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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Boadicea Biography BOADICEA, or, more correctly BOADICCA ( ?-62 A.D.). Queen of the Iceni, a tribe inhabiting the territory now included in Norfolk and a part of Suffolk. Prasutagus, her husband, who died about 60 A.D., left his wealth jointly to his two daughters and to the Roman Emperor Nero, hoping that by this artifice his kingdom would be protected from oppression; but the Roman soldiery, taking advantage of the defenseless condition of the country, began to plunder unscrupulously. Boadicea herself was scourged, her daughters were violated, and the nobles among the Iceni were plundered and ill treated. These outrages drove them into a revolt, in which they were joined by the Trinobantes. Boadicea gathered round her a large army, attacked and captured the Roman colony of Camulodunum (Colchester), took Londiniurn and Verulamium, and destroyed, according to Tacitus, 70,000 Romans and British partisans of Rome. Suetonius Paulinus, the Roman Governor of Britain, with about 10,000 legionaries, took up his position in a narrow valley, where he could not be surrounded from the rear or outflanked. Boadicea, who, it is said, had under her command over 200,000 men, attempted to destroy his army. A dreadful battle ensued (62) , in which 80,000 Britons were said to have perished, and only 400 Romans. These figures, of course, cannot be trusted; but the victory must have been decisive, as it established the authority of the Romans in Britain. Boadicea, overwhelmed with despair, committed suicide. Consult: Tacitus, Agricola, xvi, and Annales, xiv, 31-35, with the notes in the edition of the Annales by Furneaux (Oxford, 1891) ; Elton, Origins of English History (London, 1882); Rhys, Celtic Britain, (London, 1882) ; Haverfield, The Romanization of Roman Britain (Oxford, 1912). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. III (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 432. |