A Popular History of Unpopular Things

The Story of Boudica, Warrior Queen

• Kelli Beard • Season 1 • Episode 73

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Join Kelli as she goes over the popular legend of Boudica, the short-lived queen of the Iceni peoples in Iron Age Britain.

Much of what we know about Boudica comes from heavily-biased Roman sources, written decades or over a century after the events they describe. So how much of her story is fact, and how much is fiction?

And was Boudica even a real person?

Let's dive into the available written and archaeological sources and analyze why the Romans might have written about her the way they did to try to understand Boudica's role in history.

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The History of Boudica
Intro
Welcome to A Popular History of Unpopular Things, a podcast that covers the… unpopular stories from history - tales about disease, death, and destruction. I like learning about all things bloody, gross, mysterious, and weird.

And in today’s episode, we’ll be exploring a classic tale of heroism - the story of Boudica.

Growing up, I was told my name meant “warrior.” Kelli connects back to the Gaelic word ceallach, or warrior. And so, I grew up fascinated by strong women in history. And because I was born in the 80s and grew up in the 90s, I became obsessed with icons like Xena: Warrior Princess. In fact, I credit shows like Xena, and Hercules, as the root of my interest in history. 

But I grew up in suburbia. I am not a warrior like my name would suggest, at least not in the traditional sense. I was told growing up that women could and should do it all - run the home, have a full time job, raise a family, make dinner every night, kick ass, and take names. So growing up, no wonder I was fascinated about other powerful women who were able to do it all - and one of those women was Boudica, the Iron Age Warrior Queen of the Iceni who fought back against Roman rule in Britain and defied the Empire.

In today’s episode, I want to start with a quick tangent on source material and bias to help set up the story. Then, I’ll give the popularized myth or Boudica - what I, and I assume many others, learned about her. And then, as we normally do on the APHOUT podcast, we’ll talk about the historical context. What was happening in Britain in the first century CE that led to Boudica’s rebellion against the Romans? Once we have a clear understanding of what Boudica’s world looked like, we’ll take a look at what we know about the real Boudica and her rebellion against the Romans.

And we’ll also have to wrestle with an interesting question - was she even real? And if there’s a possibility that she’s not, then where does our legend about her come from, and why does it exist?

We’ve got a lot to cover today, so let’s get started!

A Note on Source Material
Before we get too deep into the history, a quick note on sources.

Historians build pictures of the past using several methods, but I’m just going to focus on what I consider the main two: written source material and archaeological evidence. And for Iron Age Britain… we don’t actually know that much.

No, seriously. 

The Iron Age peoples living in Britain, the Britons, didn’t have a written language. Which means that what we know about them comes from our interpretations of archaeological evidence or sources from those who did have a written language and interacted with the Britons. And for many Celts living in Northern Europe, that would be the Romans - the very ones who conquered them.

So when we look at our primary source material on people like Boudica and other Celts living in Britain around the time of Roman conquest, most of what we know comes from very biased sources. It’s history written by the conquerors. So it is highly likely that many things - even down to the visual descriptions of Boudica herself - are exaggerated or manufactured to serve the Romans in some way. So we need to keep this in mind when we go over the primary source documents in today’s episode.

And that’s why archaeological evidence is so important – it allows us to get a more complete picture of those ancient cultures that didn’t have a written language. Here’s a tangential example I found interesting.

Maiden Castle, in Dorset, on the southern coast of England, was attacked sometime in the first century. The standard assumption was that the attack happened during a Roman invasion - we know from Roman sources that they were there, and we have archaeological evidence of 34 skeletons with horribly violent injuries. Some have used the word “overkill” to describe them - the bodies weren’t just killed, they were mutilated. In the 1930s and 40s, archaeologists Tessa Wheeler and her husband Mortimer came to the conclusion, based on available Roman sources and this archaeological evidence, that the Roman legions attacked the hillfort at Maiden Castle shortly after arriving in the year 43. Okay, fine. Makes sense.

