The Ancients - Boudica: Through Roman Eyes

Episode Date: March 21, 2021

The Iceni warrior who led a revolt against the Roman Empire around 60 AD often stands alone in our memory of ancient queens in Britain, but in this episode we explore Boudica’s portrayal in comparison to her contemporaries. In this second half of Tristan’s chat with Caitlin Gillespie, author of ‘Boudica: Warrior Woman of Roman Britain’, she also examines Boudica’s legacy, and the outcome of her revolt.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like The Ancients ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's podcast, we are continuing the story of Boudicca with Professor Katzlin Gillespie.

Now, in the first part of this podcast, we focused on the outbreak of Boudicca's uprising and also looking into Boudicca's character, how she is portrayed in the surviving Roman sources, particularly through some astonishing speeches. Now we're continuing the story, we're going to be looking at the end of Boudicca's revolt, we're going to be looking at Boudicca's legacy and how her portrayal compares to that of other prominent women from Roman history. Without further ado, here's Katlin. Do we have any other British queens around this time in ancient history, that we can use as possible comparison to Boudicca. We have a negative model. So amongst the Brigantes who are on the western side of Britain,

we have a woman called Cartamandua who was a leader and is identified actually as a queen. So none of our Roman sources call Boudicca a regina. She is a dux femina. She's a female general. They call this woman a regina. She is a dux femina. She's a female general. They call this woman a regina, right? So an actual queen. She, for various reasons, who knows, was not the most morally upright of women and took up with her husband's steward and then divorced her husband and had all of his family killed. And so he kind of rises up against her and the Bergantes side with him. But Cartamandu is another client regent of Rome.

So she actually has the Roman army on her side. So she calls on the Roman army to help her out and is able, at least initially, to defeat her ex-husband and regain this composite Roman local rule. So she's a very negative model that we have as a comparison. We don't have a lot of other women who are mentioned in our texts as being queens or female generals, certainly in this region. So we've got to just before this big expectant battle,

we've had the pre-battle speeches, but it doesn't go exactly too well for Boudicca. with speeches, but it doesn't go exactly too well for Boudicca. No, the Romans are very well trained in how to negotiate various types of battle situations. They have a number of different kinds of troops at their disposal. They have auxiliaries, they have people who are on the flanks, they have this composite army from various areas of the empire. And then Boudicca's people are a little bit disorganized in both of our texts, and they don't use the geography, the topography to their advantage. Whereas just previously in Boudicca's speech, she said, we know how to engage in this landscape. We know how to endure the cold and the weather, and we can fight from within the woods and do this guerrilla warfare. And the Romans don't know how to do any of that. Now, when the Romans choose a narrow

defile for their final battle, it means that not all of Boudicca's people can go against the Romans at the same time. So they get killed off one by one, and the Romans are able to easily conquer them and slaughter a great number. And even in Tacitus' account, they even kill the women and the animals that pull their wagons who are watching from the sidelines. So it is a complete and utter disaster for Boudicca and her people. And again, in Tacitus' account, Suetonius Paulinus and his Romans keep chasing down any of the remnants of that army as if they'd suffered an individual injury, he says. So as if Suetonius Paulinus took this to heart, that the Britons would dare attack the Roman centre of that colony while he was away. That's interesting. You mentioned while he was

away. So let's focus on that because you also mentioned earlier the island of Mona. First of all, what is the island of Mona? And what do you mean by he was far away when the revolt breaks out? Yeah, so Suetonius Paulinus is the Roman governor, is also the general of the Roman army. And he would have been centered at Camulodunum or Colchester, which then became this colony and settled a lot of Roman military veterans in the area, etc, etc. But he took it upon himself to attack a druidic center of worship at Mona, which is modern day Anglesey. So he went over to that island with his army. And this island was not only a druidic center of worship, but was also a center of refuge. So I also mentioned

