Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[Nathan Ross]

Are you saying SP had his troops do nothing other than sit about resting and waiting on open ground for several days and nights

Of course not. He would keep his army in their marching camp until the enemy were approaching and he could determine their numbers and direction. Then and only then would he take up the position he had selected - not in 'open ground' but in a confined area where he could not be easily outflanked, and with woods at the rear (not on all sides) to prevent surprise attacks.

We don't, in any case, know how long Suetonius had to wait until the Britons turned up. It may have been only hours. It seems nobody pays any attention to Cassius Dio any more, but he says that Suetonius 'grew short of food and the barbarians pressed relentlessly upon him [so] he was compelled, contrary to his judgment, to engage them.'

None of this suggests that he fortified himself in a redoubt and waited there for ages for the enemy to come and attack him. Roman armies of this period did not fight from behind fortifications unless they had already been defeated in the field and been forced to retreat there.

When Suetonius Paulinus did have time to 'prepare' the battlefield, at Ad Castores in AD69, he did not build fortifications either: "He ordered the trenches to be filled up, the plain to be cleared, and the line to be extended, holding that it would be time enough to begin his victory when he had provided against being vanquished." (Histories, 2.20)

Her speech prior to the battle

Obviously nobody at the time was taking notes, so we can safely assume that Boudica's pre-battle speech was Tacitus's invention.

I don't think anything in it tells us about the ground though: "a legion which dared to fight has perished; the rest are hiding themselves in their camp, or are thinking anxiously of flight. They will not sustain even the din and the shout of so many thousands, much less our charge and our blows." (Church and Brodribb translation).

The 'legion' was the Ninth under Cerialis. 'The rest' could either be the rest of the Roman army as a whole, which Boudica assumes to be 'hiding', or just Suetonius's men still in camp and not yet marched out into the 'defile'. She suggests they are scared and want to run away, and won't stand and fight ('sustain' etc).