MovieChat Forums > Barbarians Rising (2016) Discussion > Queen Boudicca wasn't killed in battle

Queen Boudicca wasn't killed in battle


Queen Boudicca did not die in the final showdown with the Romans, as the show Barbarians Rising implies. Though over 80,000 Britons died and the rebellion was crushed, all Roman sources agree Boudicca herself escaped the battlefield. One Roman account states she committed suicide shortly after with poison, while another states she died of illness several years later. The Roman histories are silent about the fate of her daughters.

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Dramatic license.

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A documentary is not supposed to use dramatic license. A documentary is supposed to present the facts.

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Boudicca was weak.

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Boudicca was weak.

Excuse me? She may have lost the war, however she burned three Roman settlements to the ground and killed over more than 50 thousand people.
And discussing weak, when the procurator Catus Decianus, who started this whole war by ordering her beating and her daughter's rape, heard she was heading to Londinium with her army, he ran away to Gaul because he was so scared of her.

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" when the procurator Catus Decianus, who started this whole war by ordering her beating and her daughter's rape, heard she was heading to Londinium with her army, he ran away to Gaul because he was so scared of her."


Don't buy into the American Hollywood version of British History EVER, there is not one solitary example where the Americans have not ripped it inside out, added things which are BS, embellished things and ultimately made somebody a hero at the end.

The rape of the daughter and herself makes us British roll our eyes up, it was not a big deal ... if it ever happened. They were unwashed stinky savages who would have had sex with a donkey if it got them somewhere, and it would be unsurprising if they did it for joy. She was not attractive, likely had facial hair and matted hair on her head. The daughter too. She united a few tribes and they attacked COLCHESTER and killed the small garrison of Romans who were out numbered and put up no real fight.

Londinium was a large town at the time, not a sprawling city. Put it this way, until 1066 Winchester was the capital of England, then both Winchester and London served as capital cities until the 12th Century. Londinium was no big deal for over a 1000 years before this.

Anyway, I say Boudicca was weak because she took her own life. The statues around Britain of a woman in a chariot with a spear and shield is not Boudicca, it is Britannia.

She attacked a couple of Roman garrisons, neither of them were on the scale of the embellished scenes in this show and she paid the price, then the Romans finished establishing their trade settlements, building advanced roads between them and stayed for a further 400 years until the rise of the Germanic Tribes. Boudicca was not really significant in British History. All she achieved was getting people slaughtered and finding death via suicide because she was too scared to face the Romans. Total coward. The way these shows and the films before it glorify her is ridiculous.

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Interesting that you'd say rape is 'not a big deal'.

Also, history narratives of the time apparently give conflicting accounts of her death.


According to Tacitus in his Annals, Boudica poisoned herself, though in the Agricola which was written almost twenty years prior he mentions nothing of suicide and attributes the end of the revolt to socordia ("indolence"); Dio says she fell sick and died and then was given a lavish burial; though this may be a convenient way to remove her from the story. Considering Dio must have read Tacitus, it is worth noting he mentions nothing about suicide (which was also how Postumus and Nero ended their lives).



In addition I wouldn't consider any one "weak" if they could do this:

The insurgents burned Camulodunum (Colchester), Verulamium (St. Albans), the mart of Londinium (London), and several military posts; massacred (according to Tacitus) 70,000 Romans and pro-Roman Britons; and cut to pieces the Roman 9th Legion.


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Anyway, I say Boudicca was weak because she took her own life.

Didn't Cleopatra do the same? Or do you support the theory that Octavius killed her and covered it up with the suicide story.

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Cleopatra is nothing to do with this eries.

If Boudicca was a heroic leader, how is suicide a display of strength?

If Augustus killed Cleopatra that would have made sense, but why would the powerful leader of the known World feel the need to cover it up with a suicide story?

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In Japan it is considered courageous to commit suicide, I imagine you are well aware of harakiri or seppuku. Either way, to claim they would sleep with anyone is presumptuous, and no one would find it trivial to have your enemy lash you and raped your daughters, even if they would sleep with donkeys. All I am really getting here is your disdain for women. It takes strength and conviction to rally warring tribes against a mutual enemy, that much is for sure, and she did that, no matter how she might have died, she fought back and that takes strength as well.

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If Boudicca was a heroic leader, how is suicide a display of strength?


Obviously you know nothing of the mentality of ancient people.

It was considered to be a courageous and honourable act to take your own life, rather than be captured and killed or made into a slave by your enemy. Read any ancient text if you don't believe me. Committing suicide was the only way out.

"You have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love, I love, I love you." Mr Darcy

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you sound like a total c_nt, how nice of you to feel your superior enough to judge people as strong or weak. i doubt you would have survived a second living in ancient times. the fact boudica tried to rebel against the romans is strength in and of itself. further more i trust the actual scholars and historians regarding boudica'. her dying by suicide is NOT a fact. theres conflicting theories regarding her death fyi you pretty much lost all credibility when you said rape was not a big deal.

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Boudicca is not the person you see in films and TV shows.

At the time of the Roman occupation Britain was a savage place. Death was as common as tripping over. Romans had zero tolerance. Bring raped or put to the sword, rape would not have seemed the big a deal you think it was. The whole culture at the time was savage rape, whether in the tribes itself, the Romans forcing their will or the Germanic Tribes who came later raping everybody. The Vikings were renowned for raping men.

Yet all of this is played down in screen adaptions about these times. It;s why you and others are clueless about the prevalence of rape in those times. If you had genuinely read the books by renowned historians and other scholars you would not be on the internet reputing what I say and calling me a vile word.


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... until the rise of the Germanic Tribes


Then the Romans were weak! 😭

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The Romans were weak in the end because they were spread over their vast empire too thinly.

When the Romans left Britain, there was not enough of them to quell an uprising or revolt of the Britons if it happened. By this time the Romans and Britons were largely living in harmony, many of the Britons becoming Roman citizens too. The Romans did a good job warning the Britons of what was coming regarding the Germanic tribes and they apologised for not being able to help the Britons. They then headed to Rome like all the other Romans around their empire, all recalled to protect Rome from the Goths.

Boudicca was 4 centuries before this when Imperial Rome was at it's peak.

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The Romans were weak in the end because they had been decimated by diseases from the East, to which the barbarians had both greater immunity and protection because they did not live in crowded cities.

Like all good Pyramid Schemes, Empires start the road to decline when they have no more neighbours to steal from.

The table turns and instead they lose their self sufficiency, are forced to pay tribute after failed military campaigns, and waste what's left in in-fighting.

America is facing that today. It is so fat, lazy and stupid that the remaining brighter citizens spend most of their time vainly justifying the need to know, and pay attention to the mass morons. Education is a joke, Science is a matter of opinion, and everyone thinks they will get their 5 minutes of fame by tweeting "I'm amazing!" and posting endless narcissistic selfies.

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This is a solid comparative peterbreis.

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Gemma Philips, it's nice to be reminded that psychopaths are a prominent part of the landscape around here.

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