In the sixty-first year of the A.D., nearly twenty years after the reign of Rome, the west was still in a constant state of insurrection. The governor at the time was Suverturnius Paulinus. His predecessor, Quintus Veranius, had been martyred after one year in office, and Paulinus had succeeded him for three years. In the summer of that year the garrison of Britain, the greater part of which was under the command of Paulinus, attacked the northern part of the western mountains as far as the island of Mona. This island of Mona, situated in the northwest corner of western Britain, not far from the coast, was later called Anglesey, and was in those days the religious center of the Celts. The Druids there, who supported the revolt against the Romans, performed rituals in which living people were burned in wicker cages and used to perform black magic. Their black magic made the Celts more valiant, while the Roman soldiers were cursed by them to be exceptionally weak. Outnumbered, they were still defeated by Paulinus. The Druidic temple was burned down and the priests were all but slaughtered by the Romans, their bodies dumped in their sacred forest.
The Roman legions were out on the road, and central and eastern Britain were left in a state of empty strength. Boudicca had finished planning her revolt against Rome and was beginning to put it into action. She united with the Trinovite and other tribes to form an army of tens of thousands of men and attacked the city of Camrodonu to the south. At that time, this Camrodonu City, a typical Roman colonial city, had all the Romanized facilities such as shrines, council chambers, and squares. Because of the rise of Londinium in the south-west, the old city had gradually become a place for veterans from its previous status as the capital, and was not well fortified. The Romans were too careless in the construction of Camrodonu's defenses, and the walls and fortresses, etc., were in a state of disrepair and untenable, and in places the walls did not even enclose them.
The city learned of the attack of Boudicca's army, and quickly called for help from Decianus, who was stationed in Rendinium. Dechianus, busy amassing wealth, was perfunctory in his rescue, and sent only two hundred armed slaves from the auxiliary army over to support them, thinking that the rabble, which had been conquered for many years, would surely not be able to become a climate.
The Celts painted their skin blue to frighten the enemy, and the women brought wagons and oxcarts to assist behind the lines. Sometimes wives wore long black robes and carried torches to the front lines of the battlefield, shouting curses in imitation of the priests. Soon, under heavy siege, the city became fish on a chopping block. Facing tens of thousands of Celtic soldiers, the city's resistance consisted of less than a hundred Roman veterans. They had dragged their families to the city to cantonize, and now there was no way to retreat but to fight and retreat, and finally all of them were killed at the temple of Claudius. The queen then declared: "I, too, who had previously admired the prosperity of Rome and its luxuries as fashionable, now see this and think only of the wounds of my loved ones who have been slain. Fellow Britons, the white bones lying in the yards behind our houses are still fresh in our minds; they are our murdered kinsmen, and now is the time for vengeance. Burn down this city and raze all the buildings to the ground. Later on we shall have greater victories, so that not a single Roman will be left in Britain. "So Camrodonu was completely burned, and the men, women, and children who had been captured were put to death in a most bloody manner, some by hanging, some by fire, and some by crucifixion.
At this time on the south side of the Humber, east of the Trent, there was a legionary garrison called Lindum City, afterwards the city of Lincoln. It was garrisoned there by Bertilius Cheliaris, at the head of the Ninth Legion. When he heard that the Aeschines had risen to besiege Camrodonu, he at once summoned the garrison, but found only about two thousand men. So he led his troops south to relieve the siege, but they came too late, and the Celts rallied on the road and defeated them with a superior force, costing the Ninth Legion a third of its strength. Cheliaris then led the remnants of his army and held out in a fortress near Camrodonu, waiting for support from the Roman army.
After the great victory in the first battle, the Celts were so demoralized that they began to march southwest with the intention of taking Londinium. Londinium had by then grown to become another central Roman city in Britain, and many administrative offices were set up there. Along the way, Boudicca had combined an army of nearly 100,000 men.
