The Ancients - Caratacus: King of the Britons

Episode Date: October 11, 2026

Before Boudicca, another British leader brought the Roman war machine to a grinding halt. Meet Caratacus; the cunning King of the Britons who spent seven years outmaneuvering the empire.Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr. Miles Russell to uncover the forgotten story of this charismatic guerrilla fighter. From leading fierce resistance in Wales to his betrayal, capture, and a life-saving speech in Rome, Caratacus was Britain’s ultimate escape artist.MOREWho Was The Real King Arthur?Listen on AppleListen on SpotifyThe Roman Invasion of BritainListen on AppleListen on SpotifyPresented by Tristan Hughes. Edited by Natasha Hughes. The studio manager is Hanif Hussain, the producer is Robin McConnell, the video producer is McKenna Fernandez. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music courtesy of Epidemic SoundsThe Ancients is a History Hit podcast.History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™The Ancients is now on YouTube! Watch HEREWant even MORE Ancients? Sign up to History Hit for early access ad-free, plus exclusive subscriber-only episodes. PLUS with a History Hit subscription you can watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe. When we think of ancient Britain's resistance to Roman rule, one name towers above them all, Budica, queen of the Icini. But before Budica, there was another British leader who resisted for far longer, Budica's neighbour and rival, Caraticus. When other British rulers surrendered to Roman rule, Caraticus fought on for seven long years. When pitched battle failed, he turned to guerrilla warfare. Time and again, he slipped through.

the iron grip of Rome, eluding capture and proving himself not only an accomplished military leader, but also quite the escape artist. He was a commander so cunning that he became public enemy number one. He was a king so charismatic that even the Romans respected his resilience. Today I'm very pleased to have my good friend Dr Miles Russell on the show. Miles' new book is called Caraticus, Great King of Britain. And it tells the remarkable story of this British resistance hero. Miles, it is such a pleasure to have you back on the show. It's great to see you again, my friend.

It's brilliant to be here. It's fantastic. Thank you for inviting me. Last time we chatted, well, we normally chat. We're out in the open field, don't we? I'm usually at one of your dig sites. In some kind of sunblasted field, yes. Yes.

That's quite nice to be here in the studio. Or overlooking Iron Age ramparts, the top maiden castle and the like. So welcome to the big city, first of all, the big smoke. And you have written this new book about one of my favourite figures, also from ancient history. I know a big figure of you, you too. Caraticus, this other big British resistance hero, many people think Budica straight away, but he's the other major one at the beginning of the Roman occupation, the Roman invasions of Britain.

He is, he is. I usually ought to pronounce him as Caratacus, but... It's going to get to that. But, yeah, he is. He's one of those figures. He's actually really significant. I mean, arguably, he's the whole cause of the Roman invasion of Britain. He fights the Romans for such a long period of time. But he's always overlooked. So Budica gets the big lighting. Budik gets the big story. Buda gets the big sort of Hollywood treatment,

whereas Karatakis tends to get ignored and forgotten. I deliberately started by saying Karatkas because I knew you were going to challenge me straight to away. So come on. Let's get into the nerdy naming. Karatkus or Karatakis. It technically should be Karatakis. So we've got the Kara bit is a sort of effectively in Brythonic or Welsh.

Like the same derivation as Kariad, it's sort of the beloved. So it should be, the stress should be on the Kara and then Tarkas, rather than Kraticus. Or sometimes even you see it's spelled Krakhtikus with the next to sea. So ignore those, it should be Karatakis. So it's like how the evolution of Bodhis see has become Budica over the decades. It's a bit similar with Karatakis. It is. It is. I mean, Leffaw is the problem that when we're looking at these sort of histories,

the name's been transcribed multiple times to the medieval era when people have been copying it. And there's so many spelling variations. So as with Budaica, Bodhisir has been a sort of a name corruption, but we think it should be Budica and Karatakis. I mean, there's lots of different variant forms of his name, but that seems to be the one that is probably the most correct. So what does Karatakis mean? So Beloved.

It's just really the beloved. He is someone who, and it's interesting in his story, he sort of gets, he seems to have this great charismatic personality. People love him, people support him, and people genuinely more. on his loss. So it's one of those difficult things. So is this a birth name? Or is this is this a name he's inherited? Like with Budica, it seems to be translated as victorious. So is that a name she was given at birth with the hope? Or is that more a sort of a name that she is given after her initial conquest against the Romans? So I think with all these names, we've got to be careful. We

don't know when they're actually introduced. And why can we also call him a king of the Britons? He is somebody, where he's minting coins to start with, he's got his name sort of slapped all over a whole series of coins before the Romans arrive. And he seems to be a wielding a significant power within central southern Britain. He's displacing other monarchs and he's creating a territory of his own. So he certainly identified himself as a king, although the Romans don't give him that kind of honour. But this is great. So you mentioned archaeology there.

So often for many of these kind of big rebels of Rome, you have to rely predominantly on just the Roman sources. and that history is written by the winners. But with Caratakis, we do actually have archaeology surviving too. We do. We've got a lot of archaeology. As I just mentioned, there's a lot of coins with his name on. And that's great when you get those because on the other side, there's a whole series of images.

And usually it's great with iron age coins because you can see what kind of element of power they're trying to project to their people. You know, what symbols and signs they're copying from the Roman world, which ones they're bringing themselves. But also Karatakis occupies that area whereby he's linked to a whole series of sites like Colchester, like Silchester in central, southern Britain, Chichester. And then again, with a whole series of battlefields in Wales.

So geographically speaking, he's relatively easy to place. But you're right, he's also mentioned a lot in the Roman sources. And it's one of those bizarre things because essentially, you know, we don't know when he was born. we don't know when he died. And in fact, the written sources only give us about a decade of his life between AD 41 and 51. But it's a big decade. It's a point in his life where he's fighting Rome. He's making a huge impact.

And that's, I think, what makes him a great leader, a great character and someone who resonates down through history. It's just that brief 10-year period of glory. Well, are the Roman sources also helpful for understanding that decade alongside the archaeology, for giving us, quite frankly, a narrative of his resistance? They are. I mean, the sources are incomplete. That's the first thing we've got to be aware of. Tacitus, who's writing, sort of beginning of the second century, he gives us the end part of Carataka's career. And Cassius Dio gives us the beginning. The trouble with Cassius Dio is he's writing a good 250 years later, and he's garbled, he's confused,

he doesn't really care about the version of history that he gives us. And when you compare him with more reliable sources, you do realize that he's of, he ups the body count, he increases the gore, he's not wholly reliable as a historian. But he's what we have to rely on for the beginning of Caratacus' career against Rome, the invasion. And it's Tacitus who gives us the end. But it's a short window opportunity. But it's very clear that the Roman sources much admired this character as a resistance leader, as a sort of a great, noble, heroic barbarian who effectively was, managed to resist against them for a long period of time. Interesting. So it's quite a bit of detective work then to piece together those

sources alongside the archaeology when reconstructed the story of his resistance. One last thing on the background, I have to ask, is you mentioned that, you know, you've got battle sites as well in Wales. And usually battle sites are so invisible, you know, today, quite frankly, to find it. But do we have them then for Caratakis in Wales? No. Okay. But the trouble is, I mean, even something as dramatic as Boudic as,

battle against the Romans in 60 AD, when we're told tens of thousands of Britons die, no one has successfully located that battlefield. Ancient battlefields are really problematic because the landscapes change. They're not often tied into a specific named place. Bodies are removed or scavenged. Weapons are taken away and recycled. So it's very, very difficult to positively identify an ancient battle source. We've got great literary descriptions for the two of the major battles that Caratagas fights

against the Romans, but trying to place them has been notoriously difficult. And people have tried for the last couple of hundred years. They haven't been located precisely. But geographically speaking, we can be fairly sure where they occurred, but not the exact place on the ground, sadly. Okay, fair enough. So there's no Caraticus-Tutaberg forest equivalent in Wales. Sadly not.