before that prior to this conflict, there had been essentially ongoing revolts and attempts to eradicate the Romans from Britain by the local peoples. And in some accounts, those who had lost took refuge amongst the druids at this center. So there are various groups here. Suetonius Paulides leads his army across. He's met on the shore by not only the Druids and these former leaders of revolt and revolutionaries, but also women who are crying out in kind of a frenzied manner, almost like Bacchans. So those female worshippers of Bacchus who allow themselves to really be free. And they're fighting with torches and they're fighting with screams. And the Romans are initially shocked and they pause for a second to

gather some information, I guess, because that is quite a sight to see. And then the general says, be men, friends, and let's do what we came here to do. And so they also completely defeat that group of people and set up a Roman leadership over that island. They burned the sacred grove. So a lot of these druidic practices wouldn't have taken place in something that we're picturing like a Roman temple. A lot of them take place outside in nature. So in very, very sacred groves, this is not something that you do. Even if you are in a state of war, you do not burn sacred spaces. Now, I just said that Boudicca burnt the temple to divine Claudiusius so there is a little bit of parallelism here that while she's doing this suetonius is burning down her people's sacred center of worship in any case they are busy

on this island when the reports are brought to suetonius paulinus that colchester is also burning and he should probably get back it does kind of feel like a right back at you that whilst he said these groves are being burnt in Anglesey, at a similar time you have this symbol of Rome, this temple to the divine emperor who's just died, also being burnt to the ground. That's astonishing. Yeah, that there is absolutely this parallelism there in what does it mean to really attack a people's it might not be to just kill their leader it is going to be to attack those most sacred institutions that they value above and beyond everything else like the divine so if you have this sense that a lot of that druid worship was not only attractive, but it was, at least according to

Julius Caesar, it originated in Britain. So it's the foundation, it is the origin story of this religious practice. And you're attacking that origin, which to my mind is even worse than the temples to divine Claudius, because Claudius wasn't the best emperor, if we remember. And even though he was divinized, many Romans made fun of that. And there's a whole mockery of that event in the Apocolocantosis, or the pumpkinification of the Emperor Claudius, which is this Manipian style satire about what happens when Claudius dies and he goes to get judged in the underworld. So he wasn't really on the same level as say, either the Druids or certainly what we get the sense about Andraste. Interestingly on that, you mentioned how revolt sometimes doesn't end with the death of the

leader. So let's go back to the aftermath of the final clash at the Battle of Watling Street. What do we think happens to Boudicca after this clash? It's good that you bring that up because at some point she does die. And this is where our sources differ and their differences betray a very interesting authorial bias. So in Tacitus, you have this account of a noble suicide. So the apex of Roman leadership is that the captain goes down with the ship, or if you are losing a battle, then the general will commit suicide either by rushing into battle and fighting to the death, which is something like we get with Catiline, or they will commit

suicide like Brutus and Cassius, rather than allow themselves to be taken hostage and paraded as a prisoner of war. Certainly for non-Roman people, Boudicca would have been brought to Rome, paraded in a triumph alongside all of these spoils and that kind of thing. Instead, Tacitus says that she poisoned herself and committed suicide instead of being taken hostage. Cassius Dio says she just got sick and died and her people gave her a very elaborate funeral. But that at the moment of her death and at the completion of that funeral, the revolt was regarded as completed and ended and over. So we do have in this case the sense that the death of the leader is the death of that revolt. And in Tacitus, we have a clear reference point in that she dies like Cleopatra, right? So Cleopatra

famously did not go down with the ship at Actium. When her final battle against Octavian and his army was lost, she fled back to Egypt. But again, prior to being taken hostage or paraded around in Rome, she chose to commit suicide by the poison of two asps. Boudicca has a similar idea here, I think. That is really interesting. Now you go talk about these comparisons between Boudicca and other women in ancient history at this period. So let's focus on a few of them now and let's keep on Tacitus because I know another name that's been mentioned is Lucretia. What's the possible link between Boudicca and this figure called Lucretia? So Lucretia is one of these figures who doesn't say much, but what she says is incredibly powerful. So if we're going back to the very early history of Rome and the account

primarily of Livy, although others talk about Lucretia, at the end of the period of the kings, so 510-509, Lucretia was sexually assaulted by the son of the Roman king, one of the Tarquins. And the ways in which that story play out are maybe not the focus for today, but it is another story of assault in the same way that we get with Boudicca's daughters. And then she, again, like Boudicca's daughters, becomes a symbol. And she says she calls her husband and her husband's best friend, a guy called Brutus, and her father and her father's best friend, to hear her story and to admit that she does not want to ever be a symbol of unchastity. She wants to be a symbol of its opposite, of this great value for the Romans, which is called puticitia, sexual morality or chastity or whatever you want to call it.