But this year, 2025, Martin Smith, Miles Russel, and Paul Cheetham re-examined what happened at Maiden Castle using radiocarbon dating and a more thorough analysis of burial patterns. They determined that the skeletons weren’t all massacred in the year 43 by the Romans; their deaths spread multiple generations before the Romans arrived, which tells us that their society had their own issues and stressors. So, in short, they were killing themselves long before the Romans came along. The authors of that paper theorized that it might have been public executions, perhaps in the midst of dynastic struggles between warring families/clans. The violence in their manner of death was likely a clear message to fellow Britons. And this paints a very different picture of the Iron Age peoples living on the south coast of England.

So you see what I mean? Source material and archeology are tools to help us understand the past. It has been interpreted and reinterpreted by successive historians and archaeologists over centuries, and our picture of the past changes with every new thing we find.

So in going through today’s story on Boudica, it’s worth remembering that we don’t actually know much about her and her people except what the Romans wrote, what archaeological evidence we’ve found so far, and the various interpretations of that evidence over time. I’m sure there’s some evidence out there buried and waiting to be discovered, and even more that’s just been lost to time.

I want to start with the popularized myth of Boudica - how I first learned about her. Let’s get the myth out of the way so we can try to discover the real woman at the heart of it.
The Myth of Boudica, Warrior Queen
Traditionally, at least for me, this is the very-streamlined, classic story of Boudica, the warrior queen.

Boudica’s husband, King Prasutagus of the Iceni, died in either 60 or 61 CE. He left his kingdom to his two daughters and the Roman Emperor, Nero. Why? Well, the Iceni were on good terms with the Romans. So they wanted to keep the peace with the Romans, who were very much roaming the countryside (pun intended) and warring with tribes who opposed them. It was just a symbolic gesture.

However, Emperor Nero had his men move in to take full control of the Iceni Kingdom. Boudica, his wife, was flogged. Their daughters were… assaulted. And then the Romans pillaged the Iceni kingdom of its wealth.

Outraged, Boudica united the various peoples in her kingdom [eye SEE nigh], partnered with some neighboring tribes, and led a revolt against the Romans. 

Boudica’s rebellion was initially successful; she won some early battles and destroyed a few key Roman cities like the little ol’ town of LONDON. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Some Roman accounts suggest that tens of thousands died in the destruction.

The Roman governor of Britannia at the time, Gaius Suetonius Paullinus, met Boudica with more Roman forces and absolutely walloped her army. Reportedly, she gave quite the stirring speech. I’m quoting from one of the two Roman sources on the subject; this speech is from Roman historian and political Tacitus. Here’s what Tacitus reports that she said. Quote:

"'We British are used to women commanders in war', she cried. 'I am descended from mighty men! But I am not fighting for my kingdom and wealth now. I am fighting as an ordinary person for my lost freedom, my bruised body, and my outraged daughters… Consider how many of you are fighting—and why! Then you will win this battle, or perish. That is what I, a woman, plan to do!—let the men live in slavery if they will.'"

End quote.

And though the Britons – with their chariots, blue-painted skin, and ferocity – put up a good fight, in the end, they were no match for Rome’s legions.

Boudica, unlike other classic Celt enemies like Caesar’s one-time nemesis, Vercingetorix, was not captured and brought to Rome to be paraded in the streets. She was either poisoned or died of illness before the Romans could get her - depends on the source you read.

And her story, brief as it may be, is a symbol of defiance and resistance. She fought the oppression of a much larger power, and even though she lost, she served as a symbol of the oppressed. She was a heroine for the British, though very few British people today have any genetic similarities with the ancient Britons. She was a feminist icon - a mean, a woman standing up to the might of the Roman Empire? She was like a Celtic Joan of Arc. 

