The History of Female Warriors. Ellen C. Clayton
Boadicea was joined by her brother Corbred, king of Scots. Together they marched to the attack on Colchester. Petilius Cerialis, the conqueror of Batavia, marched out from Verulam at the head of the ninth legion to oppose the victorious Britons. He had lately received from Germany reinforcements, amounting to eight auxiliary cohorts of one thousand horse. A furious battle ensued, resulting in the total defeat of the Romans. Upwards of six thousand Romans and three thousand confederate Britons (their allies) were slain.
Petilius fled with his broken cohorts—for, it is said, not even one foot-soldier escaped the carnage—to his entrenched camp. Catus Decianus, the procurator, was severely wounded in the engagement, and, struck with terror, he continued his precipitate flight over sea into Gaul.
Suetonius Paulinus, absent at the time on that expedition which concluded with the massacre of the Druids in Mona (the Isle of Anglesea), hastened back to South Britain. With ten thousand men, he entered London; but, despite the prayers of the people, he deserted it at once, and encamped at a short distance north of the city. Scarcely had he departed, when Boadicea marched directly on London, captured it after a slight resistance, and put the inhabitants to the sword.
For some time Suetonius was afraid to venture on a battle against a victorious queen commanding a force so immeasurably superior to his own, amounting, according to Tacitus, to one hundred thousand, while Dio Cassius raises the number as high as two hundred and thirty thousand; while the Romans could muster scarcely ten thousand. At last an engagement took place on a wild spot, guarded in the rear by a dense forest.
Before the battle, Boadicea passed up and down in her chariot, exhorting the warriors to avenge her wrongs and those of her daughters. Dio Cassius has described the British Queen, as she appeared on that memorable day. She was a woman of lofty stature, with a noble, severe expression, and a dazzlingly fair complexion, remarkable even amongst the British women, who were famous for the whiteness of their skin. Her long yellow hair, floating in the wind, reached almost to the ground. She wore a tunic of various colours, hanging in folds, and over this was a shorter one, confined at the waist by a chain of gold. Round her alabaster neck was a magnificent "torques," or collar of twisted gold-wire. Her hands and arms were uncovered, save for the rings and bracelets which adorned them. A large British mantle surmounted, but did not conceal the rest of her attire.
Suetonius on his side used all his powers of oratory to excite the Romans to do their best, telling them to "despise the savage uproar, the shouts and yells of undisciplined barbarians," amongst whom, he said, "the women out-numbered the men."
The battle was long and obstinately contested; but the steady order of the iron legions triumphed over the savage onslaught of the Britons. The latter were routed with terrible slaughter, leaving, Tacitus says, upwards of eighty thousand dead on the field. The Romans lost only five hundred. "The glory won on this day," adds Tacitus, "was equal to that of the most renowned victories of the ancient Romans."
The exact scene of this engagement has been variously placed by different writers. Some decide that Battle-Bridge, King's Cross, marks the spot; while by others it has been settled as identical with the ancient camp called Ambresbury Banks, near Epping. Some even place it at Winchester.
Boadicea, rather than let herself be taken alive, put an end to her own existence by poison. She was afterwards interred with due honours by her faithful adherents.
The two daughters of Boadicea, completely armed, fought most valiantly in the battle; and even during the rout of their countrymen they strove wildly for victory. At last they were made prisoners, and brought into the presence of Suetonius, who expressed deep sympathy for them, and spoke with indignation of their oppressors.
The elder princess, by the intervention of Suetonius, was married, some months later, to Marius, also styled Westmer, son of Arviragus and Gwenissa. This prince was acknowledged by the Romans as King of the Iceni, over whom he ruled for many years. His son Coel was the father of Lucius, the first Christian king of Britain. Boadicea, the younger daughter, inherited not only her mother's name, but her bold, dauntless spirit, and her relentless hatred of the Romans. Marius, fearing her influence over the Iceni, banished her from his court. She raised a formidable army of Brigantes and Picts, and sailed to Galloway, which was occupied by the Romans. Marching in the dead of the night, she fell on the encampment of the foe and slew several hundred men. The entire Roman army would probably have been put to the sword had not Petilius, the general, ordered his men to light torches. The Britons were driven off, and next morning Boadicea was attacked and defeated in her own camp.
Next day Boadicea marched to Epiake, the Roman head-quarters in that district, and setting it on fire, destroyed the garrison. Shortly after this she was captured in an ambuscade. It is said by some that the young princess, expecting a horrible death, followed the example of her mother, and took poison. Others, however, declare that she was brought alive into the presence of the Roman commander, who interrogated her respecting the object of her invasion, when Boadicea, making a spirited answer, was slain by his guards.
The bravery of Boadicea and her daughters was not so strange in those days as it might now be. The British and Caledonian women were, as a rule, brave and warlike, and invariably followed their husbands to battle. More than five thousand women enlisted under the banners of Boadicea, and fought, many of them, as bravely as the men. Women, even far advanced in years, marched with their male relations to the defence of king or country; and those who did not fight hand to hand with the foe, peppered him well from a distance with volleys of stones. To render themselves competent to share the perils and dangers of the battle-field, the women, in times of peace, practised the use of arms, and inured themselves to fatigue and hardship; as Holinshed says, "never refusing to undergo any labour or fatigue assigned them by their leader."
The women of Caledonia were equally warlike. In a curious old book of engravings published in London during the last century, entitled a "Collection of Dresses of Different Nations, Ancient and Modern," there are three plates, one of which represents a Caledonian woman, after De Brii, dressed in a short garment, and armed with masculine weapons; the other two represent the wife and daughter of a Pict. The woman Pict is entirely naked, and is tattooed and painted with stars, rays, and various similar devices. In one hand she grasps a lance and in the other two darts. The girl differs from the mother only in being painted with divers floral ornaments in lieu of the astronomical adornments.
The Gallic and German women also, joined frequently in the battles between rival tribes. Philostratus, probably for this reason, speaks of Amazons living on the shores of the Danube; and in Lucius Flaccus we also read of German Amazons. The Allemanni, the Marcomanni, the Quadi, and the other warlike tribes who dwelt beyond the Rhine were always accompanied by their wives and daughters whenever they set out on an expedition. During the battle, such of the women as took no share in the action, stood on the outskirts, cheering and encouraging the warriors. More than once a beaten army of Germans was stopped in its flight by the women, and obliged, through very shame, to turn again and confront the enemy. If their side was defeated the German women almost invariably committed suicide on the corpses of their friends. During the wars of Marcus Aurelius with the Marcomanni and Quadi, several women were found amongst the slain, many clad in armour.
Under the patronage of the emperors the combats of Roman matrons in the amphitheatre afforded intense gratification to a pleasure-seeking public. Juvenal, the satirist, regards these female duels from a ludicrous point of view. "What a fine business it would be," he says, "for a man to cry out at an auction of his wife's equipment, 'Who bids up for my wife's boots? Who'll give most for her corslet, helmet, and gauntlet?'"
The Romans, however, often tried to raise amateur corps of female warriors, in imitation of the ancient Amazons, whose warlike deeds were much admired in the imperial city. Suetonius tells us that Nero, when he learned the news of Galba's revolt, dressed up the women of his seraglio as Amazons, arming them with battle-axes and small bucklers, and intending to march at their head against the rebels.
In the third century the Roman empire was in a state of dire confusion. So many governors of provinces and commanders of legions had assumed the purple, with more or less success, in various parts of the world, that at last the Emperor, who was recognised by the senate at Rome, though nominally sovereign of the universe, was, in fact, very little more than