Nathan wrote:
Tacitus is specific that the famine was caused by missed sowing, not missed harvesting.
If the harvest was bad, and the rebels were away for the sowing season that followed but meanwhile lost what little they had harvested after taking it with them on their failed campaign, they would have had little to sustain them over the winter, nothing to sow the following spring and nothing to harvest the following summer either. Famine would have set in quickly.
I still think this is the only scenario that would create a famine as a direct result of a missed sowing season.
Nothing however distressed the enemy so much as famine, for they had been careless about sowing corn, people of every age having gone to the war, while they reckoned on our supplies as their own
This statement by Tacitus implies that the Brythons had planned to live off wheat that the Romans were going to use for themselves in the future by capturing supplies from the wheat in granaries held in Roman Towns, knowing that they had not planted enough wheat to last themselves.
This on reflection seems an unlikely scenario.
No farmer would allow under sowing knowing the vagaries of growing food knowing the risk of a poor harvest.
The Brythons exported wheat to Rome before the Claudius invasion probably from Fingringhoe and they were expert at wheat production and trade and would not ignore sowing or harvest times as their very lives and those of their families relied on the wheat.
Then of course Tacitus doesn’t say they didn’t plant corn but had been “careless” about sowing (perhaps enough) corn.
I think that it was Michael who said the famine could be the following year after the battle and I am now coming around to his way of thinking.
By the Spring of AD61 the territories of the Iceni and the Trinovantes were Roman Provinces run on the Roman Estate System and owned by Rome, not by the tribes, and the locals were tenants. Therefore the corn that was planted in the winter of AD60 actually belonged to Rome.
The Iceni would however have already stored their grain across their lands from the harvest of the end of the AD60 Summer and would therefore had enough to live off during AD61 up to JUly.
They would have sown the wheat for their consumption in the Spring of AD61 on non Roman Land.
If in the first instance the corn from the Roman Estates (previously Iceni land) was taken to Colchester and then Colchester burnt, the tribes would have had both the stocks from Colchester granaries and the corn that they took to Colchester, plenty of wheat by September AD61, to last them through to July AD62.
If they then planted up the Winter wheat after Boudica lost the battle in October AD61 on the previously held Roman Estates that were now back in their hands the Winter wheat sowing of October AD61 was re-taken by the Romans in the winter of AD61 /62 and the AD62 harvest now was the Roman’s corn.
“While they reckoned on our (Roman) supplies as their own”
The Iceni were still at war (and in fact were not defeated in battle after Boudica) having been driven into the Fens by Seutonius Paulinus. (Supported by the loss of ships
incident)
“People of every age having gone to the war”
Suetonius was retained in the government; but as he subsequently lost a few vessels on the shore with the crews, he was ordered, as though the war continued, to hand over his army to Petronius Turpilianus, who had just resigned his consulship.
The Iceni could not sow their Spring wheat nor access the Roman wheat and therefore had little staple food by August AD62 and although Seutonius Paulinus had handed over his command a famine ensued.
Tacitus is specific that the famine was caused by missed sowing, not missed harvesting.
If the harvest was bad, and the rebels were away for the sowing season that followed but meanwhile lost what little they had harvested after taking it with them on their failed campaign, they would have had little to sustain them over the winter, nothing to sow the following spring and nothing to harvest the following summer either. Famine would have set in quickly.
I still think this is the only scenario that would create a famine as a direct result of a missed sowing season.
Nothing however distressed the enemy so much as famine, for they had been careless about sowing corn, people of every age having gone to the war, while they reckoned on our supplies as their own
This statement by Tacitus implies that the Brythons had planned to live off wheat that the Romans were going to use for themselves in the future by capturing supplies from the wheat in granaries held in Roman Towns, knowing that they had not planted enough wheat to last themselves.
This on reflection seems an unlikely scenario.
No farmer would allow under sowing knowing the vagaries of growing food knowing the risk of a poor harvest.
The Brythons exported wheat to Rome before the Claudius invasion probably from Fingringhoe and they were expert at wheat production and trade and would not ignore sowing or harvest times as their very lives and those of their families relied on the wheat.
Then of course Tacitus doesn’t say they didn’t plant corn but had been “careless” about sowing (perhaps enough) corn.
I think that it was Michael who said the famine could be the following year after the battle and I am now coming around to his way of thinking.
By the Spring of AD61 the territories of the Iceni and the Trinovantes were Roman Provinces run on the Roman Estate System and owned by Rome, not by the tribes, and the locals were tenants. Therefore the corn that was planted in the winter of AD60 actually belonged to Rome.
The Iceni would however have already stored their grain across their lands from the harvest of the end of the AD60 Summer and would therefore had enough to live off during AD61 up to JUly.
They would have sown the wheat for their consumption in the Spring of AD61 on non Roman Land.
If in the first instance the corn from the Roman Estates (previously Iceni land) was taken to Colchester and then Colchester burnt, the tribes would have had both the stocks from Colchester granaries and the corn that they took to Colchester, plenty of wheat by September AD61, to last them through to July AD62.
If they then planted up the Winter wheat after Boudica lost the battle in October AD61 on the previously held Roman Estates that were now back in their hands the Winter wheat sowing of October AD61 was re-taken by the Romans in the winter of AD61 /62 and the AD62 harvest now was the Roman’s corn.
“While they reckoned on our (Roman) supplies as their own”
The Iceni were still at war (and in fact were not defeated in battle after Boudica) having been driven into the Fens by Seutonius Paulinus. (Supported by the loss of ships
incident)
“People of every age having gone to the war”
Suetonius was retained in the government; but as he subsequently lost a few vessels on the shore with the crews, he was ordered, as though the war continued, to hand over his army to Petronius Turpilianus, who had just resigned his consulship.
The Iceni could not sow their Spring wheat nor access the Roman wheat and therefore had little staple food by August AD62 and although Seutonius Paulinus had handed over his command a famine ensued.
Deryk
