Queen Boudicca was the Xena of her day. She led a short-lived uprising against the Romans in ancient England. I’ve always enjoyed the image of her charging into battle with her two daughters at her side.
- Boudicca: Celtic warrior queen:
Prasutagus died suddenly, leaving behind his grieving queen, Boudicca, and their two daughters, Comorra and Tasca. He had also left a written will, stating that half his kingdom and wealth would go to Rome, the other half to his daughters as their rightful inheritance. Roman officials ignored the King�s will, however, and demanded Queen Boudicca hand over all her wealth and territories. When she refused, proclaiming her treatment as unfitting of a Roman ally, soldiers were ordered to arrest and flog her and then brutalise and rape her daughters.
Once she was released and her daughters returned to her side, Boudicca was not content to sit back and allow the atrocities committed against her family to go unanswered. She rallied the support of a neighbouring tribe, the Trinovantes, and also a few other Celtic tribes from the north, who had thus far refused to bow to Roman rule. Within a short time Queen Boudicca had amassed an army of over 100,000. Her first target was Comulodunum, a garrison of retired Roman soldiers and their families. Boudicca and her forces spared no one and she ordered the city and its temples put to the torch. A Roman infantry of 5000 was sent to deal with the upstart Queen but they were also annihilated to the last man. Boudicca�s bloody rebellion moved on, her next targets Londinium and Verulamium and surrounding Roman settlements, which were all systematically sacked and burned.
Queen Boudicca And The Events Leading To The Iceni Rebellion of 60 A.D.:
Boadicea was part of a noble and warlike people, the Keltoi or in Latin, Celtae, an amalgamous group of people which populated the British Isles and western Europe from the late 5th century B.C. onwards. The Romans spent centuries in vicious warfare with these people in Gaul, and had long feared and admired their courage. It was an amassed Celtic force that sacked Rome in 410 A.D., causing the final collapse of the ‘Empire’ proper; afterwards, it was a divided sovereignity, with the greatest wealth and power lying in the Eastern part until a thousand years ago, when Europe was launched into a conquering, migrating turmoil.
The Romans most disliked the terrifying war spirit of the Celts, especially the fact that women fought alongside the men, indistinguished in honor and strength. The Roman Diodorus Siculus wrote of Celtic women, saying, “Among the Gauls the women are nearly as tall as the men, whom they rival in courage.” The historian Plutarch stated this while describing a battle in 102 B.C. between Romans and Celts: “the fight had been no less fierce with the women than with the men themselves… the women charged with swords and axes and fell upon their opponents uttering a hideous outcry.” Because Boudicca — a woman, a Roman subject, and a Britannic royal — led the rebellion, Rome felt even more disgraced and outraged.