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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
(12-11-2017, 11:44 PM)John1 Wrote: the stonking great Fort at Windridge

How did a small 3-4 hecare temporary camp or enclosure turn into a 'stonking great fort'?

I would like Windridge to be the place where Paulinus camped his army after withdrawing north from London - it's in the right sort of location, just outside the southwestern gate of the town, on the road to (for example) Akeman Street. But we'd need an enclosure of four or five times the size.

If it is Roman, I would guess it's more likely a fortified villa enclosure or a smaller camp from some time during the 400-odd years of Roman occupation. But its discovery (and the discovery of the others around the Nene you've mentioned elsewhere) at least indicates that there are surely many more camps or possible camps scattered all over the south east that we don't currently know about.


(12-11-2017, 11:55 PM)Renatus Wrote: another reason could have been that to do so would, in effect, have given the rebels what they wanted... Vespasian could well have been strongly opposed to the notion of giving up the province that he had helped gain for Rome 26 years previously.

Very possible, I'd say. It's a shame that Dio (as usual) didn't give more detail about the chronology involved, and that Tacitus doesn't mention it at all. More of those 'known unknowns'...


(12-11-2017, 11:57 PM)David Scothorn Wrote: But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.

Yep, the Don Rumsfeld approach to history! [Image: tongue.png]


(12-11-2017, 01:58 PM)John1 Wrote: sides steep enough and inaccessible enough to not be threatened by the hordes out flanking him, sounds like a steep sided deep valley to me, dips just don't cut it. With it's bottom wide enough to deploy a large body of troops, ie several hundred metres. Any feature remotely like this would have a water course in it's base

I don't know about 'inaccessible' - Paulinus would not want to isolate his troops at the bottom of a ravine. He would need to keep communication with whatever forces he placed on the high ground to either side, and the cavalry would need a slope they could charge down, not fall down...

In an age of (mainly) infantry combat and hand weapons, even a relatively gentle incline could affect the course of a battle. Paulinus would be looking for a feature that would funnel the rebel advance towards his infantry line and constrict their abiliity to spread out and flank him, while giving him high ground on either side that he could occupy and hold against them. He was also using the terrain available to him - so unless we can transport the campaign a long distance from London, we're probably not looking for Cheddar Gorge or anything similar.

The lack of a water course inside the defile suggests that it was situated on a watershed - with the Romans camped on one side and the Britons approaching from the other - and/or that it was on chalk, which would be dry in summer. The area of Chilterns suits both, of course.
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 - 12-12-2017, 11:21 AM

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