Boudicca: Queen, Heroine, Goddess?
Female Rage and Defending Her People– the story of the Queen of the Iceni tribe in Celtic Britain.
William Sharp (1793) Boadicea Haranguing the Britons (source: Picryl Public Domain Media)“‘Two cities were sacked, eighty thousands of the Romans and their allies perished, and the island was lost to Rome. Moreover, all this ruin was brought upon the Romans by a woman”
One woman, one queen. The anger of a nation of indigenous people using one woman as their figurehead. The wrath of one woman was so great that both Cassius Dio and Tacitus felt it imperative that this ‘shame’ to Rome was recorded. Dio describes Boudicca, queen of the Iceni tribe as a mastermind who ‘directed the conduct of an entire war’ and whose appearance was
“most terrifying, in the glance of her eye most fierce and her voice was harsh”
Indeed, like Dio’s description of the warrior queen, her legacy as a figurehead of Britain did not stop in 61 AD. Boudicca is known to most in British school education as the woman who fought against the Romans for a short time only, but rarely do we see the emphasis on the importance of Boudicca as an individual and her values that are woven into the very fabric of Modern Britain. This article seeks to remind all of the importance of ensuring histories of pagan and indigenous peoples live on, as well as the warrior goddess whom modern women have inside of them.
Who was Boudicca?
Boudicca, or Boadicea as she is known in the original Latin, is believed to have originated around 30 AD, from an elite family system in modern Colchester with the Roman name of Camulodunum. She was born into a tumultuous period for ancient Britons. The invasion of Britain by the Roman Empire had begun in 43 AD - the emperor Claudius launched a large-scale campaign with the main objective to capture Colchester after landing in Chichester and marching north to the Thames and onwards. Claudius had needed to consolidate his power to maintain popularity - possibly meaning for young Boudicca, and many other ancient Britons, an erasure of culture and forced submission. Dio records several battles against Britons, his narrative suggesting defeat of the Catuvellauni (a territory to which Colchester was the capital) and the submission of the Dobunni, a tribe in Gloucestershire. Boudicca would have grown up with the Roman army breathing down her neck, witnessing first-hand the upheaval that was caused by the invasion campaigns.
‘A woman of kingly descent’ and a High Priestess
Tacitus refers to Boudicca as being the wife of a king and indeed, when she reached adulthood, she married Prasutagus, the soon-to-be king of the Iceni tribe in the east of England. The new queen had two daughters, to whom her story not only becomes one of female rage but a mother protecting her children from the horrors of men. Within Celtic culture, women fought alongside men, a united force. Women could wage war and become a warrior themselves, earning the same level of prestige as their male counterparts. Moreover, it is suggested by historians that Boudicca was also a spiritual leader, involved in sacred druidic activities, illustrating her many important roles within her community. Dio includes that she released a hare before she set out to the battlefields, an ancient druidic ritual to predict the fate of the battle,
“‘Boudicca raising her hand toward heaven, said “I thank thee Andraste and call upon thee”
We know that hares were used by ancient Britons for ritual purposes due to discoveries of hare bones, fur, and bronze statues like votives found in sacred pits in Surrey. Furthermore, Tacitus emphasises her decision to fight, that she was a woman of high respectability and had communion with the gods. This very evidence illustrates that women had the same responsibilities in Celtic Britain as their husbands, that women could be druids, that Boudicca was a druid queen.
Boudicca’s Hour
What caused the Iceni people to launch a rebellion against the Romans in Britain, and why was the peace broken? Prior to the rebellion in 60 AD, the Iceni were among several tribes that peacefully co-operated with Roman rule. When Prasustagus died in 60 AD with no male heir, his daughters left his kingdom as well as the new emperor, Nero. Boudicca watched as the Roman control abused their power, watching her people suffer from high taxes and contrived debts to Rome. She watched as the community fell apart, warriors deprived of their weapons, druidic systems dismantled, and women were taken advantage of. Boudicca was a stranger in her own land as her daughters were abused and a rebel spirit was born. Within the following years, Boudicca would become a symbol of the colonised and dehumanised peoples who had their land and culture taken away from them. She is stitched into Roman history as aggressive with the anger of many, a rage which is uniquely feminine. This is the immediate cause of the Iceni Revolt of 61 AD or known as Boudicca’s rebellion.
The Queen of the Iceni tribe was able to gather up forces from the south, namely the Trinovantes, who like the Iceni were expelled from their homes and forced to give them up to the Roman veterans. Boudicca’s army of rebels marched bravely on the Roman centre Camulodunum, defeating the Roman forces, overrunning the city. There was only one option, Boudicca marched into Londonium,
“neither before nor since has Britain ever been in a more uneasy or dangerous state. We had to fight for our lives before we could think of victory”
Once the governor of Britain, Suetonius, had arrived in Londonium, Boudicca and her army’s wrath filled the city, with too few Roman troops to defend it, and soon the most populated town was sacked.