Now she certainly wasn’t the only female Celt trying to survive in Roman Britain - there was also Cartimandua, Queen of the Brigantes, who predates Boudica and was a powerful queen who ruled for much longer. But it’s Boudica who has endured as this legendary warrior woman, virtually a household name in the Western world. I mean even Enya wrote a song about her. That’s how you know you’ve made it as a historic figure.

But that classic story isn’t why I’m here. That’s the popular history, sure, but it’s not unpopular enough for me. I want to dig deeper and figure out how much of that story is actually true, where the sources come from. And there’s a compelling argument out there that suggests Boudica might not have even been real. So let’s try to figure all that out.

And also… did she really sport flaming locks of red hair? I heard that she was a visual inspiration for Merida in Brave… is there any truth to that?

Well, we’ll do our best to find out.

So let’s get into the history of Iron Age England and why Romans were there in the first place.

And that story, based on the available source material, goes back to everyone’s favorite Roman-conqueror-who-was-stabbed-23-times-on-the-Senate-floor, Julius Caesar.
Historical Context
Let’s begin with the briefest of Caesar histories. Julius Caesar became part of the first triumvirate, the trio of men ruling over Rome, in 59 BCE. But to establish himself, gain power, and make enough money to pay off debts, he went on campaign in Gaul (modern-day France) from 58 to 50 BCE. He was there mainly for personal gains. With successes against the Gauls and other northern agitators, he could amass political power back in Rome and earn the support of the military. Who knows, that might come in handy some day. You know, should he need to cross the Rubicon river, march on Rome and take over as dictator, or anything like that. 

And not only did Caesar write extensively on the Gauls - I quoted from his book on the Gallic Wars in my episode on the Wicker Man, which was a really fun episode if you haven’t listened to that already - but he was the first Roman to lead a military excursion in Britain, crossing what they called ocean. But it was really just the English Channel.

Here is my favorite of Caesar’s impressions of the Britons. As always, sources are linked in the podcast episode’s description. Quote:

All the Britains… dye themselves with woad, which occasions a bluish color, and thereby have a more terrible appearance in fight. They wear their hair long, and have every part of their body shaved except their head and upper lip.

End quote.

Woad is a plant that can be used to produce a blue dye. And Caesar’s text is the earliest source we have that mentions that the Britons dyed themselves this color, and shaved their bodies in ways that were meant to be intimidating. I’ve also read sources that say they used lime to stick their hair up. And I’m sure, if these descriptions were accurate, that this was intimidating to the Romans - think about your traditional legionnaire and how they look, right?… Now, imagine a warrior painted blue, hair stuck up in a mohawk, with a sick mustache. Pretty cool, if you ask me. It’s, like, the original counterculture aesthetic.

But also, since this is the only source that mentions this, then we have to take it with a grain of salt. But regardless, the bigger picture is that Caesar is labelling the Britons as different, less advanced, and therefore, ripe for the conquering. After all, being the first Roman to conquer Britannia would have been an excellent way for Caesar to gain points back in Rome. 

Now he invaded Britain twice, first in 55 BCE and then the following year, 54 BCE, but he never conquered it. To be fair, I don’t think conquering Britain was the point, anyway. The whole expedition was primarily about securing Roman power and control over the various Celts he encountered, like a propaganda campaign that would excite the Roman audience he sought to please. He was there for the optics, not for actually conquering the island. 

The real invasion of Britain wouldn’t happen until Emperor Claudius in 43 CE. But we can at least credit Caesar with opening Rome’s eyes to the potential hiding in Britain - there were people who could be enslaved, or at the very least pay tribute, and there were raw materials to be mined, like tin.

Now in the almost one hundred years between Roman invasions, the Britons were no longer abstracted from Rome. In fact, Romanization, the process of non-Romans adopting Roman culture, language, and cultures, had already begun. Some tribes organized into kingdoms, with some leaning in favor of Rome and others against it. But it wasn’t that black and white; British relationships with Rome were very much fluid and depended on strategy. If it made sense for Britons to ally with the Romans, then they did. There’s even evidence that some Britons fled to Rome and stayed there, which gives us a good understanding of contact between the two regions. There’s a lot of nuance there, too - some British tribes increased their power by allying with Rome instead of with their neighbors. 

