Boadicea

Boudica (Boudicca), also known as Boadicea was queen of the British Iceni tribe who led an uprising against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire.

In AD 60 or 61, while the Roman governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, was leading a campaign on the island of Anglesey in northern Wales, Boudica led the Iceni people, along with the Trinovantes and others, in revolt.

A crisis caused the emperor Nero to consider withdrawing all Roman forces from the island, but Suetonius' eventual victory over Boudica secured Roman control of the province. Boudica then killed herself so she would not be captured, or fell ill and died; the extant sources differ.

The roman invasion

The Roman conquest of Britain began in AD 43 under Emperor Claudius, whose general Aulus Plautius served as first governor of Britannia.

Augustus prepared invasions in 34 BC, 27 BC and 25 BC. The first and third were called off due to revolts elsewhere in the empire, the second because the Britons seemed ready to come to terms.

By the 40s AD, the political situation within Britain was apparently in ferment.

Roman occupation was withdrawn to a line subsequently established as one of the limes of the empire by the construction of Hadrian's Wall. An attempt was made to push this line north. This was once again abandoned after two decades. The Romans retreated to the earlier and stronger Hadrian's Wall. Roman troops, however, penetrated far into the north of modern Scotland several more times. The most notable was in 209 when the emperor Septimus Severus campaigned against the Caledonian Confederacy. He repaired and reinforced Hadrian’s Wall with a degree of thoroughness that led most subsequent Roman authors to attribute the construction to him.

Hadrian’s Wall

Hadrian's Wall was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall, lesser known of the two because its physical remains are less evident today.

The wall was the most heavily fortified border in the Empire. In addition to its role as a military fortification, it is thought that many of the gates through the wall would have served as customs posts to allow trade and levy taxation.

A significant portion of the wall still exists, particularly the mid-section, and for much of its length the wall can be followed on foot by Hadrian's Wall Path or by cycle on National Cycle Route 72. It is the most popular tourist attraction in Northern England. It was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. English Heritage, a government organization in charge of managing the historic environment of England, describes it as "the most important monument built by the Romans in Britain".

The Roman Towns

The Romans built Britain's first towns. They built towns all over Britain as centers to administer the people they had conquered. Within 17 years of the invasion, they had several major towns in place.

The Roman towns were full of fine buildings and temples where the Roman gods were worshipped. The Romans liked everything to be organized and orderly. Streets were laid out in neat, straight lines, like on a chess-board. In the middle there was a large square, called the forum. It was used as a market place and for meetings. Most towns would also have shops as well as the forum. At one end of the forum was a large building called the basilica.

Throughout their empire the Romans built towns in exactly the same style. They were designed in the form of a grid, with streets built at right angles to each other and parallel with one of the two main roads. The streets of Roman towns were between five and eight metres wide. Their width depended upon their importance. Buildings were made of stone and brick.

The three largest were London, Colchester and St. Albans. Colchester was their main town.