Boudicca: The Warrior Queen by M. J. Trow & Taliesin Trow

Author:M. J. Trow & Taliesin Trow [Trow, M. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Thistle Publishing
Published: 2015-07-14T06:00:00+00:00

Quintus Veranius had only conducted minor raids against the Silures when death terminated his operations. His life had been famous for its austerity. But his testamentary last words were glaringly self-seeking for they grossly flattered Nero,101

He added that Veranius, if he had lived two years longer, would have presented the Emperor with the whole province.

Various commentators have expressed doubts that Veranius was being literal here, but Tacitus seems pretty clear and Veranius did have something of a ‘go-getter’ reputation. He had fought in the 40s in the mountains of Cilicia, and the Greek military theorist Onasander102 dedicated his book on generalship to him, a work which remained popular until the Renaissance.

However vainglorious Veranius’ boast to Nero may have been – and this could merely have been a throwaway line to impress the increasingly erratic emperor or to keep him quiet - the new governor actually achieved nothing and was replaced in 58 by Gaius Suetonius Paulinus.

Three lines after he introduces him to us, Tacitus has the new man launching an attack on the Druids on Mona. But he had already been in the province for two and a half years by then and, had he been wise, would have paid a complimentary visit to all the client kings to remind them whose side they were on. Whether he went to meet Prasutagus and Boudicca is unrecorded. Tacitus tells us he was Corbulo’s rival in military science ‘which makes everybody compete. He was ambitious to achieve victories as glorious as the reconquest of Armenia.103’

Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo was governor of lower Germany in 47 and had a reputation as a strict martinet. In the year that Paulinus landed in Britain, Corbulo took up a similar position in Cappodocia and established a client king, Tigranes, on the Armenian throne. Had Paulinus been able to augur the future, however, he might not have been so keen to compete with Corbulo. Like others who were too successful, Nero became jealous of him and ordered him to commit suicide in October 66.

The very fact that Prasutagus left a will at all is an indication of how far the Iceni client kingdom was already developing into a civitas. It was merely Nero’s greed and high-handed Roman handling of the situation locally that put this development, however temporarily, on hold. Although Caesar wrote that the Druids used a written alphabet, largely Greek, to carry out business and mundane matters, and it is likely that will-making might have been a function of the priesthood, there is no hard evidence that it this was so. In view of how Prasutagus bequeathed his kingdom, it is likely that this was done with the connivance of Roman officials.

Until the law was changed in the Provinces in favour of Greek in the third century, all wills in the Empire had to be drawn up in Latin. We do not know if this was the case in Prasutagus’ arrangements, but it seems likely. Wills were very specific and sometimes drawn up with all the spite endemic among ‘nearest and dearest’ to this day.

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