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BOUDICA - QUEEN OF THE ICENI
Boudica or Boudicca (/ˈbuːdɪkə, boʊˈdɪkə/, from Brythonic *boudi 'victory, win' + *-ka 'having' suffix, i.e. 'Victorious Woman', known in Latin chronicles as Boadicea or Boudicea, was an ancient Celtic red-haired warrior Queen of the ancient Iceni tribe in eastern England.
Iceni is pronounced as eye-SEEN-eye: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceni
Boudicca led an uprising against the conquering forces of the Roman Empire in 60 AD or 61 AD.
She is considered as a British national heroine and a symbol of the struggle for justice and independence in the British Isles, against the expansive Roman Empire which already ruled over much of continental Europe.
Boudica's husband Prasutagus, with whom she had two daughters, ruled as a nominally independent ally of Rome.
He left his kingdom jointly to his daughters and to the Roman emperor in his will.
When he died, his will was ignored, and the kingdom was annexed and his property taken.
According to the Roman historian Tacitus, Boudicca was flogged and her daughters were raped by the Romans.
The historian Cassius Dio wrote that previous imperial donations to influential Britons were confiscated and the Roman financier and philosopher Seneca called in the loans he had forced on the reluctant Britons.
In 60/61, Boudica led the Iceni and other British tribes in revolt. They destroyed Camulodunum (modern Colchester), earlier the capital of the Trinovantes, but at that time a colonia for discharged Roman soldiers.
Upon hearing of the revolt, the Roman governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus hurried from the island of Mona (modern Anglesey) to Londinium (the Roman name for the city which would later be shortened to London,) the 20-year-old commercial settlement that was the rebels' next target. Unable to defend the settlement, he evacuated and abandoned it.
Boudica's army defeated a detachment of the Legio IX Hispana, and burnt both Londinium and Verulamium.
In all, an estimated 70,000–80,000 Romans and Britons were killed by Boudica's followers.
Suetonius, meanwhile, regrouped his forces, possibly in the West Midlands, and despite being heavily outnumbered, he decisively defeated the Britons.
Boudica died shortly afterwards, either by illness or by suicide (as with Queen Cleopatra of Egypt who committed suicide rather than face humiliation of being captured by the invading Roman forces.)
Her burial site remains a mystery.
The crisis of 60/61 caused Nero to consider withdrawing all his imperial forces from Britain, but Suetonius's victory over Boudica confirmed Roman control of the province.
Interest in these events was revived in the English Renaissance and led to Boudica's fame in the Victorian era and as a cultural symbol in Britain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudica
A momument dedicated to Queen Boudicca and her daughters near Westminster Pier and close the UK Houses of Parliament in the City of Westminster, Central London.
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