Upon hearing the news of the approaching enemy, Decianus fled in his ship, not even taking with him the savings he had collected over the years. Other top officials also went with him, leaving Rendinium without a leader and in great danger. Paulinus, who was away on an expedition, was in the west, attacking the remnants of the rebellion on the island of Mona. When he received the news of Boudicca's advance into Rendinium, he did not disclose the news to the soldiers under his command, but only entrusted the troops to the deputy legionary, and then led his own cavalry guards, along the Roman road to the south to scout for the enemy, with the intention of stopping the Celtics outside the city of Rendinium. This Roman road, which begins in the region of the Knovians and passes southeast through the region of the Catuvelani to Rendinium, leads straight to the Kanti Peninsula in the southeast.
Arriving at Londinium, Paulinus was genuinely taken aback to learn of the sheer number of attacking Celts. Although his legions had been moving south, they could not reach them for a while, and the city could not be defended. So he arranged for the city's soldiers to evacuate as many citizens as possible, while he himself moved north to join his legions as fast as he could.
But it was too late to evacuate, Boudicca's army had already invaded the city. The city's Roman citizens, as well as the assimilated Britons, were slaughtered, and even the women and children did not escape their fate. In the ruins, the Celts held a solemn ritual in which the heads of the Romans were cut off and sacrificed to glorify the goddess of victory.
Immediately afterward, Boudicca led his army to the northwest, and a few days later captured the city of Verulamion, the capital of the Catuvelani. It had become the first autonomous city of Roman Britain, and its inhabitants were therefore regarded as Roman collaborators, and were all killed by Boudicca's order. Boudicca, who had risen up as the "goddess of liberty", had now become the embodiment of terror, and her Three Lights policy made reconciliation impossible.
At this point, the Romans in Britain could only look to Paulinus, who had not yet won a victory in his previous campaigns, was at risk of being outnumbered, and whose legions were outnumbered by the Celts. Paulinus thought to himself that he could only fight the enemy as quickly as possible and destroy them before more Celts joined the Boudicca army.
Paulinus ordered everywhere to stand firm and demolish all the small towns in the direction of Boudicca's attack, and to carry away all the food that could be carried away, or else to burn them all, to deny the enemy army access to sustenance. Paulinus pulled his legions away from the Roman road again and camped in a wilderness to the west to rest. The Celts were too outnumbered and slow to move, which gave the Romans plenty of time to find a battlefield to set up. Paulinus chose a small hill not far away and waited there in a tight formation as the enemy was about to arrive. In front of this hill, there was only a relatively narrow entrance, with dense forests and bushes on both sides and behind, which prevented a surprise attack.
The Roman legions*** numbered more than eleven thousand men, of whom seven thousand were heavy infantry, the main force being the fourteenth legion, plus one part of the twentieth legion. In addition were four thousand auxiliaries and two small cavalry units. Paulinus, believing that manpower was still insufficient, sent word to the Second Corps, far away on the south coast, to come north as soon as possible to support it, but its commander, Ponius Postumus, blocked the news and deliberately pressed on.
Boudicca's army sailed in, numbering more than 60,000 men, several times the size of the Romans. The Celts dragged their families close around the pass, and the scene was magnificent from afar. They were not very disciplined, waving long swords, short spears and shields and howling. And the equipment was rough, not many wore armor, and some didn't even wear a shirt. But there were a few conspicuous places where Celtic nobles, draped in all their glory, rode in chariots.
At this point, Boudicca, seeing the situation, that the Romans were going to fight with their backs to the mountains, ordered all the covered wagons to be surrounded in the passes to prevent the Romans from fleeing. This also at the same time shut in their own army. The battlefield was blocked on all sides, and there was no way back for either side.
