Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[Renatus]

If the revolt broke out in AD60 but Paulinus' report did not reach Rome until AD61, the report would nevertheless have made it abundantly clear that the events it described had occurred in the previous year.  I am, therefore, reluctant to believe that Tacitus made the elementary mistake of getting the years mixed up.  Why not simply move the whole scenario forward one year?  That would have Tacitus correctly place the outbreak of the revolt in AD61, with the aftermath taking place, to some extent at least, in AD62.

There is a possible difficulty in that it is said of Paulinus' successor, Petronius Turpilianus, 'qui iam consulatu abierat' (literally, 'who had now retired from the consulship').  Translators tend to interpret this as a recent event and I have made the same point myself.  However, this can be taken too far.  His retirement could have been fairly recent but it need not have only just happened.  Tacitus had previously said that the revolt broke out during his consulship or, at least, during his consular year and this may simply be his way of saying that Turpilianus was no longer consul and, therefore, free to replace Paulinus as governor of Britain.