Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[Owein Walker]

A few more things I consider,one is this 'defile' and its translation.the only one I could consider as a defence that  I've read describes it like a' tongue' .A long narrow piece of land at the end of a valley .That gets ignored and I don't know why.

I'm afraid that I can't visualise this.  Could you explain it more fully?

How I see the defile is like a tongue in a mouth. The mouth being the surrounding hillside /valley covered in trees, and the tongue as a narrow spit of land at the head of the valley.

Valleys are formed by rivers or glacial erosion, and in this model it is from a spring head at the end of a valley, surrounded by trees. I imagine two spring fed streams flowing from the hillside, from different places. and converging to a point forming a' Y', the valley then gets narrower, leaving a raised piece of land between the two streams within the Y, like an outcrop or spur of land.

This higher spur of land could easily be narrow ,depending on the position of the streams, and the valley would continue as a V shaped narrow valley, it is not uncommon for more than one stream to rise from a springhead or hillside, and it would give SP a good defensive position on higher ground with trees (timber)to his rear and fresh supplies of water.
SP could build his camp on this spur of land and see along the valley, keeping all of his provisions safely together. I cannot imagine why he would not build a strong base in the time he had. Also being aware of his 'special guests' he has to keep them safe, so he needs a camp. Yes, Tacitus does not mention a camp, but I'm sure Tacitus took it for granted knowing that SP would have waited several days for Boudica to gather her army before the battle.