Elodie Harper

For me in particular, the destruction of London

is really interesting given it's the current capital city and one of our most famous kind of British folk heroes destroyed the capital city.

It's just because, of course, at this point, it wasn't a native capital city.

It was a colony that had been imposed on Britain.

Yeah, she was.

And I think in sort of Roman imagination, only maybe Hannibal is a more sort of horrifying figure in terms of the what if of humiliation, because Hannibal obviously threatened Roman Italy itself.

But still, as a kind of powerful foreign force,

leader that almost exacts the utter humiliation of defeat.

Boudicca is pretty high on their list

And she didn't succeed for a number of reasons.

I mean, some of the neighboring tribes don't seem to have supported her.

So you've got Togidubnus or Cogidubnus down in Chichester and Fishbourne Palace, which makes an appearance in the book.

He probably got Fishbourne Palace as a reward for not joining Boudicca.

You know, she wasn't.

Cartimandua in the north with the Brigantes also stayed loyal to Rome.

The rebellion did not happen in all places all at once.

So there's that aspect.

There's also the battle techniques.

Again, we only have the Roman account of this, but I think it is worth bearing in mind that Agricola probably was present at that battle that Tacitus records.

And so Boudicca was defeated in the end, probably for a variety of factors.