And in order to do that, she feels like she can no longer live. And so she takes a sword and stabs herself. And in her dying words, she calls upon these men that she has called to bear witness to her story, and she challenges them to be men and avenge her death, her wrongful suffering and her death. And so her body is actually brought out and displayed in front of the Romans. And as Brutus makes this powerful speech and says, this is what happens when we allow ourselves to be ruled by tyrants. In the name of Lucretia, I call upon you all to be men and cast the Tarquins out of Rome.

And so this is, again, a catalyzing image. The body of a vulnerable young woman becomes the symbol for freedom or death. And so Brutus leads his army and they cast out the Tarquins and the war goes on. The Tarquins don't take it lightly that they've been thrown out of the city but it is that moment where the female body becomes a symbol and becomes a catalyst for action and I think we have a dual moment with Boudicca in that Boudicca is enraged at what has happened to her daughter's bodies and then she rides around in the chariot with those two young women. And it sounds bad, but kind of using them as her call to action. Catastrophic warfare, bloody revolutions and violent ideological battles. I'm James Rogers and over on The World Wars, we're on the front line of military history.

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wherever you get your podcasts. Let's put the world back into the world wars. it's really interesting these comparisons we talked about lucretia just there it was interesting you mentioned a fight for freedom or death with lucretia and it seems to compare similarly with the speech tacitus gives buddhica before the battle where she's like to the soldiers it's freedom or servitude. These similarities are quite astonishing over hundreds of years difference. Absolutely. So this very dichotomy, and it's obviously not going to be unique to women and speeches given by females. It's not going to be unique to non-Romans.

It's actually a very, very Roman idea, at least in the roman historians that you have to fight to the freedom or die and it creates a similarity between non-romans and romans so you get it in the speeches of say arminius the german and you get it with calgacus and caraticus and buddhica you get it in the speeches of all these non-romans but you also get it in speeches that happen within the senate you get it in speeches that happen within the Senate. You get it in speeches that happen within other moments in Roman history where you really have this call to action that it is freedom or servitude and that freedom can be very literal freedom, or it can be, say, in the Senate, the freedom of speech. It can be for Tacitus, the freedom to write what he wants

to write in his history. So another freedom of speech idea. There be for Tacitus, the freedom to write what he wants to write in his history. So another freedom of speech idea. There are all of these nuances to that idea of Libertas, but it is a very common theme that runs throughout and ties so many of these stories together. Forgive me, I'm going to ask about one other figure quickly before we wrap up. And I noticed this figure when doing a little bit of research with this and forgive me if i say it completely wrong around the same kind of time on the continent valeda yeah so we have other references to not only britain's but also other kind of celtic peoples so how does buddhica relate to other female leaders and maybe not necessarily generals, but religious leaders. So Valeda was known as a prophetess and her prophecy concerning the fate of a local conflict

around the same time becomes taken as another positive omen. And her people are, again, able to win in their initial conflict, even if it doesn't go their way for the whole time. But as a result of her positive prophecy, she receives numerous honors, among them maybe a young man to be in a state of servitude or a prisoner of war who comes in a state of servitude. But you have this idea that the Gallic peoples honor female prophetesses just as much as, say, the Romans respect the idea of other types of omens or the augurs, right? So people who interpret birds, Phileida does other types of prophecy and other types of interpretation of omens. And her word is regarded as just as powerful as, say, military advice. And as a result, she is shown different honours.