“They made for where loot was richest and protection weakest. Roman and provincial deaths at the places mentioned are estimated at seventy thousand ”
With her daughters by her side, Boudicca is said to have ridden her chariot flanked by the tribes, shouting encouragement as they took back what was theirs by birth. Despite her victories, her luck was coming to an end. Suetonius of the Roman army regrouped his forces and increased with aggression the number to 10,000 men. Before the final battle had begun, Tacitus notes that Boudicca cried into the crowd,
‘It is not as a woman descended from noble ancestry, but as one of the people that I am avenging lost freedom, my scourged body, the outraged chastity of my daughters. Roman lust has gone so far that not our very persons, nor even age or virginity, are left unpolluted. But heaven is on the side of a righteous vengeance; a legion which dared to fight has perished; the rest are hiding themselves in their camp or are thinking anxiously of flight…This is a woman’s resolve; as for men, they may live and be slaves.’ (Tacitus, Annals)
However, despite the might of Boudicca’s army and their noble efforts, Suetonius, a master of military tactics, drove his army to victory. Boudicca’s troops were slaughtered almost to the last, whilst the Romans, according to Tacitus, suffered just a few hundred casualties. The rebels were slaughtered, and Boudicca’s subsequent fate became a mystery. Both Tacitus and Dio refer to Boudicca falling ill and dying in battle or having poisoned herself. The fate of her daughters is also not known - a stark reminder that women’s lives can easily be erased from history.
Legacy and Female Rage
Even considering the Roman expansion through to Wales and up to Scotland, Boudicca’s presence is felt in the very fabric of the social landscape. In fact, her divine importance is cemented in the fact that a cult had arisen sometime after her death by the name ‘Tutela Boudiga.’ This is supported by evidence from an inscription from Bordeaux in France dated 237 AD, the inscription reads;
‘In honour of the goddess Tutela Boudiga, M. Aurelius Lunaris sevir Augustalis of the coloniae of York and Lincoln, in the province of Lower Britain, [set up] the altar which he vowed on starting from York. Willingly and rightly did he fulfil his vow, in the consularship of Perpetuus and Cornelianus.’
The translation of Tutela Boudiga is significant, a goddess of protecting victory. She, like many heroes before her, became a form of goddess in her own right - the personification of victory and revenge and a lucky charm for all women who wish to seek revenge on their oppressors. Boudicca’s spirit as a uniquely feminine force has and will always be immortalised in art, poetry and within the emergence of Pagan identity and seeking of Celtic cultural heritage. Therefore, her story serves as a reminder of hope and justice, especially for young women. Boudicca is knitted into London’s women to this day, embraced even in Victorian England, marked by Thornycroft’s statue in Westminster. The towns of St Albans and Colchester celebrate the legend of this woman, a local heroine, telling her story in local museums and ensuring iconographic representations. Heroes may fall - but they do not die - they live a thousand lives in the mouths of those who come after.
By Ana Redondo - (Instagram: @viioletmoons)
Queen Boudicca statue in Westminster (Source: WIkimedia Commons)
Bibliography:
Primary:
Cassius Dio, Roman History
Tacitus, Annals
Tacitus, Agricola
Secondary:
Barnett, David. 2023. “Boudicca Returns as a 21st-Century Feminist – 2,000 Years after Her Death.” The Observer, April 2, 2023, sec. UK news.
Bulst, Christopher M. 1961. “ ‘The Revolt of Queen Boudicca in A.D. 60.’” Historia: Zeitschrift Für Alte Geschichte, 10 (4).
Cohen, Daniel. 2016. “‘Boudicca’s Rebellion against the Roman Empire in 60 AD.’”
Johnson, Marguerite. 2013. Boudicca. London: Bloomsbury.
Montague, Emily. 2022. “Boudicca - the Woman, the Myth, the Legend (and the Historical Truths Hidden in Her Story).” THE FEM WORD. May 29, 2022. https://www.thefemword.world/the-word/boudicca-the-woman-the-myth-the-legend.
Pattison, Paul. n.d. “The Roman Invasion of Britain.” English Heritage. https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/story-of-england/romans/invasion/#:~:text=In%20AD%2043%2C%20the%20Roman.
Vandrei, Martha. 2018. “Queen Boudica, a Life in Legend | History Today.” Historytoday.com. September 18, 2018. https://www.historytoday.com/miscellanies/queen-boudica-life-legend.
“Was Boudica a High Priestess?” n.d. Roman Britain. Accessed March 19, 2024. https://www.roman-britain.co.uk/roman-conquest-and-occupation-of-britain/boudica-the-iceni-warrior-queen/what-goddess-did-boudica-worship.