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Sexists: "Girls can't be interested in history" Girls: "Literally slay queen"
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this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2025
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Pretty sure there were several revolts in modern Northern England, they weren't major by any means but they were a pain in the ass.
Boudicca couldve at better separated out her men by experience, something like inexperienced work as skirmishers and then the most experienced and best equipped put pressure on any noticed weak points. This is quite literally a type of mob tactics, the mob does it's thing and causes chaos while vaguely competent people go and cause directed damage.
She couldve committed to starvation tactics, attack Roman supplies and small individual elements. If it takes an extended period of time, well in her case the empire may just decide to give up and pull out of Britain, they were practically looking for an excuse to abandon the province by that point. Otherwise it'd allow reorganizing of forces and hope the Romans don't bring in another legion or two.
"Not major" is a bit of a major problem. You're talking much more localized revolts which would have found considerable opposition as they went further south, even from the civilian population. The idea of a Briton 'nation' is not well-formed in this period; they would be even more alien than the Romans.
Do you know how much time and effort that would take to separate out 100,000 people, speaking several different languages? Do you know how difficult it is to coordinate 100,000 people, even loosely? Do you know what trouble that would be when they're all of different tribes, with different motivations for being part of the rebellion, and intensely suspicious of one another? Do you know how difficult it is to coordinate even a small group during active combat? Especially one without prior training in formation movement? In a battle consisting of over 100,000 human beings?
That would've been a Roman dream come true, considering that would allow the Romans to commit to defeating Boudicca's forces in-detail, something which smaller Roman forces repeatedly did to 'barbarian' forces which could not sustain their full force in the field for an extended period for lack of organized military supply lines.
And if the question is "who starves first?", it's going to be Boudicca's force.
Fair enough, though I will hold that she could've split off some of the more experienced tribes and had them doing specific things outside of the general run amok thing.
Also my point about the later revolts was about commander quality not if they could've succeeded. That they could've handled Boudiccas coalition better than Boudicca herself. Basically just a hypothetical.
Also the Romans were considering just abandoning Britain before the revolt, it's entirely possible that if Boudicca focused on being scary and sowing terror she may have won. She basically had a minor chance at best to win in any situation where she got into open combat.
It had been almost twenty years since the Roman conquest. Endemic warfare had declined sharply - there weren't many experienced warriors left - especially as Rome would've recruited many of them and sent them elsewhere in the Empire.
Where did you get that idea?
Was butchering Roman towns and torturing their inhabitants to death not scary enough?
Boudicca hit most of the biggest coloniae in Britain at the time. There weren't many more targets to 'sow terror' in.
Fuck I can't remember where I got that the Romans were getting fed up with Britain. Pretty sure it was a book I read when I was like 17 that listed off a bunch of the shit that lead up to the great Celtic revolt. It was basically a bunch of letters where the governor and emperor were going over cost value shit, the conclusion was that is worth it but only barely.
Also fair enough about the towns, she probably destroyed every non Celtic settlement by the end.
Also forgot that the warriors would've been old at best, but depending on traditions it's possible some warriors would've existed. They simply wouldn't be experienced so still not great.
I'm not familiar with that exact exchange, but it was definitely openly discussed, both before and after the conquest, that Britain was not a good financial investment for the Empire. Funny enough, a pre-conquest Roman writer suggests that Britain was worth more unconquered, since they could tax imports and exports at tariff rates instead of internal portoria rates.
The thing is, the main imperial concern in the conquest of Britain was not so much financial as security. And private Roman interests very quickly took root and established very profitable connections in Britain - private interests which would not have been silent about a proposed pull-out.
I think Suetonius(?) suggests that Nero considered pulling out because of the rebellion, before the news reached Rome that it was put down. After it was put down, such notions were dropped.