03-07-2021, 01:20 PM
Renatus wrote:
The demoralised Britons turned tail and ran and the slaughter began, any pockets of resistance being ridden down. The Britons could not simply flee the battlefield because of the physical obstruction of the wagons and the draught animals but also, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, although not specifically mentioned by Tacitus, because they would naturally try to rescue their individual families and would dash about trying to find them, obstructing each other and adding to the chaos.
I certainly do not dispute any thing you have written here and remember the posts re rescuing their families but it does not explain what topographically defined the plain where the wagons were on the edge of.
So there has to be access points onto the plain for the wagons to get to.
It is a point that is ignored.
As we all have acknowledged SP was a cautious general and hugely experienced and successful.
If the plain was undefined he could not know that the wagons would be parked there and in that case the Brythons would have just retreated and he would not have inflicted the huge defeat on them that he needed to.
He obviously believed that he could defeat this huge host and would have planned accordingly and chosen a place not just a defile for the battle.
Unless this whole battle was just a glorious piece of luck and I would rather think that was not the case....but who knows.
The demoralised Britons turned tail and ran and the slaughter began, any pockets of resistance being ridden down. The Britons could not simply flee the battlefield because of the physical obstruction of the wagons and the draught animals but also, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, although not specifically mentioned by Tacitus, because they would naturally try to rescue their individual families and would dash about trying to find them, obstructing each other and adding to the chaos.
I certainly do not dispute any thing you have written here and remember the posts re rescuing their families but it does not explain what topographically defined the plain where the wagons were on the edge of.
So there has to be access points onto the plain for the wagons to get to.
It is a point that is ignored.
As we all have acknowledged SP was a cautious general and hugely experienced and successful.
If the plain was undefined he could not know that the wagons would be parked there and in that case the Brythons would have just retreated and he would not have inflicted the huge defeat on them that he needed to.
He obviously believed that he could defeat this huge host and would have planned accordingly and chosen a place not just a defile for the battle.
Unless this whole battle was just a glorious piece of luck and I would rather think that was not the case....but who knows.
Deryk
