[L]et us, my countrymen and friends and
kinsmen—for I consider you all kinsmen, see-
ing that you inhabit a single island and are called
by one common name—let us, I say, do our duty
while we still remember what freedom is, that we
may leave to our children not only its appellation
but also its reality. For, if we utterly forget the
happy state in which we were born and bred, what,
pray, will they do, reared in bondage?United behind their queen, the Britons would
rise up and savage several Roman settlements.
The First Victories
Boudica’s forces, which may have included fe-
male warriors, began their attack at Camulodu-
num, the Roman colony at Colchester in eastern
TEMPLE OF DOOM
THE HISTORIAN TACITUS explains how the legionary veterans in
Camulodunum (Colchester) inspired hatred among the Trinovantes
in whose territory they settled. “The troops drove the Trinovantes from
their homes and land and called them prisoners and slaves.” According
to Tacitus, the Britons saw the colony’s great temple, dedicated to the
emperor Claudius, as “a citadel of eternal domination.” The Trinovantes
were particularly indignant as they had been forced to pay large sums
to fund the imperial cult.THE REBELS STORMED THE COLONY, which had no defensive wall to protect
it and relied on just a small military force. Owing to a lack of resources,
the inhabitants had not dug trenches or put up fences to secure the
city. All that the Roman inhabitants could do was to take shelter in the
Temple of Claudius, which may not even have been completed. The
colony fell rapidly to Boudica’s rebels, who destroyed the hated symbol
and those within it.NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 51