No, no. Okay. Well, now we've covered all of that. Let's delve into the background of Caratarchus, the man, the myth, the legend. So do we actually know quite a bit about his family? We know quite a bit, yeah, about his ancestry. His father, Kinabalinas, is minting coins, essentially around St. Orban's in Hertfordshire and also around Colchester and Essex.

These are the two centres of power that he claims sort of authority over. He's mentioned a few Roman sources. Swetonius describes him as a great king of the Britons. so it's clear that he is trading with the Roman world. He's perceived to be one of the major players in Britain. One of the difficulties that the Roman Empire has is Britain's on the fringes of the Roman Empire. They're trading with Britain, but they want it to remain relatively stable. They don't want people to get too big and too powerful and sort of tip things over.

So, Cunabellinus is Caratakis' father. We know that a chap called Taskirvarnas is his grandfather, and all three are minting coins. So that sort of element of lineage is fairly clear. They are, we don't know how they came to power. But it is very obvious that these are the mate. If you think of them more like a mafia family, they're controlling trade. They've probably got their own bodyguard. They're probably organising protection rackets.

They're looking after their own. But they're always looking for ways to expand their empire. So they're quite unstable as a power base. But Rome is quite keen to have them on board and to give them sort of the, or the sort of the nicest is of the Mediterranean world, wine, olive oil, garum, all this stuff. The fish sauce, garum, yeah, which is quite offensive really.

But it's, and in return, the Britons are giving the Roman Empire slaves and metals and grain to feed the army, which then is based down the Rhine. You know, the Roman army can't feed itself so it needs an awful lot of food supplies, and Britain is providing some of that food material. So it works great for Rome to have these allies

and these allied monarchs in Britain as long as they don't overstep the mark and create too much of an empire. And that's really what he seems to be, Kinabalinas might be doing in the early decades of AD, is that he's expanding his empire too much at the cost of his immediate neighbours. So he's somebody whom, I guess, other kings, other leaders are leaving Britain and going to the Emperor Augustus to ask for help because they feel that their kingdom's in peril, because this guy is expanding too much,

is taking control of too much, and they want Rome to put him back in his box. So Caratakis, he is very much born into the purple, almost in regards to kind of a very powerful British chieftain at that time, who might be, you know, almost kind of like Hannibal Barker's father, Hamilcar, you know, he's raising his own family's power at a time, but that is starting to raise concerns across the channel in the Roman Empire.

And I think we've also got to bear in mind that these aren't isolationists, these aren't British monarchs who have never been to Rome. The evidence seems to be that a good deal of them have been to Rome. They're copying Roman images on their coins. We know that Augustus promotes this idea that the Britons are coming to him. They're making sacrifices on the capital, Rome's most holy place in the eternal city. So these are people who are very familiar with what Rome represents, what it can offer them. They're not living in a barbarian utopia completely isolated from the Roman world. They know what it's got to offer, but they also know the threat.

So they're playing a very careful game. They don't want the Roman army to just turn up like Julius Caesar had done in the 50s, mid-50s BC and start imposing regime change. They want to keep Rome happy too, but they are trying to get away with as much as they can without antagonising the emperor. Do you reckon that Caratacus, when he was a young lad, and, you know, I said he was not living in a vacuum, he would have heard of the Roman Empire, all those Roman goods coming in. Do you reckon he would have gone to Rome? I think it's quite likely, yes. Yeah, I mean, again, on a lot of his coins that we see, there's a very nice Roman eagle. As I said, on his father, Kinabalinus's coins, there's a whole series of Roman sphinx.

There's Roman ships. Sphinx as well. They are, yeah. So they're very much living with this sort of repertoire of Roman images. I think it's highly likely that Caratacus had been to Rome. So he knew what he was up against. He knew sort of the, you know, what? all the kind of organizational ability, all the kind of architectural grandeur that Rome had to offer.

So he's not a complete idiot in the sense of standing up, not realizing that Rome is a major superpower. He knows that, but he is trying to create his own little kingdom. And it's that, I think, that really antagonizes the Rome to the point that it decides to put sandals on the ground and to send Roman troops to Britain. Interesting. So you think actually Caratakis is a cause in all of that.

I just kind of want to linger on that potential of him, going to Rome before he becomes a king in his own right when his dad is still ruling because of course maybe you could look at similarities with someone like arminius you know kind of the great germanic leader of the basto the tudsburg forest how he learned latin how he spent a considerable amount of time in his youth in rome i guess it's fun to kind of query to to to theorize as to whether karataka's would have spoken latin as well i think he did um there there was a stage we're too far ahead but he's credited with this great speech in Latin. And people say,

he must have been given that speech or it must have been added to him. But I think, yes, he would have understood Latin very, very clearly. I mean, Augustus and the emperors that come after him are very clear about who they want to rule the barbarian lands beyond their empire. And they demand that kings and queens, those sort of rulers,

send their firstborn to Rome, where they can be brought up in the Roman tradition. They can learn Roman law. They can speak Latin. So that when they return home to take up, over their kingdoms, they're model citizens. So I think Caratacus is part of that world. And if he himself hadn't been to Rome, then certainly his brothers would have done. So that sort of family element, they would really know what Rome had to offer. So who are these brothers of Caratacus?

We've got, we've got one, Togidubness, or Togodumness, is very forms of his spelling, of his name, who is also minting coins in the sort of central eastern Britain. We've got the Idubni part of his name element on those coins. And we've got a chap called Aminus, or as the Roman historian, Svetonius describes him, Adminius. So there's lots, again, garbling of these. The Britain's names aren't written down. So the Romans historians, when they're writing them,

they garble them, they corrupt them. And so we often have five, or six, a bit like Shakespeare writing his name 56 different ways. The Ionese Britain, sometimes we have to assume that a different spelling is the same person, But it's a corruption of that name form. So we've got togy dumbness. We've got Aminus.

These are two brothers of Caratagos. Aminus flees to the Emperor Caligula in 8040. We're told that he's ousted from Britain by his father, Kinabalinas. Wow. We don't know what he's done, but Kinabalinas effectively kicks him out. He grabs a ship. He goes over to the continent. Unfortunately, he arrives in Rome at the time where Caligula's in charge.

