It's okay to love your ruler, but to fight for him, that's the real proof of this love, we're talking about Queen Boudicca, wife of King Prasutagus, King of the British Celtic tribes of Iceni.
Boudicca's husband Prasutagus was" acting king " of the Romans shortly after their conquest of Britain in 43 AD, and allowed him to keep his lands in exchange for his support of the Romans politically, and his payment of dues to them as a tribal leader.
Roman citizenship was granted to Prasutagus, his wife and two young daughters, and as acting queen it is likely that Boudica drank wine and ate as well as the Romans and maybe even was a Latin-speaking aristocrat whose future and the future of her daughters was guaranteed in relative luxury.
The trouble began when Boudicca's husband died after recommending only half of his fortune to the Roman Emperor Nero, the other half was not to Nero, not even to Boudicca, but to his two young daughters.
His motives for doing this were unclear ,perhaps he was trying to show in front of his tribe that he was not a client leader of foreign invaders, and the result was disastrous, the Romans plundered his palace, plundered his kingdom, enslaved his relatives and stripped all the Iceni leaders of their ancestral lands.
The worst was still to come, the Romans flogged Boudicca herself, raped his Young princesses daughters. For the Roman public, such a distortion of the Roman or British ruling class was reprehensible, and for the Iceni, Boudicca was not only a queen, but also a priestess, perhaps the embodiment of their goddess " Andrast ".
This was more than a violation of their worldly leaders, rapes and floggings completely desecrated the Iceni culture and their belief system.
They need a leader
The iceni's people were at the height of their anger and indignation, but all they needed was a leader ,but just the angry Boudicca can fills that void, signaling that even though they are broken, they still have their dignity, and it's time to respond.
Boudicca planned to avenge for the Iceni from their Roman leaders, with the help of her southern neighbors, the Trinovantes tribe, who were the first native Britons to sign a treaty with Rome, in 54 BC.After Julius Caesar's second attempt to invade Britain.
But that treaty was on the verge of collapse, these too saw their lands destroyed. and Their former capital was taken by the Romans as the seat of their new administration, with tribal lands redistributed to retired Roman soldiers.
The campaign season of 60 AD saw the preoccupation of Roman troops on the western borders of Britain, Boudicca seized the opportunity and moved to destroy the Roman heartland in Britain.
The Romans never expected this war and did not expect that anyone would dare to attack the capital. After years of cooperation, Boudicca showed no mercy to the few remaining thousands of Romans defending their capital, even when they fled for their lives to the sanctity of the temple, they were slaughtered people and burned alive during the extermination of the Roman capital in Britain, until the depth of the burnt layer in the ground reached from a few centimeters to half a meter.
Continuing Revenge
Boudicca destroyed and burned the villages of Colchester and St. Albans after Boudicca cut off the women's breasts and sewed their breasts into their mouths, then pierced their bodies lengthwise with wooden skewers Boudicca moved with her army again to invade London, the stronghold of the Romans
Boudicca set off with her army towards a city with many British collaborators who glorified the Romans and built everything in the Roman style.
For Boudicca's army, this cultural insult from their enemy tribe "catafelloni" was too much to bear, and when Boudicca and her army arrived in the Roman colony, the people had left the city, but Boudicca burned the intire city.
The Last Confrontation
About 70 thousand Romans and their allies were killed and they lost thousands of troops and civilians, which already weakened the power of the Romans in Britain, slowed down their campaign on Britain, but worst of all the Roman humiliation came at the hands of a woman, the Empire has not suffered such shame since Cleopatra seduced both Caesar and Mark Antony.
The Roman commander Gaius Paulinus immediately turned to the southeast to confront Boudicca, we do not know exactly where, but historians gathered on a ravine with a forest behind it and an open plain in front of it, and Boudicca learned of Paulinus ' arrival, so she stood up and made her great speech to the army.
"Now I am not speaking to you as a woman from a noble dynasty who was offended, but as one of the people who decided to take revenge on those who took away his freedom .. My body that was whipped with a whip .. The chastity of my daughters that was violated .. Extreme Roman lust did not leave an old woman and no Virgin only and polluted her ... But the gods of heaven with a just revenge ... He exterminated the Roman legionnaires who dared to fight .. The rest are either hiding in their camps or are reluctant, worried about fighting ... They will not endure the noise and screams of these many thousands, so how will they withstand our attacks and blows .. If you weigh the strength of the armies and the motives for fighting, you will realize that we must win or die .. This is the determination of women, but men can survive and be slaves."
Boudicca's speeches always ended with the gods standing with them and by their side, but Boudicca's speeches did not sing anything about them because Boudicca was seeking revenge, not only for independence, nor because she wanted to uphold morality and courage, and this quest for revenge made her a blind machine who does not hear and does not learn, only a humiliated woman seeking revenge.
Historians also say that Boudicca was able to gather 230 thousand, which is the strength of the army, while Gaius Paulinus comes to her with only 10 thousand of his soldiers, but the decisive difference was in the fighting style, although the British were experts in guerrilla warfare, but they collapsed in front of the Romans, who were a very organized killing machine.
The Roman soldiers maintained their formations before they engaged in battle and attacked Boudicca's Army from the British, and Boudicca's vast army was trapped in the plain without any way forward, and any retreat back would be hindered by their families and property, with no space to fight and no way to escape, At the end of the battle only 400 Romans had fallen, but up to 200,000 Britons had been slaughtered.
Boudica Died
Gaius Paulinus let Boudicca live to serve as a warning to all the peoples who wanted to be ruled by a woman, until she fell ill and died and it is said that she drank poison to get rid of that miserable life.
However, the victorious Paulinus was almost forgotten by history, while Boudicca became a symbol in British national history and The Legend of Boudicca was immortalized as a symbol of British freedom and a symbol of women's power.
In 1902, not long after the death of Queen Victoria, a statue of Boudicca was unveiled next to Westminster Bridge in London in front of the British House of Commons opposite the famous "Big Ben" clock, showing the queen standing in her chariot, holding a spear, ready to challenge the might of Rome.
