Boudicca

I am Boudicca of the Iceni, wife to Prasutagus, once bound to Rome in an uneasy peace. My husband sought to secure our house with a will, naming the emperor among his heirs so our daughters might keep their place. Roman hands tore that writing like bark. They seized our lands, flogged me before my people, and laid violence upon my daughters. That was the measure that filled the cup.

When their governor campaigned in Mona, I called the war-bands. The Iceni and the Trinovantes came to my summons. We struck first at Camulodunum, the Roman colony that flaunted the Temple of Claudius. We pulled it down and burned the place to ash, and the garrison sent too late perished among the embers.

We moved fast upon their straight roads, turning their order to our purpose. Londinium lay bare and was emptied—still I chose the torch. Verulamium followed. The Roman writers boast of heaps of slain; count them as you please. I counted mothers, wagons, and smoke on the wind.

Suetonius gathered his men and chose a narrow ground with woods at his back. Our chariots wheeled before the ranks, but their pila and horse bit deep, and our great host broke. My end is told as poison or as illness; no grave bears my name. Ask me instead of that border where tribes met empire, and what it made of me.