Not the most stable of emperors, not the most secure. pure place to go. We don't know what happens to him afterwards. Higula makes a big show of having this guy and having, basically making the claim that the whole of Britain has surrendered to him, which of course it hasn't. But he makes a parade in Rome. He claims to have conquered the ocean. So there is that sense that part of the family is going over to the Roman cause. Togodumness, or Togodumness, again, we're not quite sure how his name is pronounced. He's minting coins in the Roman tradition, he may have gone over to Rome as well. So there's at least three brothers. We know there are more because various times in Caratacus' career, we're told that brothers are

captured. And we don't know whether those are brothers in arms in the sort of general sense, or whether it's just a huge family. I suspect it is a huge family. And do you think they're, are they also minting coins when their father is still alive, when Knoblin is still alive? No. So that's all happening afterwards and that's kind of when there's a, seems to be a bit of a struggle between them, we think. It is, I think, really, that the whole problem with Britain comes when Kinabalinas dies. Let's cover this, then, this big succession crisis, yes. So sometime before 8043, we're told that he's dead, and there is a succession crisis. Now, usually Rome chooses a successor. You have to go to Rome, you have to make the sacrifices, the emperor

basis, says you are the nominated successor, and you go back, and then you can use the title Rex. So we see a lot of the Iron Age coins in Britain have that. that REX on them, that's basically saying they have been acknowledged by Rome as the legitimate leader of a particular area. So they've got the support of Rome. They've probably also got Roman troops somewhere in their territory to protect them, but also to basically if you decide to rebel against the Rome, those troops are there to execute you or to imprison you. So it's a double-aged sword being friends with the Roman world. But I think there is that sense that Rome hasn't quite yet decided who's going to succeed in Britain. We've got one brother, Aminius, who's

in Rome with Kiliula, may or may not be dead, but he's gone over. We've got Togodubnus, we've got Caratakis. They are in dispute. I think what we're really seeing is a civil conflict between these two brothers. Rome feels that Britain is being lost, or at least it's becoming unstable, and it needs to assert control and say which of the two brothers is going to be the lead. inheritor of Cunabellinus. That's really where I think the whole concern with Britain arrives. But of course, it also occurs at a time that Claudius, the Emperor Claudius, has just become emperor. He is an individual, if you know, you obviously see, well, Red Robert Graves is or Sinai Claudius. You get a sense that this is somebody who's been

kept away. He's a member of the Julia Claudian family, but he's not the most successful. He hasn't had a great political career. He's got some kind of physical or mental ailment. which has kept him out of the public eye. When he becomes emperor, he's basically following the assassination of Caligula. He's the last member of the family around who could take over. So he becomes emperor quite late in life. He's got no kind of military glory. He's looking for somewhere to start a war,

somewhere he can proclaim as a great inheritor of Augustus and Julius Caesar, and part of that family group. And Britain, because it's unstable at that time, is the ideal opportunity for Claudius to say, right, I will go and resolve that. I will take all the credit for that. I will bring part of distant Britain into the Roman world. Because the thing is, Julius Caesar's been there twice in 55 and 54B.C. hasn't conquered Britain, but Julius Caesar has been turned into a god.

If Claudius can go to Britain and bring it into the empire, that's better than Caesar. That makes him better than a god. So it's looking as the ideal opportunity to bolster his career. is to insert himself and his army into southern Britain. Okay, no pressure there. And then that will lead us into the Roman invasion of Britain, which we will cover next. Miles, there were so many things that I loved in that answer you gave there.

First off, as so often in history, when a big Titanic figure dies, who's been growing their domain, and it's unclear on the succession or, you know, there are rivals struggling for power. You see, with Alexander the Great, for instance, that's the big one. but so many others, that you do then get this civil war, this civil strife. So I like that theory that it was potentially this, this fracturing of power that the Romans take

advantage of. They see right now is our time because our interests in Southern Britain are threatened by this kind of war between Caratacus and Togadubnus. Yes, exactly. I mean, I think any, you look right through the medieval period and certainly be Anglo-Saxon, in England, it's the death of a monarch, that succession crisis. You need to make it really clear who is succeeding you. And in Iron Age Britain, that's complicated by the fact you've got to ask Rome's permission first.

So I think in the absence of any kind of permission or acknowledgement by Rome, this uncertainty develops. And you've then got a civil war brewing. And we know of at least three monarchs who fled to Rome and asked for help. There's a feeling that whole of Southern Britain is becoming unstable. Right. So it's seeping through into the other kind of tribal areas, like the Atrabartis and the Kantiaki. So other places that have very much known the Roman elements. empire and have interests with Rome. Rome has interest with them as well.

There is. And we're told just before the invasion that one of the sort of main reasons for it is an individual called Verica has gone over to Rome and to ask Claudius specifically for help. They've been kicked out as part of an uprising. And I think looking at the spread of coins, Verica's territory seems to be really sort of West Sussex, Hampshire and up into Barkshire. That's exactly the same area that Caratacus' coins are appearing. So there's a feeling that perhaps Caratarchus is developing his power base, is unsettling other monarchs, and Verica certainly has gone to Rome and said to Claudius, can you help? I'd like to be restored to power.

So as I can get the coinage evidence, that's really interesting to see how Caratacus' power is expanding south of the Thames into, say, the home counties today. And that's worrying for Rome because Verica had controlled Chichester Harbour, Portsmouth Harbour, some of the major ports of entry into Britain. So if Caratacus is controlling that, even if he's pro-Roman at that stage, Claudius doesn't know anything about him is sort of, and you can't allow a barbarian leader to oust an ally. Verica is an ally.

Rome needs allies and therefore Caratacus needs to be taught a lesson. So I think that's one of the major reasons why Claudius decides, now is the time. We can reinstate our allies. We can put Caratacus back in his box. We can either imprison him or just make sure he's no longer in power, but we need to make sure that Southern Britain is secure. Right.

So the Roman forces gather. ready to face the armies, the warriors of Caratakis, and Togadubnus, as we'll get to, in this theory at least. So what happens? The main problem, and we get this with any history of Roman Britain, is where do the Romans land? I love this. This is great. I've seen Romanists come to blows physically, very angry about some argue that it's Kent, some but it's Sussex, somebody, it's Portsmouth Harbour. We ultimately, we don't know. Cassius Dyer, who's irony source for this period is vague. He just says there is a force is sent to Britain. It comes across in three waves. We don't know whether that's that's three successive waves landing in the same place or three

separate landing places. My feeling has always been that if it's Verica and Verica is asking to be reinstated to their kingdom, that's really Chichester. That's West Sussex. That's Hampshire. It's fairly pointless to land in Kent. Julius Caesar landed in Kent twice in 55 and 54B. and came a cropper twice. So Rome, Claudius has got no real friends in Kent. But if he's sending an expedition, it almost like a peacekeeping, a UN peacekeeping force to Britain, to reinstate Verica, to find out what's going on. So it's not real.