As Boudicca rode back and forth in her chariot, she cried out, "Fellow countrymen, I am a descendant of the valiant Aeschines, but I am not fighting for my kingdom or my property. I am fighting for the freedom we have all lost, for my bruised and battered body, for my daughter's dignity, and think of what you are fighting for. Arrogant Rome has brought us nothing but danger, blaspheming and robbing maidens of their precious virginity. Today, we will either win or perish. And that is exactly what I, a woman, will do, to set all men free, so that all those who have been willing slaves will never be turned back! "
Paulinus, on the other side, also declared, "Comrades, ignore their clamor, they are nothing but a bunch of barbarians! They don't even have their armor on, we've defeated them several times before, and when they see us flashing our weapons, and will to fight, they'll scatter and flee. They will surely be crushed by us! Do not think of the spoils of war, just have the will to win and you will get more. "
The Celts began to attack, and the nobles closed in on the Romans in their chariots, hurling a shower of javelins and arrows, but most of them bounced off the Romans' shields. Then the tribal warriors roared and charged, but did not disrupt the Roman line. The Celts were momentarily frustrated, and the Romans waited for this moment, so with a command, the Romans fired several rounds of their characteristic heavy javelins, causing large numbers of dead and wounded Celts. The Romans then rushed down the hill in a wedge formation, breaking up the Celts. The Romans began a close white-knuckle battle, holding large shields and short swords, smashing and hacking, and the Celts gradually fell back.
The mountain pass has been blocked, the Celts have no way back, along with the supply train in the relatives of children, either crowded each other to death, or by the enemy massacre. After three consecutive massacres by the Aeschines, the Romans were now completely out of the mind of capturing the enemy. Boudicca, seeing that the situation was over, hurriedly fled from the battlefield with her daughters in a car, and the rest of the people were all killed in the same place.
Paulinus pursued the attack and wiped out the Aeschines, and Boudicca killed herself with a drug. Boudicca, as the last monarch of the Aeschines, is said to have had the wealth of the whole kingdom buried with her, and no one knows where. Posterity gave her high praise, calling her the English Goddess of Liberty, or Mother of the Nation. More than eighteen hundred years later, Prince Albert of England had a statue of Queen Boudicca and her daughters driving a sword-wheeled chariot made and erected at the west end of Westminster Bridge over the Thames, across the street from Big Ben.
The Emperor Nero praised Paulinus, but mobilized the personnel arrangements in Britain. For Paulinus was too brutal in his methods towards those who surrendered. He punished them cruelly, as if avenging a personal vendetta. Cheliaris was also recalled to Rome, and Ponius, the commander of the Second Legion, who had previously seen death, was ordered to cut himself. In A.D. 62, the emperor chose the dovish figure of Tupilianus in place of Paulinus, intending to conquer the land once and for all with a mild Romanization. Soon Tupilianus completely purged the rebellion. Paulinus returned to Rome and became consul of Rome again in 66 AD.
In 65 A.D., Trebelius Maximus succeeded to the governorship, and continued the policy of appeasement of his predecessor, thinking to govern Britannia by means of leniency and peace. So that from the top to the bottom, each one was content with his own pleasures, and even some of the Celts caught the habit. When the chiefs were so idle, the soldiers grew arrogant, and started a mutiny. Maxim's lowly reconciliation with the soldiers has led to a tacit agreement: the superior indulges the soldiers and lets them go free, while the soldiers also save his face and position, and do no harm.
After a few years of this, in 69 A.D., Poralus succeeded to the governorship, and followed the policy of his predecessor; the soldiers had been indulged for a long time, and it was not easy to restore law and order for a while, so he simply did not do anything to rectify the situation. At this time, the emperor Nero has been dead for a year, Rome into chaos, four emperors in a year, can be said that the whole Roman Empire are in disarray. The first time I saw him, I was in the middle of the night, and he was in the middle of the night.
As mentioned earlier, Cadimandua, Queen of Brigham of the North, was one of those eleven rulers who surrendered to Emperor Claudius without a fight. She had previously surrendered Caratacus to the Romans and was naturally rewarded by them, but was not popular among the people. Cadimandua and Venutius, at one time at war, were reconciled only by the intervention of the Roman legions. The Roman army was also momentarily relieved when Cadimandua did not join them when Boudicca rose up.
