Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[Nathan Ross]

"Uncertain whether he should choose it as a seat of war".

ibi ambiguus, an illam sedem bello deligeret... (Annals 14.33)

It might be worth thinking about what sedem bello actually refers to here.

'Seat of war' can have two meanings. In the general sense it can just mean a place where the war happens, a 'theatre of operations' or 'scene of action'. Tacitus uses it this way in Histories (3.32), when he has the people of Cremona complain that their "town had twice been the seat of war" - meaning it had been attacked twice.

Lucan, in Pharsalia Book 2, provides a more developed explanation: "Capua was chosen as the seat of war; [Pompeius] resolved to make Capua the base of his chief campaign, and from there to extend and disperse his forces in order to meet the enemy..."

So Suetonius Paulinus could either have thought simply that he would fight a battle in London, or near London (the first meaning), or that he would make London his campaign base, and gather his troops there before sending them out against the rebels, wherever they might be.

Either way, he was not originally intending to evacuate the place immediately, or (I would say) to fortify it as a redoubt, but rather to base himself there and oversee ongoing field operations. It seems likely that he was surprised by the speed of the enemy's advance and the size of their army, and rapidly decided that he would have to seek a better location for his operational headquarters.