This is really important to the overall story and our modern-day interpretation of Boudica; in the iron age, there was no concept of being British, belonging to one cultural group, or having nationalist pride. Britannia was what the Romans called the island, but the people who lived there had no sense of obligation to each other. They didn’t see themselves as one group as we tend to think of them today - we call them Celts because they share some basic elements with other Celtic groups, but in reality, the Britons were not one unified people.

But now, I want to fast forward a bit to the Iceni, because otherwise we’ll be here all week talking about the various Britons and their relationships to the Romans over time. And I don’t want to do that. So let’s talk about what we actually know about Boudica’s revolt. Or at least what we think we know.
Boudica and her Rebellion, as far as we know it
The fascinating and perhaps unpopular truth about Boudica is that much of what we know is either embellished or biased. In more recent history, she’s been painted as this proto-nationalist feminine hero of Britain, trying to rid the country of its Roman invaders and save the homeland. Which is pretty nonsensical, really, because we’ve established that the various Britons didn’t see themselves as one, unified group of people. That’s just us applying our modern interpretations of nationalism and belonging to people from 2000 years ago.

So let’s look at what evidence we actually have on Boudica and her people. As I’ve mentioned, the iron age Britons didn’t have a written language. So all we have to go on are Roman sources. Let’s see what the Romans wrote about Boudica and the Iceni.

We've got two main Roman writers who mentioned Boudica. First, we have Tacitus, who wrote about her in his Annals, written about 55-60 years after the events in question. The second source is Cassius Dio, a Roman Senator and Historian who wrote about her in his book Roman History, which was published around 160-170 years later. So for both sources, neither is particularly “contemporary.” Most rely on secondhand accounts or eyewitness reports; neither man, obviously, was there to witness it firsthand.

So right off the bat, these sources are problematic, right? There’s no possible way they will be accurate, particularly with reporting dialogue and speeches. Keep that in mind as you listen to what they had to say about the whole rebellion.

Let’s start with Tacitus, lightly edited for flow. And I’m not relaying all of it, just the relevant bits. Quote:

The Iceni king Prasutagus, celebrated for his long prosperity, had named [Emperor Nero] his heir, together with his two daughters; an act of deference which he thought would place his kingdom and household beyond the risk of injury. The result was contrary — so much so that his kingdom was pillaged by [Roman] centurions [and] his household [taken as] slaves; as though they had been prizes of war.

…His wife Boudicca was subjected to the lash and his daughters violated. All the chief men of the Iceni were stripped of their family estates… Impelled by this outrage and the dread of worse to come… they flew to arms, and incited to rebellion the [nearby] Trinobantes [tribe] and others, who, not yet broken by servitude, had entered into a secret and treasonable compact to resume their independence [from Rome].

The Britons… in bands of foot and horse were moving jubilantly in every direction. They were in unprecedented numbers, and confidence ran so high that they brought even their wives to witness the victory… stationed [on the side of battle].

Boudica, mounted in a chariot with her daughters before her, rode up to clan after clan and delivered her protest:

It was customary, she knew, with Britons to fight under female captaincy; but now she was avenging, not as a queen of glorious ancestry, her ravished realm and power, but, as a woman of the people, her liberty lost, her body tortured by the lash, the tarnished honour of her daughters. [The] Romans had progressed so far that not their very persons, not age itself, nor maidenhood, were left unpolluted. Yet Heaven was on the side of their just revenge: one legion, which ventured [into] battle, had perished; the rest were skulking in their camps, or looking around them for a way of escape. They would never face even the din and roar of those many thousands, far less their onslaught and their swords! — If they considered in their own hearts the forces under arms and the motives of the war, on that field they must conquer or fall. Such was the settled purpose of a woman — the men might live and be slaves!