In A.D. 69, Cadimandua married Verrocatus, the armor-bearer of Venutius, and made him king. Verocatus had always been trusted by Venutius, and this move into the arms of the queen weakened Venutius' power considerably. He felt that the time had come to settle old scores and rose against Queen Cadimandua. Once again, Cadimandua called on Rome for help, but the Roman governor was not at this time in a state of mind to concern himself with matters so far away, and a good deal of persuasion was used to send out an auxiliary force. The viceroy sent a messenger to scold Venutius: "For seventeen years you two couples fought for five years, and it was not easy for you to reconcile. Why are you attacking the kingdom of Kadimanduva again? "Venutius, without words, replied, "The warriors were distressed at having to be shamefully ruled by a weak woman, and so I crushed her in obedience to the hearts of men. "
The queen's army lost the battle with Venutius, Verrocatus lost his life, Cadimandua lost his throne, and at her request her Roman allies, after many battles, finally rescued her. She fled southward to the Roman fortress of Deva, north of the place of the Knovians. After this, the trace of Queen Cadimandua disappeared, and no one knew where she had gone. Thus the vast region of Brigham was all under the leadership of Venutius, who had brazenly raised the banner against Rome and advocated revolt among the Britons.
The whole island was suddenly shaken, and Pollarus, who ruled too softly to be able for a moment to suppress the outrages of the rebels, may be said to have been unfit to govern a province liable to disturbances. In November, Vespasian rose up and seized the throne, and the chaos in Rome was over. At this time the Brigands began to attack to the south, and riots broke out in many places in response to the call of King Brigand.
Early in the seventy-first year, Cheliaris, who had previously been stationed at Lindum, was again transferred to the governorship of Britain. He immediately cleaned up his army and led it, attacking the Brigham region. Establishing a fortress north of the Humber, he pushed forward at every step. Rome suddenly fought so majestically again that the Brigands were greatly alarmed. After many battles, by seventy-three most of Brigham was conquered. Brigham was the most populous kingdom in Britain and the largest in area. Cheliaris succeeded in wiping out his former shame, and his reputation and accomplishments shook all of Britain, and the rebellions in various parts of the country were then quieted.
In 74 A.D., Julius Frontinus succeeded to the governorship, but was also able to go back and forth with Cheliaris, and in his office conquered the Shiru people in the southern part of the western mountains. The Shilius were known for their bravery and warlike behavior, and had been restless for decades since their defeat in favor of Caractacus. Frontinus overcame the natural obstacles of the enemy's territory and subdued the Shilius, and was considered to be a great man of valor.
Since then Britain, as a frontier province, has maintained a permanent garrison of three legions, with the city of Iboacom in the northeast, the city of Dewa in the northwest, and Ikasiluron in the southwest. That said, this city of Iboacombe, later York, was a fortress built during the conquest of the kingdom of Brigantine, located on the north side of the Humber River, between the former Brigantine and Parish areas. The city of Dewa, later Chester, was located between the western mountains and the northern Brigham region, where the previous Brigham Queen had fled to for the rest of her life. Ica Siluron, later known as the city of Calion, Silu is a phonetic corruption of the name of the Zhiliu tribe, and after the Roman conquest of the Zhiliu tribe, a fortress was built in the area, along with the city of Dewar, to control the western mountains, and also to prevent maritime invasions from Ireland and elsewhere. Between the legions' quarters as well as Lundinium, a network of stone-paved roads was constructed, six or seven meters wide, and in good condition, the average speed on horseback could reach thirty kilometers per hour, ensuring the rapid assembly of the army and the transmission of battle reports.
After two strong governors, the Roman soldiers thought that, with their influence, all the fighting might be over and they would never think of the enemy again, but the Celts were waiting for an opportunity. In A.D. 78, Agricola was transferred to the governorship of Britain, and shortly before his arrival, great things happened in the West. The Oddovicians had wiped out a whole body of cavalry stationed in their territory, leaving scarcely a man behind. This one scourge excited the province, and both the Romans and the Celts, among whom it was expected that there would be war, secretly applauded it. The new governor was new, and all were anxious to watch his disposition.
By that time the summer was over, and the soldiers were convinced that there would be no more wars in the current year, and the staff were in favor of keeping their respective strongholds until the coming year, when they would be well prepared to attack. The first two governors were so successful that they couldn't afford to be so intimidated and weak, so they decided to deal with the situation right away, regardless of the morale of the people who were tired of fighting.
As for how to arrange Agulikora, please see next time.