Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[Nathan Ross]

A quote from a post of mine in October 2021.  I see no reason to change my opinion.

Was that really over a year ago?

I would have to restate what I said then, though - we do not need to assume a mistake on Tacitus's part, just a deficiency in our understanding of his methods.

If (as seems very likely, to me at least) the main events of the revolt happened towards the end of the year, after the harvest - the initial revolt and fall of Colchester, Suetonius's march to London, the fall of London and St Albans and the 'final' battle could all have happened in October-November - then the first full report of events may not have reached Rome until the spring of the following year.

All the subsequent events and reactions by the imperial government - Suetonius's ongoing punitive campaign, the despatch of first Classicianus and then Polyclitus, the transfer of troops from the Rhine and the the famine of the Iceni - would then happen during the first two thirds of that following year, with Suetonius being replaced in the late summer.

Tacitus, writing his account nearly six decades later, probably relied for his details on the imperial and senatorial records kept in Rome itself. We might easily imagine, therefore, that he would have found these records filed under the year they were received or drafted - the Consulate of Caesennius Paetus and Petronius Turpilianus (AD61), rather than the end of the previous year. To Tacitus, the difference may not have been as important as it seems to us: Rome became aware of these events in 61, so that was when they 'happened'.

Having the revolt and battle in 60 and the lengthy aftermath in 61 makes sense of the timeline, including Turpilianus's appointment after leaving his consulship midway through 61, and even the autumnal soft fruit remains from Colchester (which I am more inclined to try and incorporate than to explain away!)

This may seem an overly tricky interpretation, but the more I've considered it the more sensible it seems. Far more so, anyway, than compressing Suetonius's military campaign in Wales into the first half of 61, or the whole revolt and its aftermath into the autumn of that year, or ignoring the all-important harvest and assuming the Iceni went to war in midsummer.