What in Your View Was the Short-Term Significance of Boudicca?
What in your view was the short-term significance of Boudicca?
Boudicca is a historical figure of undeniable significance, “one of those rare individuals from the past who have become folk heroes…” (Hingley, R & Unwin, C, 2005, 7). In Iron Age Britain, Boudicca was able to emerge as a Queen with unwavering passion, determination and the upmost of bravery in her rebellion against Roman rule. It therefore seems fitting to assess her significance and the impact she had in the years following her defeat and subsequent death in AD 60 or 61. However, today we have an ambiguous understanding of her actions, deficient in adequate archaeological evidence. Yet through drawing on the contemporary and secondary sources available, a well crafted interpretation of Boudicca and her short term impact will hopefully be achieved. Much of our historical knowledge is sourced from two classical writers in particular, Tacitus and Cassius Dio, and their texts in existence.
Hingley and Unwin note that Tacitus was “writing within living memory of the events. His close relationship with his father-in-law, Agricola, suggests that some of his knowledge of historical events in Britain at this time may have been passed down directly to him” (Hingley & Unwin, 2005, 43).
One short term significance of Boudicca is thousands of brutal deaths. With a relentless lust for revenge after being treated like slaves in their own country (Ireland, 1986, 58), Boudicca’s determined rebels virtually destroyed the provinces three most economically and culturally affluent towns through bestial violence. There is certainly convincing evidence supporting Boudicca’s success at Camulodunum, where she ransacked and torched the city, targeting anything that symbolised Rome and its rule. Tacitus records that “They cried that in the local senate house outlandish yells had been heard; the theatre had echoed with shrieks: at the mouth of the Thames a phantom settlement had been seen in ruins. A blood-red colour in the
Boudicca is a historical figure of undeniable significance, “one of those rare individuals from the past who have become folk heroes…” (Hingley, R & Unwin, C, 2005, 7). In Iron Age Britain, Boudicca was able to emerge as a Queen with unwavering passion, determination and the upmost of bravery in her rebellion against Roman rule. It therefore seems fitting to assess her significance and the impact she had in the years following her defeat and subsequent death in AD 60 or 61. However, today we have an ambiguous understanding of her actions, deficient in adequate archaeological evidence. Yet through drawing on the contemporary and secondary sources available, a well crafted interpretation of Boudicca and her short term impact will hopefully be achieved. Much of our historical knowledge is sourced from two classical writers in particular, Tacitus and Cassius Dio, and their texts in existence.
Hingley and Unwin note that Tacitus was “writing within living memory of the events. His close relationship with his father-in-law, Agricola, suggests that some of his knowledge of historical events in Britain at this time may have been passed down directly to him” (Hingley & Unwin, 2005, 43).
One short term significance of Boudicca is thousands of brutal deaths. With a relentless lust for revenge after being treated like slaves in their own country (Ireland, 1986, 58), Boudicca’s determined rebels virtually destroyed the provinces three most economically and culturally affluent towns through bestial violence. There is certainly convincing evidence supporting Boudicca’s success at Camulodunum, where she ransacked and torched the city, targeting anything that symbolised Rome and its rule. Tacitus records that “They cried that in the local senate house outlandish yells had been heard; the theatre had echoed with shrieks: at the mouth of the Thames a phantom settlement had been seen in ruins. A blood-red colour in the