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To: BIRDS

And the Welsh? Were there no people in Wales? Were they
not Celtic? Do they not count?


7 posted on 07/10/2005 4:36:10 AM PDT by doberville (Angels can fly when they take themselves lightly)
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To: doberville
There was a tribe in Wales called the Silures. The Druidic center of Mona was on the Island of Angelsey [sp.?]The Iceni revolt occurred when over half of the Roman Army in Britain [total approx. 4 legions] was attacking Mona, and wiping out the druids.

The leader of the revolt was Boudacca, queen, and wife of Prestergaeus, who had been a client king of Rome. When he died he willed half his kingdom to Rome, the other half to Boudacca. Rome refused to recognize the will. Then a Roman official sent to collect the taxes [Rome now considered the Iceni direct Roman subjects] had Boudacca publicly flogged and her two daughters raped [a bad example of early U.N peacekeeping]. Boudacca, her Iceni and Trinovanti allies then swept south, burning both Chester and London to the ground. They massacred every Roman and Womanized Briton they could lay their hands on, and inflicted a defeat on part of the IXth Legion "Hispania" [later vanished in Scotland], and a few other smaller units.

Boudacca then turned northwest, toward the two legions which had disengaged from the Druids [they finished them off later] and were moving southwest.

In the battle that followed Boudacca made several major mistakes. First, she let the Romans select the battlefield. Second, she covered the rear of her Army with a line of their baggage wagons, and transport wagons that brought their families to the battlefield. She may have done this due to confidence in her numbers. Roman sources claim her army numbered 100,000. That number may have included the camp followers. Roman numbers are given as anywhere from 7,000-12,000 men.

The Celtic infantry's charge was broken by several volleys of pila. With the front lines in shambles, Celts pressing from the rear packed the British together, unable to wield their long swords to advantage. At that point, the Romans advanced, the close order allowing for optimal use of the Gladius Hispaniensis. When the Celts broke, and tried to flee, they were pinned against their own wagons. Boudacca was not found. Legend has it that she, and her two daughters committed suicide. The Roman sources claim that for losses ranging from 60-400 men, they killed 80,000 Celts, and sold most of the captured families into slavery. They then marched on the Iceni and Trinovanti homelands and massacred almost everyone they laid their hands on. The battle was so one sided, and the repression so Roman, Boudacca's was the last revolt of a tribe in Celtic Britain south of what would eventually be Hadrian's Wall.
8 posted on 07/10/2005 5:02:25 AM PDT by PzLdr ("The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am" - Darth Vader)
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