|
Dear Subscriber First Name Did you know the biggest rebellion against the Roman occupation of Britain was led by a woman? Her name was Boudicca (or Boudica or Boadicea) and I’m a huge fan. I mean, if I ever went back a few thousand years in time and met Boudicca in person, I would definitely run the other way, screaming in panic if I didn’t immediately freeze in terror, but as far as girl power goes, she was an icon. Boudicca was the wife of Prasutagus, the king of the Iceni tribe in East Anglia, a place in England near what is now called Norfolk. Prasutagus had named his wife a co-heir of his kingdom, along with the Roman emperor, hoping to appease the emperor, but when he died in 60 AD, the Romans didn’t recognise Boudicca as Queen of the Iceni. A Roman official named Catus Decianus saw his chance to capitalise on the king’s death. He and his Roman soldiers attacked the Iceni, took Boudicca’s land and plundered her household. To add insult to injury, he then assaulted Boudicca and her two daughters in front of her people. Big mistake. Huge. It’s possible the Romans weren’t used to Celtic women. After all, Roman daughters weren’t even given their own names, just a version of their father’s name plus a number. However, Boudicca was a fighter. Instead of accepting diminished status and humiliation from Catus Decianus, she rallied the other wronged Celtic chiefs and gathered an army. They marched towards Londinuim (London), unleashing their rage on anyone in their path. The trail of bodies, blood and burnt cities soon sent the message that Boudicca was just as ruthless a leader as any man, if not more so. Like a beast feeding on Roman bodies and the rage of oppressed indigenous people, Boudicca’s army grew until it was 180,000 strong. In response, the Romans sent the ninth legion to deal with Boudica, a force of 2,500 highly trained soldiers that would make most generals quake with fear. Boudicca had good intel, though, and she was on home turf. She and her best warriors ambushed the legion from the woods, cutting the elite soldiers to pieces in a decisive victory. This was not a mere setback for the Romans. The fact that it was a woman who had beaten them was mortifying. This is what Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus had to say: Two cities were sacked, eighty thousand of the Romans and of their allies perished, and the island was lost to Rome. Moreover, all this ruin was brought upon the Romans by a woman, a fact which in itself caused them the greatest shame.
I mean, what if women back home heard about this? What if they demanded individual names? My goodness, the paperwork… (read more)
|
