guy Posted December 20, 2020 Report Share Posted December 20, 2020 (edited) Quote The destruction of a "clearly high status" Iron Age village "may represent reprisals after the Boudiccan revolt", an archaeologist has said. More than 17 roundhouses were discovered in a defensive enclosure at Cressing, near Braintree in Essex. The site was burned down and abandoned during the late First Century AD. The dig continued throughout lockdown with archaeologists observing social distancing https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-55337814 Summary: It would have been surprising if the Romans (not much known for giving amnesty to undefeated enemies) didn't take reprisals after the Boudica revolt. Reportedly, Boudica had killed tens of thousands of Romans and allies (possibly 70,000, according to Tacitus) before she was finally defeated. Quote Suetonius, however, with wonderful resolution, marched amidst a hostile population to Londinium, which, though undistinguished by the name of a colony, was much frequented by a number of merchants and trading vessels. Uncertain whether he should choose it as a seat of war, as he looked round on his scanty force of soldiers, and remembered with what a serious warning the rashness of Petilius had been punished, he resolved to save the province at the cost of a single town. Nor did the tears and weeping of the people, as they implored his aid, deter him from giving the signal of departure and receiving into his army all who would go with him. Those who were chained to the spot by the weakness of their sex, or the infirmity of age, or the attractions of the place, were cut off by the enemy. Like ruin fell on the town of Verulamium, for the barbarians, who delighted in plunder and were indifferent to all else, passed by the fortresses with military garrisons, and attacked whatever offered most wealth to the spoiler, and was unsafe for defence. About seventy thousand citizens and allies, it appeared, fell in the places which I have mentioned. For it was not on making prisoners and selling them, or on any of the barter of war, that the enemy was bent, but on slaughter, on the gibbet, the fire and the cross, like men soon about to pay the penalty, and meanwhile snatching at instant vengeance. Tac. Ann. 14.33 guy also known as gaius Edited October 26, 2021 by guy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caldrail Posted December 21, 2020 Report Share Posted December 21, 2020 What we don't know is the objective of these presumed reprisals. Official retaliation? Local revenge? Suppression? Criminal activity (Roman soldiers sometimes indulged in a spot of banditry though this was more common in the late empire)? I would point out that the quote you gave above is highlighted concerning the actions of the 'barbarians', not the Romans. Or at least that was how I read it. The governor, Paulus Suetonius, is more concerned with preserving the province against the rebellion according to Tacitus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guy Posted December 21, 2020 Author Report Share Posted December 21, 2020 (edited) 5 hours ago, caldrail said: I would point out that the quote you gave above is highlighted concerning the actions of the 'barbarians', not the Romans. Or at least that was how I read it. The governor, Paulus Suetonius, is more concerned with preserving the province against the rebellion according to Tacitus. Thank you for reading my post and commenting. You bring up a good point. I agree that the Tacitus quote is a comment on Boudica's alleged atrocities. I doubt Tacitus, who is respected both for the accuracy of his historical accounts and for his sympathy toward defeated enemies, would have fabricated that account of Boudica's savage behavior. He was even willing to comment on Roman atrocities that occurred more than two decades later at a different battle: "They plunder, they slaughter, and they steal: this they falsely name Empire, and where they make a wasteland, they call it peace." (Tacitus puts this quote in the mouth of a possibly mythical chieftain of the Caledonian Confederacy named Calgacus. Agricola, his father-in-law, defeated this possibly mythical chieftain at the battle of Mons Graupius in northern Scotland in AD 83 or 84.) I, therefore, agree that it might be surprising that he did not also elaborate on the alleged Roman reprisals around the time of Boudica's defeat in 60 AD. He wrote his account of Boudica several decades after Boudica's defeat, however. As a good historian, maybe he did not want to depend on poorly documented events that occurred many years previously in a place located in the far reaches of the Empire. Edited December 21, 2020 by guy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caldrail Posted December 23, 2020 Report Share Posted December 23, 2020 Roman writers love to 'quote' speeches. Of course they do. Rhetoric was a vital part of a schoolboy education since the youngster was being prepared for a life that might well have involved politics. The problem is that they're making it up more often than not. Possibly the quote from Calgacus is accurate but there's no corroboration. It's a sort of socially acceptable derivation to enliven an otherwise dry account of the past. That said, Tacitus was well aware of the shortcomings of the empire's soldiery, barely wasting any explanation for the mutiny in Pannonia of ad14 (and adds a speech from a soldier to describe the complaints of the legionaries that nobody could have recorded). Britannia was a distant province though. A rebellion there during Hadrian's reign barely gets mentioned in the sources. How serious was it? Who rebelled? Who fought the rebels? Who won? One might suspect an easy victory for the Empire if the event is so casually passed over. had the rebellion been a disaster for Rome, or involved some great tragedy or drama involving the rich and famous, then more detail would have no doubt been dug up. It was, perhaps, thought of as a dull subject with nothing to thrill the reader. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guy Posted December 24, 2020 Author Report Share Posted December 24, 2020 (edited) Quote Birdwatcher stumbles upon £800,000 hoard of 2,000-year-old Celtic gold coins dating from time Boudicca was at war with the Romans Birdwatcher recovered 1,300 gold coins while out spotting a buzzard in a field Experts say each coin is worth up to £650 and could have belonged to Boudicca The lucky finder said 'a cascade of coins fell out,' of an urn he had unearthed (Reverse is probably a Celtic horse facing right.) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9084609/Birdwatcher-stumbles-800-000-hoard-2-000-year-old-Celtic-gold-coins.html Summary: Not sure whose gold this was, but these Celtic gold coins are beautiful. Edited October 20, 2021 by guy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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