End quote

Ok. So for those of you paying attention, this is where we get our traditional story of Boudica from, right? You’ve got the death of the husband, her beating, the violation of her daughters, and then the rallyings of various Britons under her banner to rebel against the Romans. Ok.

Now curiously, some of this language makes it seem like Boudica was well within her rights to attack the Romans. Listen to this sentence again - Yet Heaven was on the side of their just revenge: one legion, which ventured [into] battle, had perished; the rest were skulking in their camps, or looking around them for a way of escape. 

Why on earth would a Roman writer talk about their enemy this way? To provide the context, Emperor Nero was a hated man. Maybe one day I’ll do an episode on him, who knows. But he was universally disliked. He was the worst. And since these events happened during Nero’s reign, Tacitus here – writing well after Nero was dead and buried – is clearly pointing out more negatives in Nero’s tenure as emperor. Fair enough. Boudica the woman was treated poorly by Romans who should have known better - particularly the sexual violence against the daughters of the Iceni King. That was very much a no-no in Roman society.

But outside of that, Tacitus is also painting her as this oppositional figure. This is Boudica, a hero of the Britons, someone the Romans swiftly overcame in battle to show their might.

According to Tacitus – and I’ll just paraphrase now, but the source I’m using is linked in the description if you want to read it yourself – according to Tacitus, 80,000 Britons died in the final battle somewhere in what today we call the Midlands vs. only 400 Romans, with not many more wounded. And then he ends by telling us that Boudica died by poison. 

Ok then, let’s take a look at Cassius Dio’s account, which was written even later than Tacitus’, and is also way more inflammatory. Check this out. It gets a bit gross towards the end. Quote!

Two cities were sacked, eighty thousand of the Romans and of their allies perished, and the island was lost to Rome. Moreover, all this ruin was brought upon the Romans by a woman, a fact which in itself caused them the greatest shame.

This woman assembled her army, to the number of some 120,000... In stature she was very tall, in appearance most terrifying, in the glance of her eye most fierce, and her voice was harsh; a great mass of the tawniest hair fell to her hips; around her neck was a large golden necklace; and she wore a tunic of diverse colors over which a thick mantle was fastened with a brooch…

Boudica led her army against [a group of] Romans [who happened] to be without a leader [because]... their commander had gone on an expedition to… an island near Britain. This enabled her to sack and plunder… Roman cities, and… wreak indescribable slaughter. 

Those who were taken captive by the Britons were subjected to every known form of outrage. The worst and most bestial atrocity committed by their captors was the following. They hung up naked the noblest and most distinguished women and then cut off their breasts and sewed them to their mouths, in order to make the victims appear to be eating them; afterwards they impaled the women on sharp skewers run lengthwise through the entire body. All this they did to the accompaniment of sacrifices, banquets, and wanton behaviour…

End quote

Cassius Dio later goes on to tell us that in the final skirmish, when the Britons and Romans met on the battlefield, with Boudica at the helm of her chariot, the Romans prevailed. He tells us that Boudica fell sick and died, and that signaled the end to her rebellion, as the surviving Britons quote “scattered to their homes.”

Okay. Okay let’s break some of that down. Does Cassius Dio repeat the same anti-Nero propaganda that Tacitus did? Well, sort of. The line “all this ruin was brought upon the Romans by a woman, a fact which in itself caused them the greatest shame” implies that Rome was shamed by their conduct, because who loses to a woman, right? The misogyny was certainly much stronger in Cassius Dio’s work. But Dio does more to make the Britons seem like barbarians. I mean, impaling women longways? Makes me think of Vlad the Impaler. I did an episode on him, too, so check that one out if you haven’t already! But cutting off women’s breasts and sewing them to the mouth to make it look like they were cannibalizing their own bodies? That’s pretty sick. Also notice that this was just violence done to Roman women… he’s trying to make it look like the Britons were just horrendously backwards, violent, and in need of conquering.