I don't think the first stages of AD43 are full-blown, full-scale invasion. Because Claudius is quite careful and quite thoughtful about these sort of things. He's sending a small force over to find out what's happening, to reinstate Verica, and to restore order. And that would be a minimum loss of life. If you were sending in sort of four legions, that's about 5,500 men per legion, plus auxiliaries,

you're looking at 30 to 40,000 troops in an invasion of all, they need to be fed, they need to be kept safe. That could be catastrophic. But if you send sort of 5,000, one legion, or part of a legion, they can arrive, they can sort things out,

they can stabilise the area. We know that Claudius keeps his major force back. we're told later on in 8043, a second wave comes over and Claudius arrives with elephants. He makes a big prestigious arrival in southern Britain. I think that's the invasion force. That's the major attack on Britain. But the first stage sent over in 8043 with Alas Plautius, who's a Roman senator, commanding it. That's the equivalent of a UN peacekeeping force to try and establish order to get some kind of useful information, reinstate Verica.

It could be at that stage job done. Claudius could go back and claim a victory. without actually leaving a garrison in Britain. Right. I've got to challenge you there. I know, but no, I want to believe the West Sussex theory because I grew up near Chichester. But, I mean, I'm sure people will be shouting,

well, what about Richborough? What about the fact that they then build a monumental arch there later, almost a gateway? Richborough in Kent is very early Roman fortification, absolutely, and it does fit within the sort of mid-40s AD. I think what we're looking at there is where Claudius lands. So the second wave, with all the... reinforcements with the elephants. He's going for the shortest crossing from northern France

to Britain. So that's where he is landing once southern Britain has been secured. So I've got no doubt that that is part of the invasion plan, but that's not where Orlus Plautius and his troops land in the first stage. We are told essentially they're going to protect Verica. Verica's at Silchester. You don't land in Kent if you're going to be going over to Hampshire, Berkshire, area. And one of the first stages of the campaign, we're told that the Baduni or the Duboni, a tribe in Gloucestershire surrender to the Romans. Why is a tribe in Gloucestershire surrendering to the Romans if they land in Kent? If they land in Sussex and they're marching north, they're on those fringes. So I think from the limited literacy, I mean, we're never going to know for sure,

unless in sort of Pompeo or Herculaneum, some amazing scroll turns up, which tells us word for word what happened in 8043, we're never going to know for sure. But my feeling is there are two stages to the invasion. The second stage, the big one with Claudius and his retinue, that lands in Richmond, but the earlier stage is closer towards Chichester. You know, Mars, that's all good. I've got to challenge you because that means you can explain your arguments as you've just done. So we're, you know, everyone's a winner. I mean, I say, we're never going to know for sure, but that's, I think, makes sense of the limited sources that we've got. So let's say that this advance force lands in West Sussex, maybe somewhere near Chichester.

Caratakis, he's not just sleeping as this goes along. How does he resist this Roman invasion? It's really annoying because the text that we got for Cassius Dio is garbled. He says the Britons don't come to hand. So the Romans arrive and there's no formal opposition. Perhaps Caratakis overplayed his hand. Perhaps he felt that Rome would never invade. But there's no kind of organized opposition.

to the Romans as they land. And it might be that they're effectively, they're landing in relatively friendly territory, what's formerly Verica's lands. So they're not receiving a sort of a major military force trying to kick them out.

So they've got a foothold. That's Caratarchus' big mistake, if he wants to hold onto power, is he allows the Romans to land. Alas Plautius, who's commanding the Roman forces, we're told that he, effectively, he negotiates, he discusses with Caritas,

Tarcas and his brother, Togadumnas, perhaps to try and resolve this argument between them. It's quite clear that what we see later, that Togadumnus is the favoured candidate from the Roman side. So it might be that he's the older brother. Right, I was going to ask that, yes. He's the legitimate heir, and Caratacus is the upstart,

is the younger brother who's trying to create his own kingdom. But from what we can see later, Togadumnes seems to be the one that Claudius favours. So the initial stages of 84. seem to be a conflict resolution. And it seems to be largely resolved, but things start unraveling. Caratakis starts kicking up a problem,

is perhaps refuses this decision and makes trouble. And the Romans then have to go and march and find him out and to basically attack him, imprison him to get him out of the picture because he's refusing to go back quietly into sort of civilian life. And is this when we get these early, River battles? Yeah, I mean, this is another problem. Cassius Dio says there are two river battles.

Now, some have suggested that if he lands in Kent, which of course we're disputing, then the first major river they come to is the River Medway. If you go to the Medway now near Rochester, there is a nice little stone monument that says here the Romans crossed and there was a battle in Caritarchus. There's no evidence for that at all. It just happens to be a big river that's between Richborough and the Tem. The second battle Cassius Dyer actually mentions as the Thames. He doesn't say where on the Thames it is, but both battles that he mentions are played out exactly the same way.

The actual nature of the conflict is, so, I mean, it's similarly possible we're seeing the same battle tactics at both rivers, or what Cassius Dio is doing, he's got evidence for the same battle from two different accounts, and he thinks it's two separate events. He's done that before. a lot of the times when you look at his tech, he's confused by an original source, and he just goes, yeah, that will do. And he sort of, he puts two separate events. But I think there's definitely one river battle, and I don't think the River Medway actually exists as a conflict.

I think what Cassius Dio has done is he's taking these two different accounts of the same event and made them two separate conflicts. But the battle on the Thames is the key one, because what always annoys me when you see, It shouldn't do, but it does. Whenever you see films set in the ancient Roman past, is you see the Celts, the Britons, the ghouls, everyone's got a sword, everyone's got chain mail, everyone's got a helmet. They haven't. Britons would be very poorly armoured. Only the warriors or the monarchs would have swords.

Very few would have any kind of armour. Most would have sticks or sling stones. So the sling is like the big weapon, the sling and the spear, they're the big weapons of Iron Age Britain. They really are. But conflict resolution in Iron Age Britain seems to be between champions. It's small scale skirmishing. It's a more civilized way, I guess, of sorting your problems out. The Romans don't do that. They send armies in. A legion is five and a half thousand heavily armed. They're massively armoured. They're trained to kill. They serve for 25 years. There's no way a British army can fight against that. Even just one legion, Karatakis knows that in the open battle, they're going to get completely annihilated. So what he does, the two major battles

that we get from, one on the Thames and one in Wales, is he tries to put a natural obstacle in front of himself and the Romans. So he's on the north bank of the Thames. The Romans got a cross to get to him. If they go across the river, many of them would drown. Many of them won't be able to use their weapons effectively. They'll be trying to crawl out the other side, being slaughtered, having slinged the stone stone at them as across the river.

And we have to remember that the Thames was wider. It was more wild back then as well. That is a really difficult obstacle to cross. It is. It's been nicely sort of canalized. and controlled in the last 200 years. Then, as you say, as mud flats, there's marshes, it's really difficult.

