PROFESSOR OF ARCHAEOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM, ENGLAND,
RICHARD HINGLEY IS THE CO-AUTHOR OF A BOOK ABOUT BOUDICA, AND A SPECIALIST
ON BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE IRON AGE AND ROMAN PERIOD.BOOKS
Boudica: Iron Age Warrior Queen
Richard Hingley and Christina Unwin,
Bloomsbury Academic, 2006.Learn moreRISING FROM
THE ASHES
The construction
of the second-
century theater
at Verulamium
(above) took
place when the
city was rebuilt
after Boudica’s
devastating attack.
VERULAMIUM MUSEUM/BRIDGEMAN/ACIIn the aftermath Emperor Nero may have con-
sidered withdrawing Rome from Britain alto-
gether, although he evidently changed his mind.
The rebellion’s immediate influence is un-
certain: No written records of these events have
survived apart from those of Tacitus and Dio
Cassius. The Romans resumed their conquest
of Britain, and by A.D. 84 the governor, Gnae-
us Julius Agricola, had conquered much of the
north. The Romans failed to conquer the Scot-
tish Highlands and by the second century the
province of Britannia came to comprise the area
to the south of Hadrian’s Wall.
Boudica’s story may well have been forgot-
ten were it not for the rediscovery of Tacitus’s
writings in the 16th century during the European
Renaissance of the arts. Rather than a savage,
Boudica was regarded as a parallel to the reigning
queen of England, Elizabeth I. The Victorians
later reinvented Boudica as a valiant upholder of
British nationhood. The most famous rendition
of her from this period was the statue “Boudi-
ca and Her Daughters,” designed by Thomas
Thornycroft, installed at Westminster Bridge in
London as an enduring symbol of British spirit
and strength.NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 57