Do I believe for one second that the Britons did any of these things? No, not really. Show me conclusive proof and maybe I’ll believe it. A biased source written 165ish years after the fact isn’t enough to convince me.

But also, it’s from these accounts that we get the classic description of what she looked like with her red hair and clothing, how tall and imposing she was, her fierceness, her two potential manners of death, all of that. 

But what I want to know is whether we’ve found any archaeological evidence that supports what her Roman enemies said about her – or if she even existed at all.

I read this fascinating article from History and Archaeology Online that suggests that perhaps Boudica is just… a concept. Not necessarily one person. The evidence for this theory comes from inscriptions across the Celtic world with the word “Boudica” written on them. Quoting from the article, an altar from Bordeaux, France, was attributed to a local goddess named Tutela Boudiga or “Tutela the victorious” suggests that the name Boudica means victory. So, a concept.

But researchers have also found evidence that the name “Boudica” was used as a personal name, as one Roman memorial stone found in Lusitania mentions a mother named Boudica (not our Boudica though). So Boudica could have been the name of someone in early Roman Britain, it’s certainly a possibility.

But do we have definitive archaeological proof of a woman named Boudica leading a revolt against the Romans in 60-61 CE? …No. 

We know that a revolt took place, but we can’t prove that Boudica led it, was there, or even existed outside of Roman sources. We have archaeological evidence in the form of burned debris, pottery, and personal possessions that several Roman cities were destroyed – the modern-day Colchester, London, and St. Albans in that order – but nothing that proves the final battle mentioned by both sources, or whether Boudica was there. And anyway, there’d be no real way to distinguish Boudica from any other female skeleton, if it even survived to the present. So far we’ve only discovered hundreds, maybe even a thousand or so bodies, bones or partials from that period that have survived the ages.

Is there a chance we’ll ever find the real Boudica buried out there somewhere? Iron Age Historian and Archaeologist Richard Hingley doesn’t think so. Quote:

“I think it’s unrealistic to hope to find much more than we have for Boudica… which is essentially a few mentions in Tacitus and Cassius Dio, and some scant archaeology; after all, we don’t even find much evidence for individual people in ancient Greece or Rome. [She was] living in a peripheral province and a pre-literate province. If the native Britons had been literate, we’d have had inscriptions on monuments and things like that but the ancient Britons just didn’t do that so it’s hard to attribute finds to her.”

End quote.

So Boudica, if she even existed, is probably just lost to history. So the best we can do is look at the Roman sources and try to understand her through their bias. And perhaps it doesn’t even really matter if she was real or not - the bigger question I have is why the Romans characterized her the way they did? What was their agenda? And specifically, why did Cassius Dio seem to hate Boudica so much?
Roman Response to Boudica’s Rebellion
To get a proper sense of why Dio wrote about Boudica the way he did, we need… oh man are you gonna love this - more! Historical! Context!

I don’t think I’ve ever done two separate historical contexts in one episode before! And this is episode 73! 

Women in Rome were not given the same freedoms as men. Shocker, I know. They were expected to behave in a particular way - to be seen and not heard, deferential to the husbands and men in their life.

I mean, let’s look at a quick excerpt from Philo’s Hypothetica, written around 40 CE, about 20 years before Boudica’s rebellion. Quote!

“...woman is a selfish creature and addicted to jealousy to a vast degree, and calculating enough to agitate and override the natural instincts of a man, and to mislead him by her continual designs. For she is always working upon dishonest speeches and other sorts of hypocrisy, like an actress on the stage, when she is seducing the eyes and ears of her husband.

End quote.

There’s more, but I think you get the point. According to Philo, women seduce men and override their natural male instincts. Ouch. And this certainly isn’t the only source that sees women in this way, especially women with power - as Vanessa Collingridge notes in her book on Boudica, Rome and other Mediterranean societies were deeply suspicious of women with power, and their innate sexuality was often seen as a threat. 

