The Historians' History of the World 06

The Romans were so dismayed at the sight that, as they came to land, they at first stood motionless to be struck down by every assailant. But this panic lasted only for a moment. Recalled by the cries of their chiefs to a sense of discipline, of duty, of danger, they closed their ranks, advanced their standards, struck, broke, and trampled on the foe before them, and applied his own torches to his machines and wagons. The rout was complete; the fugitives, flung back by the sea, had no further place of retreat. The island was seamed with Roman entrenchments, the groves cut down or burned, and every trace speedily abolished of the foul rites by which Hesus had been propitiated or the wall of Taranis consulted.

From this moment the Druids disappear from the page of history; they were exterminated, we may believe, upon their own altars; for Suetonius took no half measures. But whatever were his further designs for the final pacification of the province, they were interrupted by the sudden outbreak of a revolt in his rear. The Iceni, as has been said, had submitted, after their great overthrow, to the yoke of the invaders: their king, Prasutagus, had been allowed indeed to retain his nominal sovereignty; but he was placed under the control of Roman officials; his people were required to contribute to the Roman treasury: their communities were incited to a profuse expenditure to which their resources were unequal; while the exactions imposed on them were so heavy that they were compelled to borrow largely, and entangle themselves in the meshes of the Roman money lenders. The great capitalists of the city, wealthy courtiers, and prosperous freedmen, advanced the sums they called for at exorbitant interest; from year to year they found themselves less able to meet their obligations, and mortgaged property and person to their unrelenting creditors. Among the immediate causes of the insurrection which followed, is mentioned the sudden calling in by Seneca, the richest of philosophers, of the large investments he had made, which he seemed in danger of losing altogether.

But the oppression of the Romans was not confined to these transactions. Prasutagus, in the hope of propitiating the provincial government to his family, had bequeathed his dominions to the republic. He expected perhaps that his wife and his children, who were also females, if not allowed to exercise even a nominal sovereignty after him, would at least be treated in consequence with the respect due to their rank, and secured in the enjoyment of ample means and consideration. This was the fairest lot that remained to the families of the dependent chieftains, and the Romans had not often grudged it them. But an insolent official, placed in charge of these new acquisitions after the death of Prasutagus, forgot in their instance what was due to the birth and even the sex of the wretched princesses. He suspected them perhaps of secreting a portion of their patrimony, and did not scruple to employ stripes to recover it from the mother, while he surrendered her tender children to even worse indignities.

The War with Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni

Boadicea, the widowed queen of the Iceni, was a woman of masculine spirit. Far from succumbing under the cruelty of her tyrants and hiding the shame of her family, she went forth into the public places, exhibited the scars of her wounds and the fainting forms of her abused daughters, and adjured her people to take a desperate revenge. The Iceni were stung to frenzy at their sovereign’s wrongs, at their own humiliation. The danger, the madness, of the attempt was considered by none for a moment. They rose as one man; there was no power at hand to control them; the Roman officials fled, or, if arrested, were slaughtered; and a vast multitude, armed and unarmed, rolled southward to overwhelm and extirpate the intruders. To the Colne, to the Thames, to the sea, the country lay entirely open. The legions were all removed to a distance, the towns were unenclosed, the Roman traders settled in them were untrained to arms. Even the Claudian colony was undefended. The procurator, Catus Decianus, was at the moment absent, and being pressed for succour, could send no more than two hundred soldiers for its protection. Little reliance could be placed on the strength of a few worn-out veterans: the natives, however specious their assurances, were not unjustly distrusted, for they too, like the Iceni, had suffered their share of insolence and ill-treatment. The great temple of Claudius was a standing monument of their humiliation; for its foundation their estates had been confiscated, for its support their tribute was required, and they regarded the native chiefs who had been enrolled in its service as victims or traitors.