And we have this recognition that she's not unique, actually, that we have other references to female prophetesses that were treated in much the same way. Going on from that then, because you've also mentioned a couple of other figures. You've mentioned other native resistance leaders such as Calgacus. You've mentioned Caraticus. How does Boudicca and her character compare to these other native leaders of resistance against Rome? That's a really good question. And so I call them the two Cs, right? So Caraticus and Calgacus

and Boudicca, all of whom are primarily Tacitian figures or characters, and Tacitus draws all three of them together, I think primarily in relationship to the value they place on family. So if we have these three leaders of revolt at various times in the first century, we have, for example, Caraticus leads a revolt. He is unsuccessful again in his final battle. His brothers are taken hostage. His family is taken hostage by the Romans. He seeks shelter amongst that other queen I mentioned before, Cartamandua. She hands him directly over to the Romans, so thanks. He gets paraded through Rome in the manner that Boudicca avoids. He and his whole family and all the prisoners of war get paraded through Rome, and he's allowed to make a plea for his life in front of the emperor Claudius and Agrippina the

Younger, the mother of Nero. He says that Romans are always known for this ideal of clemency, and wouldn't it be great if Claudius could draw on this moment as proof of his own clemency as emperor? And he makes this lovely oration on behalf of not really himself, but really his family. And as a result, they're allowed to live. They aren't allowed to go back to Britain, but they are allowed to live and they're not placed in a state of servitude. They're kind of guests of the state in Rome. And we don't hear about him anymore. So we're not quite sure what happens to him at the end. But there is this value of family there. And I think the similar thing happens with Calgacus, who gives very lengthy speeches,

who is the main adversary in Tacitus's biography of his father-in-law, Agricola. So when Agricola was in his governorship in Britain, Calgacus led his own revolt. And one of the primary foci of his speeches is, again, freedom over servitude. Secondly, we've done this before. We're Britons. We did it against Caesar, etc. We can do it again now. And thirdly, that the homes and the families of his people are no longer safe. And he gives this wonderful speech that espouses very Roman values. He is defeated by Agricola. And in that defeat is a heartbreaking moment where the army of Calgacus regards themselves as so defeated that they actually burn their homes and a lot of them actually slaughter their own wives and children

such that they won't be slaves of the Roman state. So there is this moment when we've talked about brutality and fear in a lot of ways, that it is worse to become a Roman prisoner than it is to destroy your own family. We get a similar sense in Tacitus's ethnography of the Germanic peoples, that the Germanic women also serve as cheerleaders on the sides of their battlefields and cheer on their men and display the threat of servitude by their very bodies. So there is a kind of idea of a Roman menace behind some of these stories. Yeah, it's very interesting. Once again, these similarities over years and years and years, and also these Tacitian similarities in particular. Just to finish it all off, Boudicca, one of the most

famous names of ancient history on the island of Britain, because her legacy lives on after her revolt. Her legacy, very quickly over the hundreds of years since then, shall we say it's been in many different shapes and forms? since then. Can we say it's been in many different shapes and forms? Absolutely. So Boudicca's legacy lives on. She continues to inspire various artistic productions. If you go to the Colchester Museum, you'll see everything from girl bands named after Boudicca to beer that is an Assene IPA to these statues and sculptures and artistic productions that show the many sides of Boudicca. And this is what I kind of love is that you'll have something like Thornycroft's statue on the Bank of the Thames that really looks like she's facing off

against Parliament. And she's in this enormous horse-drawn carriage that was modeled after, I think, Victoria and Albert's actual horses. And she's riding with her daughters in defiance. And you get this real image of what it means to be a dux femina. But on the other side, you also get a Havard statue that's in Wales and the images of really a marble woman who is in mourning. So she's with her two daughters, but it looks like she is a refugee almost, more than a leader. And so you get really a broad spectrum in these just two sculptures. And what that leads me to believe is there's a lot more that we can learn from her. And there are a lot of new interpretations that are just waiting to be made. Absolutely. And the future of archaeology on this subject must be very exciting indeed in that remark.

Katlin, that was absolutely brilliant. Just to finish it all off, your book on Boudicca is called? Boudicca, Warrior Woman of Roman Britain. It is in hardback, paperback and is an audiobook. Oh, wow. Fantastic. Well, Katlin, thanks so much for coming on the show. Thank you.