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Boudica
(20s?-60 CE)
The Headhunter Queen
At the height of its power, Rome once seriously considered giving up its British holdings entirely. The reason? Queen Boudica, whose brutal revenge spree made her the Roman bogeyman for generations. She killed 70,000 people, burnt London to the ground, established herself as the most famous headhunter of all time – and to this day, Britain loves her for it.
You can stop emailing me about her now.
The first thing to know about Boudica (aka Boudicca, Boudicea, etc) is how little we know about her. We don’t know when she was born, how she died, where she died, where she came from, or if Boudica was even her name (as opposed to a title). However, what we do know, largely from two Roman historians, is enough to earn her a place in the badass hall of fame.
Boudica ascended to power when her husband, the king of the ancient British tribe of the Iceni, died. At the time, Rome was in control of Britain, and the Iceni had voluntarily allied with them. When the king died, he willed half his belongings to the Roman emperor, and the other half to his family — thinking that would solve any problems of succession.
It didn’t. Instead, the Romans, at the apex of their arrogance, set into action an outrageously poor set of decisions. Try to spot where things go off the rails:
- They did not recognize Boudica’s claim to the throne because she was a woman.
- They laid claim to all of the late king’s money.
- Also to a ton of Iceni land.
- And said that some money they’d given the late king was a loan, due back (with interest) immediately.
- They then publicly flogged Boudica.
- And raped her two daughters.
You can probably tell at this point that the rest of this story isn’t going to go well for the Romans.
The amazing thing is, this was totally in line with the (local) Romans’ line of stupid moves! When Boudica subsequently raised a mob and began marching on the nearby town of Camulodunum (essentially a veterans retirement home), several other Roman blunders came to light:
- Camulodunum had dismantled its own defenses so more people could build houses.
- They’d been overtaxing all the neighboring Britons, mostly because they could.
- All the collected money had gone to building a fancy temple, which was effectively a giant middle finger to their subjugated neighbors.
- Lastly, when the Romans got word that some rowdy barbarian lady was acting up, they laughed and sent 200 soldiers to scare her off. The 120,000 men she’d gathered laughed back and killed everyone in the city.
Fun science fact: if you apply a sustained fire to an entire Roman city, you can turn it into a molten pile of sickly red clay.
She repeated her experiment with two other cities, including Londinium, the precursor to London. Along the way, her army, which had at this point become a roaming 230,000-man block party, killed an armed Roman legion, around 70,000 civilians, and became Rome’s worst nightmare. In order to understand how terrifying this was for Rome, one should understand some specifics of Boudica’s uprising:
- They cut off the breasts of Roman noblewomen, sewed them to their mouths, and hung the bodies or mounted them on spears.
- The Iceni decapitated people as a matter of religious principle. They’d embalm the heads of their enemies and mount them on chariots. The rest were thrown into rivers (and are still occasionally found to this day).
- Rome was huge to the point of unwieldy at this point. Stories of an untrained mob wiping out veterans left and right raised the spectre of uprisings happening everywhere.
- “Moreover,” a prominent Roman historian wrote, “all this ruin was brought upon the Romans by a woman, a fact which in itself caused them the greatest shame.”
Unfortunately, Boudica’s success had largely been predicated on surprise, and did not last long. When they went up against entrenched Roman soldiers, the Iceni fell apart. A mere 15,000 Romans were able to rout Boudica’s massive army, killing 80,000 in the process. So sure had the Boudican mob been of their victory that they’d brought their families out to the battlefield in wagons – wagons that later pinned them in from retreating.
Her methods are almost directly equivalent to tribal headhunters and religious extremists, but she’s held up as a vengeful heroine instead of deranged villain.
All this despite the fact that her methods of revenge – religious decapitation – are almost directly equivalent to the actions of more traditionally-reviled parties, such as tribal headhunters and religious extremists. Boudica’s actions are held up as those of a vengeful heroine, while the aforementioned others’ actions are decried as those of deranged villains. Food for thought.
