The legendary conquest of the uncivilized territory known as britannia by the roman empire

In AD43 the roman army under the control of Emperor Claudius invaded Britain. At this time on the Icenian throne was a king by the name of Antedious. He had made a treaty with Rome and had become a client state or client kingdom since the invasion. A client state or a client kingdom was a state or kingdom under Roman Control. However the king or leader of this state or kingdom remained in power after the Romans had conquered them or the Enemy had submitted to their supreme fighting force which was said to be the best in the world at the time. This meant that the Roman empire would find it eayser to control the citizens or people of that state or kingdom, the King or leader of that state would still have some independence but the would awnser to Rome. It was important that the Iceni were a client state as they controlled the sea routes into the wash. The Romans were using the Iceni to control themselves! I think that this is a bit ironic because they also had to pay tributes to Rome for this privilege. This must have angered the Iceni and they would have thought that they were being used.

The Iceni were situated in the east of Britain and had borders with the Cativenllani and the Trinobantes (see map on the top right) both the Cativenllani and the Trinobantes had important trade links with the Roman Empire. However the Iceni tribe refused to play any part in this. The Iceni by doing this were going to be in for a big shock later on when they were forced to play a part in Roman culture etc. by excluding themselves from roman culture I think that they weren’t doing themselves any favours. Evidence gathered from the Roman pottery backs this idea up. The jugs on the left were called amphoras or amphorai in Latin, have been found all over Britain. These jugs were made in the Roman Empire and would have contained wine. However very few of these jugs have been found where the Iceni used to be situated compared with other places such as South Britain, where hundreds of these jugs were found. This suggests that the rest of Britain at the time had very strong trade links with the Roman Empire where as the Iceni had remained very isolated from Roman Culture. However the Iceni managed to live in peace with the Roman Empire until 47AD when the first battle between the Romans and the Iceni took place.

The Dispute was over weapons P. Ostoirus Scapula who was the governor at the time had decided to disarm the Iceni tribe to tighten his grip and increase the control of the Roman Empire over Britain. Paul Sealey (1997) said that the Iceni people did not like this as the weapons had played a major part in the role of their religion. This made them angry and caused the small battle in 47AD against the roman army. There followed a fierce fight in which the Britons ran away. I think that this is likely to be true because I know that weapons had played a major part in their religion. According to Paul. R. Sealy “ The best suggestion for the site of the battles is Stonea Camp, an Iron Age fort on a former island in the Cambridge shire fens occupied from the 100BC.

PRASUTAGUS was famed for his wealth. When the husband of Boudica or the king Prasutagus died in 60AD he made the Emperor of Rome along with his two daughters co-heir’s (Camorra and Tasca). Prasutagus by doing this wanted to save his kingdom from attack by the Romans. However this plan of his didn’t work and his kingdom and household were plundered and the Iceni chiefs were deprived of their hereditary estates. British law allowed royal inheritance to be passed to daughters in the absence of male heir, but Roman law did not. The Roman administrator ignored the will and proceeded to take over the entire kingdom. Roman historian Tacitus wrote, “ Kingdom and household alike were plundered like prizes of war… for a start, his widow Boudica was flogged and their daughters raped. The chieftains of the Iceni were deprived of their family estates as if the whole country had been handed over to the Romans. The king’s own relatives were treated as slaves.” The nobility of the Iceni were given rough treatment and arrests were made.

This must have been very humiliating to the Iceni who had already had their weapons confiscated to tighten the Roman Empires control over them. This must have angered the Iceni, they had just lost their king and now there queen had been flogged and there ancestral lands had been reclaimed and these may have been the main reason as to why they revolted under the leadership of Boudica in A. D 60. However to make matters worse for the Iceni the Roman Empire tried to justify this act. Catus Decinaus (who had been the man in charge of the operation) said that Rome was merely trying to reclaim money lent to the rich members of the Iceni by the late Emperor Claudius of Rome. Boudica was really pissed off and promptly revolted. Tacitus tells us how the Iceni feared worse now that they had been reduced to provincial status. TACITUS: ANNALS” And the humiliated Iceni feared worse now that they had been reduced to provincial status”

However there were more reasons than just these three for revolting. The temple of the divine Claudius of Rome (shown in the computer animation of what it may have looked like on the left-hand side) stood in Camulodunum. The Iceni along with other tribes hated it. It was a blatant stronghold of alien rule. It was running the country dry and Tax’s had been increased to pay for it. The Romans intended to make the locals work there as Priests. To make matters worse ex-solders now lived around it and had driven the original inhabitants away. These solders were the very people who years before had fought for this land; this too must have been very humiliating. The people were the Trinobantes whose ancestors had been killed by the Romans who now occupied their land. Tacitus talks about the Temple in his Annals and describes how people were thrown out of their homes to make way for it. TACITIUS ANNALS: “ The settlers drove the Trinobantes from their homes and land, and called them prisoners and slaves. The troops encouraged the settlers’ outrages, since their own way of behaving was the same.” “ The temple erected to the divine Claudius was a blatant stronghold of alien rule, and its observances were a pretext to make the natives appointed as its priests drain the whole country dry.” The Trinovantes had suffered much from the insulting arrogance of the colonists at Colchester, who… helped themselves at will to more than their allotted plots, evicting the rightful owners. However justice could not be had from the military arm, who had decided to turn a blind eye to abuse, in secret hope of similar licence when their turn should come. At the time of the revolt there is strong evidence to suggest that the Iceni along with other tribes has been undergoing a famine and crops were having to be imported from the med. by the Romans to stop the country from starving. Heavy tax’s paid in corn to the Romans by the Iceni would have worsened the situation and would have meant that they may have had to gone without food for a long time.

Evidence of burnt prunes found at Colchester that contained weeds that could only have originated from the med. backs up this theory. (Shown on the left) Hate had built up over the years and people had learnt to hate the Romans. Evidence from the Trinobantes suggests that the Trinobantes had hated the Roman Empire from when it first invaded under the control of Emperor Claudius in 47AD. Found in the ditches of a town (Colchester) in the area where the Trinobantes had lived a few skulls were found which had sword marks in them, these skulls came from British people (probably / most likely the Trinobantes). This suggests that there had been a small or mini revolt, and therefore the Trinobantes or the people who inhabited this area where getting really pissed off with the Romans before Boudica decided to revolt in 60. AD. (The Skulls are shown below and I have hi-lighted the areas where the marks created by the swords were.)

In the end the Romans had laughed in the tribe’s faces too much, the Iceni felt that enough was enough and it had to stop my opinion is that this was the general feeling throughout the British Isles. The people of Britain were fed up of being treated like slaves and having the very people who fought against them steel their lands and build such things as the divine temple of Claudius on them before evicting them from their property. To make matters worse Rome had declared Claudius as a god when he died. They were annoyed that the Roman culture and Law had been imposed on them and that the weapons that they had been used in their religion confiscated. There was no main reason as to why Boudica revolted, I think that it was down to the way that the Tribes had been treated to lead Boudica to revolt in 60A. D.