The Britain's now to get across, the Romans don't. So we can imagine all as Plortius is on the south side. Caratarchus is on the north. He's got a real problem of how do I get across this river without losing my initiative, without losing my army? Now, Cassius Dio says, and this is the problem in his text, he says, the Romans decide to send Keltoy across Keltz. Now, a lot of recent historians have really,

suggested that what he's saying is he's sending Roman auxiliaries. Roman soldiers who've been recruited from another part, a Celtic part of Europe, they're trained to cross rivers. But he doesn't say auxiliaries. He doesn't say Romans. He's using the term Celts, I think, because these are friendly natives. They know the river crossings. They know how to get across the Thames.

And they're on the Roman side. And later in the battle, he says that Togo Dumas, his army, basically, of army of Celts crossing the river, They are, they are ambushed, they are being torn apart. And I think what we're really seeing is that Togo Dumas, the brother of Caratakis, is on the Roman side. He's being supported by Rome. He knows how to cross the river, where to cross the river. His soldiers get across.

It's basically brother against brother. I mean, the Romans love that kind of, ever since Romulus and Remus, there's lots of stories of brother fighting brother. So it's a fraternal, it's a brotherly conflict that we're seeing. but it's it's toga dumbness who helps the romans crossing the river he and karataka are fighting this conflict management is really getting out of control the romans now find rather than sorting the situation out the whole of southern britain is in uproar tribe against tribe and allus plautius doesn't have the manpower doesn't have the resources to deal with this he sends a message to claudius

please send reinforcements claudius is in gall at that time he then arrives with more legions the Praetorian Guard to protect him elephants because he does everything in style. And that's when it becomes a full-scale invasion because they realize they've got to stamp on Caratakis massively. He can't be dealt with by this small first stage

of the invasion. But that's interesting, mentioned Togademnes on the Roman side, but that very much aligns with your argument you've mentioned earlier because the traditional view, isn't it, that Caratacus and Togademus, almost kind of their forces are together at the Thames and they're resisting the Romans,

as you've already mentioned, this kind of this strife between them, this conflict for power, actually you look at Togademnes, Togadibnus, and actually, is it his forces that the Romans are using to get across the Thames? Is it his local knowledge? I think it is. I think what Cassius Dyer is saying, whenever he used the term Celts, he's talking about friendly Britons. When it's barbarians, it's the angry, violent enemy Britons.

So is Caratakis and the barbarians, is Togodumness and the Celts? And I think it's that kind of conflict that we are really seeing. And that's what all as Plotius can't resolve. And Claudius then decides, right, we're going to have to just go in there with mass troops and just deal with this as hugely as we can. We're going to have to involve ourselves in regime change. And do they? Yes.

Yeah, I mean, I think we know that late in 8043, Claudius arrives. The traditional view that we get is that all the fighting has been done by this stage. And it's just a case of putting his. stamp on the conquest. Yes, he arrives in London, only spends 13 days in Britain to go up to Colchester and then back down and he's gone. He's just there to receive the surrender of the Britons. But I think the description that we get is that he arrives with massive reinforcements. And I think that that is the real sense that the emperor is coming to the rescue. He's like this of the Union cavalry in a Western, you know, they arrive at the end to save the day. And I think

this is what he's doing. And of course, he gets to be adulation for that. But we do hear that there is a battle outside of Colchester that he is involved in. And I think it's Colchester, the major capital of Cunabellinus, obviously by now dead, but that is perceived by the Romans to be the centre of resistance. That is the site that needs to be captured. So it's the Trinivante's tribe around Colchester. They're identified as the enemy. They're the ones that are stamped on. They're the ones that are subjected. Whereas the cat of Alorny, just to the west of those around St Albans, they're treated as friends and as allies. So it could be we are seeing the Togadumness Caratakis division between those two tribal groups. Interesting. And Caratakis,

do we think he's fighting outside of Colchester? He's trying to lead the resistance to stop the Romans. I'd like to think, Saddam is no evidence. Cassius Dio doesn't tell us what happens after the Thames crossing. I think if he's got any sense, Caratacus would flee westwards because Colchester, Camerudunum, is not a defendable position. It's got lots of bloody earthworks and ramparts around it. It's great if you're fighting an enemy who's coming towards you with chariots and poorly armed Celtic warriors. If you've got four legions marching towards Colchester, there's no way you can defend that.

So he would think, I've got to get out of here. I'm going to try and fight the Romans on my kind of terms rather than, if you're defending Colchester, you're dead, basically. There's no way you can stop that. So I think Colchester is abandoned. Claudius goes in. He receives the surrender we're told of at least. 11 British monarchs and the conquest of the South is secure.

And I think the issue there is that all the tribal groups around Caratakis' territory thinks, well, the Romans are sorting him out. Let's be friends with them. He's our enemy. Let's be friends with his enemy. And we surrender to Rome. That's a good thing. Because Caratakis is out of the picture.

Rome's bringing peace and stability. That's a good thing. But this story is not over as we'll get to you next. Mars, here's a surprisingly controversial question. Togadimus. Yeah. Is he still alive at this point? I think so he is.

I mean, Cassius Dio is a very, very garbled paragraph where he basically says the Togodumness is destroyed, but the tribes of the area stand together with him by his side against the barbarians. Now, people felt that's really, if Toggi Dumbus is fighting, the Romans, then to save it is destroyed must mean he died in the battle. But Cassius Dio doesn't say that it's a really complicated paragraph, but he says that the Britain stand together by his side against the barbarian. So I think what we're seeing is Togodumnis's army having crossed the river, they're ambushed, they are partially destroyed, but other groups are standing, Togadumnis is the Roman ally, Caratakis is the enemy. Cassius Dio is missing that critical

point and he doesn't know how to describe the battle. He describes it very, very badly in a very garbled way. He doesn't really care. I don't think his audience cares that much either. But it's annoying that Tacitus, who's the more primary source, his version of the invasion is lost to us. If anyone ever finds that, that will resolve the whole situation and we'll know exactly what happens. But I think Togo dumbness doesn't die in that battle. But what's interesting is just as he disappears from that account, a chat called Toggy Dubness appears. in West Sussex, and he's credited as being great king of the Britons, their name forms are so similar and the fact that one disappears as the other appears, I think they're the same person.

I mean, I've got confused with the names already. I think I said Dubness rather than Dumness. So I think that kind of aligns for the thing. They're very similar names. They are. Could be the same person, and that's the reward he gets. Yeah, absolutely. And Tacitus later is very, very sneering about Toggy Dubness because he says he's an agent. he basically he enslaves his own people because I think Tacitus likes the great honourable barbarian who goes down fighting

he doesn't like the ones who are like a quizzling one who surrenders wholeheartedly to Rome and Toggy Dubness as Togodumness I think they are somebody who's on the Roman side they're rewarded after the invasion because they've so greatly helped the Emperor Claudius so one brother is on the Roman side the other brother is stubbornly fighting

this war of resistance against Rome because they feel they've got nothing less to lose. If they surrender to Rome, they're going to die. So Caratakis feels all I've got to do is just keep fighting. And as I move westwards, I'll stir up all the tribes in the west, tell them about the issue that Rome faces and how we've all got to stand together and fight. Should we briefly mention Togodumannus, the reward he seems to get is the largest residential palace north of the Alps, is Fishbourne Palace? Exactly. I mean, we don't know for sure that he lived there, but I think the fact that Fishbourne Palace is next to Chichester, where big inscript

is set up to the great king of the Britons, it would be very unlikely if he wasn't connected in some way with Fishbourne. And Fishbourne's not the only, there's at least seven other palace sites in West Sussex of the same date. So I get the kind of feeling that Toggy Dubness and all of his sort of family are being rewarded by this huge gifts, financial gift. They're living in palaces. They are given sort of a, well, basically they've given Claudius power.