(enjoy the art? you can get it as a poster, shirt or phone case!)Art Notes
- Boudica is described as tall, broad, and powerfully built, which I tried to convey. The outfits and props are all period-accurate. There’s some disagreement over whether they used facial paint, though, so I only portrayed it on her daughters.
- The pattern on her outfit fits the historical description of a many-colored striped garment, which most historians (at least the ones I found) interpreted to be a proto-tartan. Even though the Iceni were located around present-day Norfolk, they were a Celtic tribe, later pushed out towards areas like Wales and Scotland.
- She’s said to have released a rabbit from her dress as a fortune-telling omen before one of her battles. I thought the rabbit would make great comic relief. Preumably along with the mounted skulls on her chariot.
- That’s the actual layout of the city of Camulodunum, as seen from the southwest.
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Next Time on Rejected Princesses
Address Orestes’ restlessness, get wrested and arrested by the rest.
I know I’m a little late to the game here but I’ve spent the morning goofing off and reading up on all the rejected princesses – and it’s been a great morning. I just have one thing to add. Modern day Camulodunum isn’t a 6 inch layer of paste now, it’s the city of Colchester, it’s still a garrison town and you can still see the remains of the old Roman wall around the city. The local historical society does a fantastic tour of Roman Colchester (complete with tour guides in costume, even in January). Boudicca doesn’t feature as prominently as you might like as they mostly talk about the Roman garrison and the Norman castle in the park. Oh, and according to those guys, Humpty Dumpty was a big cannon that fell off the Colchester city wall (obviously, post-Romans).
Well, technically it is — it’s buried 13 feet below ground, but it is a sickly layer of red clay which other cities were subsequently built on top of. But point well taken, I should probably be more clear on that. :)
Love it! Maybe at some point you can do Medb/Maev or Lilith? Queen Medb was known for her power and sexual lust, needing 7 men to please her or her boy toy just once. She insisted on being of equal wealth to her husband even if it meant going to war over 1 bull. Lilith is a Jewish myth presumably created to reconcile the two different accounts of human’s creation in Genesis: In the first, man and woman are created together; in the second, man is created first then woman from his rib. The tale goes that Lilith was created first, but refused to submit to Adam or lie beneath him during sex, insisting they were created equal and should be equal. She was driven out of Eden for this, and Eve was next created to be subservient. As revenge, Lilith mated with demons and gave birth to hundreds of demons every day (It was something like three angels swore to kill 300 of her offspring a day so she gave birth to 400 a day). She was often blamed for infants dying for seemingly no reason.
I think Boudicca gets to be a heroine because they started it. She might’ve played ball, but not after these shitheads rob her, hurt her, humiliate her, and rape her daughters. I mean, really. Almost anyone would start burning your shit down after all that.
OH MY GOD. So I followed these for a while and faded off for a bit, but because it was getting more popular on imgur and more new stories were popping up, I was curious if you guys finally covered Boudica. THANK YOU FOR ADDING HER IN!!!
Maybe you can do one for Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd one day? Or Betsi Cadwaladr? Nell Gwyn, Emma Hamilton have some good stories as well!
It’s a good story but historically several things probably aren’t true. Typically when the Roman historians write about rebels they overestimate the numbers of the enemy to make it a bigger deal when they win. Roman historians in general aren’t accurate because they have tendency to focus on politics and morals and such (since Roman historians tend to be from the upper class), making up the details as they go. Historians of Greece and Rome also had a tendency of copying other people’s work because some of them weren’t alive at the time of the events, relying on rumors, eyewitness accounts and their own agendas to write the story (that’s how you get such outragous stories of Roman emperors, lesson to the wise: don’t antagonize the media).
Also it’s a town rather than a city. And thanks to Boudica – the oldest recorded town in Britain.
The temple that was burnt down in Colchester was built on sand. The incredible foundations they put in to enable it to stand on that sand survive as the foundation of the medieval castle keep. A keep which is one of the largest built in britain (because it used the roman foundations), and was the model upon which the tower of london was based.