![]() ![]() ‘Her glance was fierce, her voice harsh, a great mass of the most tawny hair cascaded to her hips.’ ‘In stature she was very tall, in appearance most terrifying,’ wrote a later Roman historian, Dio Cassius. Outraged, in ad 61 the Iceni rose in rebellion, and it was Boadicea who led them into battle. Worst of all, her two daughters were raped. ![]() The lands of the Iceni nobles were confiscated and Boadicea was publicly beaten. ‘Kingdom and household alike,’ wrote the Roman historian Tacitus, author of the first history of Britain, ‘were plundered like prizes of war.’ Dying without a son, Prasutagus had left his people in the care of his widow, Boadicea (or Boudicca), until their two daughters came of age.īut women had few rights under Roman law, and Nero’s local officials treated Boadicea’s succession with contempt. The Iceni occupied the flat fenlands that stretched down from the Wash across modern Norfolk and Suffolk and, like other Celtic peoples, they accepted the authority of female leaders. So when Prasutagus, the leader of the Iceni people, died in ad 60 he prudently left half his wealth and territories to the emperor Nero as a form of ‘death duty’. ![]() A NY BRITISH ‘KING’ WHO LIVED UNDER THE Romans had to pay a price for his protection. ![]()
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