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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
(01-13-2017, 10:42 AM)John1 Wrote: I love it when you put your neck on the line like that

No neck-putting required! The Romans constructed large marching camps all over the empire, so there's no reason to think they could not or would not have done the same here. Why would Paulinus have wanted to break his quite small force into even smaller units and camp them separately all around the crest of a ridge in the Midlands, in order to defeat a massive tribal rebellion in Anglia and south-east? But we both know our respective positions on this!

(01-13-2017, 10:42 AM)John1 Wrote: (going home for a big one)

TMI!


(01-13-2017, 12:18 PM)MonsGraupius Wrote: people are suggesting another date


As you say, Tacitus is quite clear that the revolt happened 'in the consulship of Cæsonius Pætus and Petronius Turpilianus', which is AD61. The redating of the revolt to AD60, first proposed in 1878, was popularised (along with the 'cavalry dash' idea) by Dudley and Webster in 1962. However, Kevin Carroll's The Date of Boudicca's Revolt (Britannia, Vol 10, 1979) provides a very convincing argument that the events happened when Tacitus said they did

Tacitus tells us that Turpilianus had 'just laid down his consulship' when he was nominated to replace Paulinus - ordinary consuls usually served for the first six months of the year, so if the revolt happened in 60 Turpilianus wouldn't have been able to take over command in Britain until the autumn of the following year at the earliest. Also, we know that his colleague Pætus arrived in Armenia for his own ill-fated governorship in 62.

Despite this, as Timothy Barnes says in Ammianus Marcellinus and the Representation of Historical Reality, "many modern students of Roman Britain have shown a perverse resolve to reject Tacitus' explicit and emphatic date for the rebellion in favour of 60 simply because he notes that Petronius Turpilianus had relinquished his consulate before he was sent to Britain to replace Suetonius Paulinus."

I did wonder a few pages back whether the revolt might have started in autumn 60 and continued into 61, but after further thought it seemed less likely. So it seems that 61 was the year of the revolt, and it probably happened between spring and early autumn. Although, as Carroll says at the end of his essay, “our evidence will not permit a definite chronology.” [Image: wink.png]
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 - 01-13-2017, 01:17 PM

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