Vanessa Collingridge tells the story of Boudica (also called Boudicca or Boadicea), the woman who raised and led a native army in revolt against oppressive Roman rule in Britain in AD 60
A freedom fighter, the woman who almost drove the Romans out of the country, Boudica is one of the most iconic queens of Britain. Despite being one of the first ‘British’ women mentioned in history, there is no direct evidence that she even existed. Instead, we have to rely on the accounts of two classical authors, Tacitus and Cassius Dio, both writing decades after the alleged battles between Boudica’s rebel army and their new Roman overlords. Their accounts were constructed with a specific political agenda, and a Roman audience, in mind but they are the only references we have. We don’t even know her real name: Boudica derives from bouda, the ancient British word for victory.
Any biography of the warrior queen is therefore a marriage of the classical histories with limited and circumstantial archaeological evidence. From these fragmentary sources, and what we know about Iron Age and early Roman Britain, we can weave together some of the strands of this woman’s achievements.
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