They've given him legitimacy. They've given him the victory that he craved. and there's no reward big enough for him to give to them. So I think it's very likely that Fishbourne is a reward to this great Britain who has served Rome so well. Fair enough. Well, that's one King of the Britons. But of course, there's the other brother. There's Caratakis, also King of the Britons.

And he continues fighting. As you say, he goes westwards. And we've already mentioned how kind of that southern and eastern part of Britain is more connected to the Roman world. but the further west you go is that more the kind of the wild west, the more distant part of the country that the Romans know less about?

It is. The Romans know far less I mean Julia Caesar obviously was just involved in Kent and around the Thames. Rome, the Mediterranean world has been trading with Britain for some significant time. They're aware of the metal resources, the tin and the lead in the west country

but there's been no real official contact between Rome and that area. There's been no trade materials coming in. So the further west you go, the less likely that the monarchs there, the leaders are minting coins, the less likely they're aware of what Rome has to offer them. So Caratakis, in moving west, is moving into a less obviously Roman or sort of, it's a territory beyond the orbit of the Roman Empire. So his problem is going to be moving in that direction, trying to persuade them that Rome is

a threat and that Rome is coming for them. I mean, effectively, Rome is coming for him. Wherever he goes, he's like the Osama bin Laden of the, of the, of that period. Wherever he goes, the Romans will follow. They will feel the war's not over unless they captured this particular person and either killed him or brought him to trial. So he is trying to persuade the various tribes of the West that they need to fight Rome, but without telling them that the only reason Rome's coming in that direction is because of him.

So he's public enemy number one, and how long is it before the Roe's, Romans do decide we've got to get this guy. We've got to keep chasing him. We've got to expand. I think, yeah, I mean, it's annoying. But the Cassius Dyer's account of the invasion sort of comes to an end. Tacitus has begun. There's a gap between the two of them.

But it's very clear that something is going on in the West Country that Caratarchus has arrived in South East Wales. There's a tribe of the Siluris. And he's encouraging them to attack Roman territory, particularly the Duboni of Gloucestershire, who would you know kind of given up to Rome very quickly. Who surrendered to Rome, gone wholeheartedly over to the Roman cause, probably because they didn't like Caratarchus and they wanted Roman security.

But somehow he's persuaded the Siluris to attack the Romans, to antagonise them. He's trying to draw them into South Wales. This is of a mountainous territory. It's less open. It's less good for a Roman army to build forts and to control. So I think he's trying to bring them into a place where he can wear them down, this kind of asymmetric warfare, guerrilla warfare. He can attack Roman troops when they're isolated when they're trying to forage. That's his ultimate strategies to wear them

down. And probably like with Julius Caesar, this idea of convincing Rome, it's not worth holding on to Britain. We have to leave. And that, I think, his ultimate game is to destroy as many Roman troops, to make the war seem unsustainable, expensive, and to persuade Claudius, or one of his latest successors, to leave. successful is this type of warfare for Caratacus? Because you've mentioned, you've got, let's say, if there's one legion, you've got over 5,000 Roman psychopaths in heavy armour, but I say going into the more montane,

the inland area of Wales to try and hunt this guy. How successful is Caratacus in those environments? I think it's very successful. Tacitus sort of says rather begrudgingly of the many successes of Caratacus, without going into too much detail. But I think in southern Britain, you've got a relatively lowland landscape. You've got big iron age centres of occupation. Rome can attack those. It can negotiate with kings or queens or big leaders. In Wales, the situation is far more fragmented. You have got tribal identifiable groups, but there aren't big centres of power. Settlements are quite scattered. Rome's got nowhere to attack. And it can find itself sort of cut off in sort of valleys in the various different sort of highland zones. So it's a the kind of territory that Rome's not happy being in. So from Karataka's his point of view, as an expert strategist, is the perfect place to set up camp. What we don't know, of course,

is how he persuades the Silurius to accept him as their leader, because he's from southeast England, he's from that sort of general area. We're moving a whole series of tribal group. We're presuming they've got the same kind of customs and language and so on. But he arrives at their door and says, basically, take me on as your battle leader. The Romans are coming and you don't want to mess with these guys, but I fought them. I know how to deal with them. And it's that kind of, he must have been an extremely charismatic individual to persuade people that he's right, because he's effectively saying, you need to burn your crops, you need to burn your settlements, you need to hide, and we'll attack them on the market. This isn't a very heroic way of doing things. So you're

trying to persuade people, A, there's an enemy coming, we can't fight, but B, I want you to destroy everything and to go on the run with me. So how he does that, we do. We don't. don't know, but he does. And it's very effective from that point of view because Rome cannot deal very well with that kind of guerrilla warfare. So hit and run ambushes, I guess also attacking Roman supply trains. As mentioned earlier, the Romans also really want that mining. They want materials like lead and silver that they get from Wales and would have already known that those materials were there. So they're trying to kind of, I guess you can imagine some Romans, they're trying to cozy up to certain leaders in Wales who have access to those resources.

but then Caratacus will likely know that as well. So his band of warriors will be attacking any Roman attempts to try and get lead and silver out of Wales at the same time. So it's being a real nuisance. Absolutely, exactly. And I think the problem for Claudius, the emperor, is that he didn't have to invade. I think the first stage was trying to establish peace in Britain. Having invaded, he now has to establish a garrison. And he needs Britain to be financially viable.

So therefore, yes, you do need the gold of Wales. You do need the lead of the mendips. You do need the tin of Cornwall as a resource for the empire. And Caratarchus is now in the way. So you need to persuade the people of Rome that the war in Britain is over. You can only do that by bringing Caratarchus in chains or by proving he is dead. But you also need to get rid of him so you can access those metal resources. So Claudius is now in a very difficult position.

He's got no choice but to pursue the war and to send his soldiers into an environment where they don't play very well. And this goes on for several years, doesn't it? I mean, do the Romans decide they have to adapt their strategy to try and counter these, well, this guerrilla warfare by Caratakis? They do. I mean, one of the, they decide that they need overwhelming force. So one of the things that they do is the 20th Legion,

at that stage, is still over in Essex at Colchester, over the Trinivantis. They bring them forward. They demolish that base. They turn it into a Roman town. And of course, that becomes the focus of hatred for the Trinnovantis and the Akanie later, Budica attacks Colchester. The 20th Legion is brought over to Wales. They're trying to encircle Caratakis in sort of that area of south-eastern Wales.