And if there’s one woman in Roman history that represents dangerous sexuality, it would undeniably be the Queen of the Nile herself, Cleopatra.

Cleopatra was the Queen of Ptolemaic Egypt from 51 to 30 BCE. During that time, she had an affair and a child with Julius Caesar and later married Mark Anthony and had three children with him. She and Mark Anthony ended up committing suicide after the Battle of Actium, where Mark Anthony was defeated by Octavian, who later became the first Roman Emperor Augustus. And although she was a queen in her own right, her affairs with two Roman consuls granted her even more power - a connection to Rome’s powerful elite and all the perks that came with it.

Now did Cleopatra love both Caesar and Mark Anthony? It seems so, yes. By all accounts they were both passionate love affairs. But the matches were also somewhat politically motivated; connecting herself to these powerful men helped guarantee the survival of her kingdom as an independent Kingdom. And that was very much in flux, because Cleopatra was the last Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt. After Cleopatra’s death, her son with Julius Caesar was murdered and Augustus turned Egypt into a Roman province. 

But the bigger picture and connection here is Roman perception of Cleopatra, and more broadly, Roman perception of women in power.

Caesar, once he hooked up with Cleopatra, was seen differently. Many thought he was now portraying himself as a king, one linked up to a foreign, non-Roman queen. I mean listen to the way Cassius Dio describes her. Quote:
For she was a woman of surpassing beauty, and at that time, when she was in the prime of her youth, she was most striking; she also possessed a most charming voice and a knowledge of how to make herself agreeable to everyone. 

Being brilliant to look upon and to listen to, with the power to subjugate everyone, even a love-sated man already past his prime, she thought that it would be in keeping with her role to meet Caesar, and she reposed in her beauty all her claims to the throne. 

She asked therefore for admission to his presence, and on obtaining permission adorned and beautified herself so as to appear before him in the most majestic and at the same time pity-inspiring guise. When she had perfected her schemes she entered the city (for she had been living outside of it), and by night… went into the palace.

End quote

And that goes along with what Philo said - that women seduce men for their own selfish needs. He makes it sound like she was desperate, throwing herself at a man past his prime – which, also, ouch – and though he concedes that she was beautiful, he also said that how she adorned herself, to try to sway Caesar’s affections, was pity-inspiring. Cassius Dio is a jerk.

Here’s another source, this time from the Greek and Roman philosopher Plutarch writing about Cleopatra’s time with Mark Anthony. Quote:

For her beauty, as we are told, was in itself not altogether incomparable, nor such as to strike those who saw her; but [conversations] with her had an irresistible charm, and her presence, combined with the persuasiveness of her discourse and the character which was somehow diffused about her behaviour towards others, had something stimulating about it. There was sweetness also in the tones of her voice; and her tongue, like an instrument of many strings, she could readily turn to whatever language she pleased.

End Quote

Ouch again - they make her out to be this woman who charmed men into doing whatever she pleased. And I love how Plutarch has to open by essentially saying “yeah she’s beautiful, but not, like, so beautiful that she would stand out.”

Other sources called her a foreign seductress, a fatal monster, and “Egypt’s shame.” And those are the more tame descriptions. Vanessa Collingridge notes that “to the watching public in Rome, the new alliance [between Mark Anthony and Cleopatra] shows just how dangerous and corrupting powerful women could be: love was not a respected affliction - it served only to enslave and emasculate powerful men.”

Cleopatra would have been relatively fresh on Rome’s mind when news came about Boudica from Tacitus and later Cassius Dio. If we revisit - briefly - how our two Roman sources described her, they made her out to be very foreign looking, right? She was abnormally tall when compared to Romans, with wild, red-hair. We of course have no idea what Boudicca actually looked like, or even if she really existed, but to be described in this way, by Roman authors with an agenda, was a way to “other” her. To make her seem, as Collingridge succinctly noted, “strange, foreign, and dangerous.” 

