revolt itself happened in 61.

It also means that we could be looking for a battle fought in late autumn or winter, rather than summer...

(Dudley and Webster, in 1962, suggested that the revolt broke out in spring AD60 and was over by the summer of that year - I'm glad I'm still not entirely agreeing with them here!)
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 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 Nathan Ross - 12-02-2015, 09:00 PM

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