He decides he doesn't want to be encircled. He needs to break out. We're told that he moves the campaign to North Wales to the Aldavikis, which are up in, sort of, Snowdonia, Anglesea, that sort of area. And he then persuades them to come together. So he's opening up a second front. Later on, after that, he goes to the Brigantes in Yorkshire and tries to open another third front. So I think it's all this, he doesn't want to be surrounded, but he's trying to encourage all the Britons of the western part of the island to fight the Romans. You've got to bear in mind, there's no sense at this time of national identity.

Every tribe's got its own leaders, its own religion, its own cultural footprint. So trying to bring them together as a single force is difficult, if not impossible. But Caratacus has to do that if he's going to kick the Romans out of the island. And how successful is he? Initially very successful because the Romans now have to divert. They're marching into Southeast Wales. They now have to turn around and go up into Snowdonia, which is far more mountains train, far more difficult.

It's at that point that Caratacus makes a decision to fight another battle. Oh, interesting. Okay. He's got overly confident, should we say? Possibly. I think also he needs to show. the tribes that he can win. At that stage, all he's basically doing

is persuading them to burn their crops, persuade him to hide, and he's inflicting losses on the Romans, but it's small scale, it's lots of these sort of ambushes. The kind of heroic ideal in Iron Age later Iron Age literature is this idea

of warriors and fighting. Now he knows he can't fight the Romans on their terms, but he needs to choose a battlefield site where he can draw them in, where they, again, perhaps a series of natural obstacles where he can then wear their forces down. And that will bring all the tribes of the north part of Wales together to see, yes, he is a good leader. Yes, he can fight the Romans.

So it's a big gamble. I think in an ideal world he wouldn't want to fight that battle, but he's left with no choice. He has to prove that he is a great military leader. It is a pretty epic battle, though, isn't it? Tell us about this, gosh, it's not a final stand, but it's the climate. It's the great clash. It is. And what's always intriguing me

is that Tacitus describes this battle. It's one of the few battles he describes where he doesn't mention the body count. Usually at the end of it, like battle against Budikai tells, tens of thousands of Britons are dead at only sort of 260 Romans. He doesn't do this here.

And I think it's because Caratarchus managed to pull his army out when the battle goes the Romans way. So we're told, we're not told precisely where it is, but the geographical description is that the Romans arrive, there's a river in front of the,

again they've got to try and cross it, all the slingshots raining down from the Britons against them. Having crossed that river, they then got to go up slope towards Caratakis and his army, and the Britons have built a series of walls, which I think force the Romans into a narrow, a narrow point, much like in the Tudorburg forest, the Germans there build a series of walls and fences to push the Romans into an area where they can be effectively ambushed and destroyed. That's what Caratakis is doing at this battlefield site. But he's positioned his forces in a way that they can retreat. If the Romans gain control of the hill,

Britons can melt away as quickly as possible because he doesn't want us to become a massacre. So the Romans initially under Astoria scapular, he's the new governor of Britain at that's time. They cross the river with difficulty. Large numbers of Romans go down in the river drowning, but also with slingshots. Having crossed that, we're told,

they form a Tudesto. the shields like a tortoise. You know, they're protected by their shields. So the Britain's slingshots are bouncing off the shields. The Romans slowly climb the hill. They start to tear down the walls. And at that point, having inflicted losses against them, Karatakis realizes the game is up.

And he orders his soldiers to abandon the battlefields. That's very difficult thing to do because you're dealing with lots of different tribal groups, but like sort of Kalluddin or this sort of later battles in Highland, Scotland, lots of different clans, each with their own identities, each with their own idea of what heroism is, each perhaps with their own sense of wanting to fight the Romans and being told, no, let's run away. That's not a very heroic ideal. So I think probably a larger number of Britons die there than he had wanted. And we're told that his wife and his daughter, sadly

unnamed by Tacitus. We don't get any names for them, but they're captured by the Romans. So I think the Romans advance far more quickly than he was hoping. He gets away, a bit unshivorous. He gets away, but his wife and daughter are captured. But he lives to fight another day. So the Romans have won, but it's a bit of a Pyrrhic victory in that they've had significant losses and they haven't quite established

the single climactic bloody victory that they'd hoped for. Gosh, kind of sounds a bit similar like Armonyisynthes Nelda though as well, doesn't it? Yes, yeah, it really does. And I think, you know, the thing is that we, we talk about Caratacus losing the battle. I mean, technically, yes, he does, but the Roman conquest of Wales still takes another 25 years. So I don't, this is not a conflict that is resolved in one day.

No. And I think it is a loss, but it's a strategic loss. And at that point, Caratacus, we're told, moves to Yorkshire, to the Brigantes, ostensibly to open up a third front. And it's then trying to bring a war to the whole of Brim so that the Romans find this is completely unsustainable. And the Roman conquest of Wales, I mean, Caratarch is. is very much kind of chapter one in it.

It will very much go on, as you say, for a few decades more. Yes. And there's more guerrilla fighting as different troops, and then the Romans have to adapt. And I think that's when they bring in like Eastern Europeans, like, Thracians and Dacians and they're like who are more used to the guerrilla fighting. Yes. But that's another story in its own right. Caratakis is just the start. And I think, yeah, he starts it.

I think he convinces them how to fight. And they do it extremely well. And you're right, it's another 25 years before Wales is fully subjugated. So it's Caratakis that begins that, that conflict. but it's certainly not ended by his defeat in North Wales. I wish we had more time, but there was, of course, there's the Braveheart-style speech that he gives, isn't there before the battle,

which is kind of linked to all the, like Budakas has one, Kalkhas has one. The Romans like kind of giving a big kind of speech to the freedom fighter leader who is opposing the Romans and Karatakis is the same. He does get one, yes, but in a sense of, with Tacitus, I think, yeah,

he's never, I mean, it's very unlikely that the Romans were there to document exactly what their enemy was saying. But most Roman historians give the opponent the opportunity to sort of muse on liberty and freedom. So yeah, you're right. It's that sort of kind of brave heart

of shouting for freedom. We need to win this battle to have victory over the Romans. And so Caratakis gets that sort of bit of a speech. But it's not the climax of Tacitus' account because he saves that. There's another climax coming once he is captured.

And let's cover that now. So he wants to open a third front in Yorkshire with the Brigantes. He's not giving up Caratakis. But this time, his attempts to convince the leaders to join him and to resist the Romans, it doesn't work out quite as well. No, the Brigantes, I mean, Brigantes have a very large territory. So it might be a whole series of different clan-based groups. We're told their leader is an individual called Cartimandua.

And Cartimandua, as Queen of the Briganties, is on the Roman side. The brigantes have been kept out of the conflict at this stage. We know there's lots of Roman trade goods coming into their territory. So it might be they've been paid off that Rome is not going to invade them. And he wants the brigantes to be stable and quiet and content whilst they focus on getting rid of Caratacus in Wales. So essentially, when Caratacus turns up on Cartimandra's doorstep, she's not going to be very happy. And I think Cartimandia has a very bad deal as far as history goes because most people view her. as a quizzling as a traitor because she hands Caratacus over to the Roman.