Let’s put this description up against what Emperor Augustus reportedly said about the role of a woman in Rome, relayed by our friend Cassius Dio. Quote:
What better than a woman who stays at home, manages the house for you and raises your children; who gives you joy when you are healthy and comfort when you are sick; who shares your successes and consoles you for your failures…”

End quote

Boudica was the antithesis of what patriarchal Roman writers and society expected a woman to look and act like. And that’s part of the reason they attribute such power and might to her rebellion - to make her seem different and perverse, and in turn, to propagandize Roman power. Almost as if through their works they were saying “Thank the gods the Romans quelled these wild people with their weird ways.” A strong warrior queen was seen as such a perversion of the traditional Roman woman and patriarchal social structure that she’d no doubt be seen as a barbarian.
Conclusion
So what are we to make of all of this? We grew up learning of women like Boudica who stood up against the bigger power to fight for her people - but it seems like the more we uncover, and the more we recognize the bias in these old Roman sources, the less we actually know about Boudica and whether or not she even existed.

So what evidence do we actually have? We’ve got two Roman sources that mention Boudica, we know that. But how about coins? We know that iron age rulers have been identified and corroborated with coinage. In fact, a good chunk of the information we know about rulers from this period comes from coins. Do we have any coins with Boudica’s likeness?

No. But – and I’m quoting Collingridge here – it’s hardly surprising because her rule as leader of the Iceni lasted less than a year, and much of that was away from her homeland, fighting the Romans in Colchester, London, and St. Albans.

We’ve got nothing that definitely and concretely points to Boudica’s existence, so much of what we know about the Iceni comes from other finds from that period of time - things found placed next to bodies, shards of pottery, brooches and coins, the remains of structures buried in the earth… archaeology and metal detecting continue to paint a broad picture of life for iron age Britons, and we are continually learning more and more about the different tribes as we continue to explore and uncover more artifacts.

We know, for example, and I know I mentioned this already, that there were attacks on Colchester, London, and St. Albans. We’ve got the archaeological evidence that corroborates the Roman sources. But we haven’t yet found evidence of that final battle where, supposedly, Boudica faced a much larger Roman army, lost, and then died quietly of either poison or illness.

Some historians and archaeologists believe that she was a real person, and that perhaps she was one of many tribal leaders who rebelled against Rome in 60 CE - the argument is that that scale of rebellion would have been difficult for one tribal leader to manage on her own. They argue that she was the only one extensively written about in Tacitus and Dio because she was a woman, which would make for a more interesting read back in Rome. And of course, we know that much of the Roman texts, especially the ones written decades or centuries after the event in question, had an agenda. 

In fact, were it not for the Romans, she would have been completely forgotten to history. It is precisely because they embellished who she was, her role in the battle, and her rebellion in Britannia that her legend has become engrained in British culture. It’s important to note that – like the legend of Robin Hood – her story has changed over time to suit the needs of the people telling it. 

Perhaps in today’s world, and at least to a wee little Kelli who was told her name meant she was a warrior, Boudica represents the power and strength of women in a time when women didn’t typically have any. She showed our generation of girls that women could be warriors, too. And that we could be symbols of strength, resistance, and nationalism.

Though we know little about the woman herself, if she even existed, we continue to learn more and more about the world she comes from. Boudica just happens to be one of those popular figures who represents that world. She is no longer just a woman who may or may not have ruled her people through a rebellion against the Romans. She is a metaphor for nationalism, culture, femininity, and power. Our interpretation of her role will continually shift, much like it did for the Romans writing about her. Who knows what more we’ll discover about her, if anything, but I can guarantee her legend will live on and be retold by generations long after we’re gone.
Outro
Thanks for joining me for this episode of A Popular History of Unpopular Things! My name is Kelli Beard, and I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode on Boudica, the legendary iron age warrior queen. Thank you for tuning into my podcast, and check out some of the other episodes if you want more!

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Kelli Beard

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