It's the contrast to Budica almost that people always say. Yeah, but I think, you know, even Budica was on the Roman side to begin with until she's treated very badly by Rome. But I think Cartimandua, you know, we can't think of her as part of this big pan-British collective. She's got her own tribe, her own people. She views Rome as a threat, therefore she's happy being friends with them. Karatakis is somebody's going to whip up resistance and rebellion.

if he stays in her lands, the Roman armies will follow and they will cause devastation. She doesn't want that. For her survival and for survival for her people, she has to hand him over. And of course, that bolsters her position within the Roman Empire. So I think effectively she hasn't got a, it's a very easy decision to make. He arrives, capture him, send word to Astoria scapula, the governor. We've got your guy. Astoria scapula, fantastic.

You know, the war now is over. he can send dispatches to Claudius to say, we've got the resistance leader, you can now say that the conquest of Britain is complete. It's also interesting with the brigantes and their links to Rome, because with new archaeology, it's showing that kind of their centres like Stannock, there is clear Roman contact there. It's not like further west in Wales with the Salaries where there is much less Roman contact. There is clear Roman influence at that time, Roman traders and so on. So that, I guess that's another string to the bow saying that why, you know, Cartermanderberg would not want to join.

Caratakis because that Roman influence is much clearer there than it was further west. And as you say, it all links in with the fact that she does hand over Caratacus. They've now captured him. And can we say that he's the last kind of then independent king of the Britons? I think so, yes. In the sense, he's the last one to actively fight against the Romans and to understand how their armies work. So in the sense that Boudicca, obviously, a bit later, fights another war against Rome.

But at that stage, she is a client, she and a husband, Prasitagas, they are friends with Rome, they are allies, they are on the Roman side. So he's the last leader that we know of who is really stirring up resistance against the Roman state. So he effectively is the last free king of Southern Britain. So let's get to the epilogue. There is one last part to Karatakis' story, isn't there? normally for these enemies, these figureheads that have caused Rome so much trouble for so many years and are finally captured, they're brought back to Rome, paraded and then ceremonially executed. It doesn't feel like Caratacus has a good end in store, especially as there also is his family's been captured as well.

But how does it actually play out for him? It plays out very well for him. But it also plays that very well for Claudius, because as you say, you quite have to say that usually barbarian leaders form part of a great triumphal procession and they're then ceremonially executed. Versinggetteryx, exactly. After Julius Caesar's campaigns, a couple of years later, he is ceremonially strangled, garotted at the end of that celebration.

So at that stage, Caratakis, as somebody who's fought Rome for 10 years, doesn't know what the future is going to be crucified? Is he going to be thrown into the arena? Is he going to be strangled? We don't know what's going to happen. But Claudius, I think, I mean, he's the arch stage manager of events. He wants to present the conquest of Britain as a great military achievement akin to some of the Julius Caesar or kind of earlier Roman generals. So he stage manages this huge procession with all the captured trophies and prisoners of war and soldiers bearing full arms through the city of Rome. And right at the end, we're told we've got Caratarchus, his family, and immediate retainers are brought forward as part of this procession. And right in front of

Claudius and sort of the imperial retinue, we're told that Caratarchus gives a speech. Now, Tacitus gives that speech in whole. Obviously, this is the first time that a Roman audience is hearing a Britain speak, whereas in battles, sung on a hill shouting it. true. You've no idea what they're saying. So Caratakis is giving the speech in Rome. It may be a speech that Claudius wrote for him. It may be that he composed it himself. But it basically sort of saying, you know, why do you envy our mud huts when you've got the city of marble? I had plenty of things to lose. That's why I resisted. But if you kill me now, basically, I'll be a nobody and you'll be a nobody. But if you let me live, if you show me

clemency, then you're the bigger, you're the bigger guy in all this. And Claudius knows that very well because not only is Claudius trying to show that he's better than Julius Caesar militarily, because Caesar went to Britain twice, achieved nothing. Claudius has gone and has conquered the island. So he's saying, I'm better than Caesar in military terms, but I'm a better person as well, because I don't kill my enemies, I forgive them. And so he shows clemency to Caratakis. We're told that the chains are struck from him. He's given his freedom. He can't leave Rome, so not much of it. It's effectively house arrest.

But we're told there are wild celebrations there because Claudius is showing he's a better human than Julius Caesar ever was. So we now got the situation where Caratacus and his family are residents in Rome. So they're given citizenship as well, do we think? Well, we don't know. That's where I haven't given that big speech, it goes quiet. So we don't know. We know there are lots of Britons in Rome at that time. There are lots of juvenile and other writers at the time

often quite sneering about these road-painted barbarians in their midst. But it's quite clear they are there. There's probably a part of Rome or one of the cities nearby which is given over to these hostages. But that's where Caratacus, as far as we know, lives out as his days as a guest of the emperor. A trophy at the same time, I guess as well. But he's given, you presume, given a house, you know, with his family,

just got to adjust to the climate but maybe compared to Togadimnus with Fishbourne Palace or Tuga Dumas which has no good kind of stuff with that kind of southern Britain climate, maybe you've got the better deal in the end. Yeah, perhaps. I mean both brothers

yeah, as you say both brothers end up quite well they've got retirement homes, one's on the coast of West Sussex, ones in central Italy. I mean, you have to judge which is better. Mars, it's such a great story that of Caratakis and it's also been really interesting to explore various theories about various parts of his, his story, his resistance to Rome because there are those big gaps that still survive. But it must have been quite the tale,

and he must have been quite the figure to explore in depth in your book, because he deserves his time in the spotlight. I think he does. He's very much a forgotten character. And I think, you know, in the early medieval period, he still remembered. He resonates down lots of early Welsh dynasties claim dissent from him. He's a figure, William Shakespeare, he writes to play Symboline, which is about Kinabalinas. We get Karatakis appearing in there. So he's somebody who's very much remembered. I think by the beginning of the 20th century, he's associated with sort of the rising of Welsh identity.

He's taken on board as a Welsh resistance leader. He's linked also with recruitment at the beginning of the First World War. So he gets a kind of negative publicity because of the kind of deaths that occurred by or sort of the Welsh mining villages and towns who sent troops over there as part of this great heroic Celtic adventure. So I think his publicity, his heroism, his stories on the wane by the beginning of a 20th century at a point that Budica is on the up. So Budica gets picked up by suffragette.

She gets picked up by a civil rights movement. She's perceived more as an heroic character. And you really can't move for stories about Boudicca today because she's, I mean, quite rightly so. But she's a very celebrated character, whereas Caratacus is forgotten. He's the primary resistance leader, but he's somebody, for whatever reason, politically, socially, he has been largely ignored. Until now. Until now. With your book, and your book is coming out, it is called?

It is called Caratacus Great King of Britain. Great King of Britain. And it's published by Bloomsbury. Miles, it just goes to me to say, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. Thank you. Thanks so much for joining us on The Ancients today. I hope you enjoyed the episode. And if you are loving the ancients,

then why not become a History Hit subscriber? As a subscriber, you will have access to hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week, plus early access and ad-free podcasts. You can sign up at historyhit.com slash subscribe. See you in the next episode.