Classical Poetry

Boudicca

A Royal Briton and noble lady,
Queen Boudicca, whose name means Victory,
Was very tall, possessed great intellect,
Had an ornate golden torc 'bout her neck.
Down to her hips fell the tawniest hair,
In her eyes was a glare of fiercest fire,
Coloured tunic, brooch fixed mantle attire
Unchanging, terrifying to behold,
So say the ancient authors of times old,
Both Tacitus and Cassius Dio,
Around sixty of the Common Era
Arose Norfolk's British Queen: Boudicca,
Widow of famed rich chief Prasutagus,
Had made Nero his heir with two daughters,
To keep Kingdom and household free from harm,
The opposite happened. Centurions
Pillaged both, enslaved them as spoils of war,
Beat Boudicca and raped both their daughters.
Thus, stripped of their ancestral possessions,
Boudicca began armed insurrection,
With the Trinovantes 'gainst the Romans,
Along with the other tribes of Britons
Not yet broken, pledged to regain freedom.

With bitterest hatred for veterans,
The recent settlers at Colchester,
Were evicting folks from their fields and homes,
Supported by the cruel Roman soldiers.
Claudius' statue too caused resentment,
An altar to eternal enslavement.
From the theatre and senate were heard groans,
The Thames' reflection showed towns overthrown,
At high-tide's ebb, the Channel ran blood-red,
Good omen for Britons, for Romans: dread.
At this time on Mona was Rome's army,
Home of the druids, some say Anglesey,
But maybe could've been the isle of Caldey,
Two hundred miles from Colchester, Pliny
The Elder wrote. Thus Suetonius
Paulinus' four legions were not around,
So the garrison asked Decianus
Catus, but Boudicca raised two whole towns,
The country's capital: Londinium,
Fell after the first: Camulodunum.
Petillius Cerialis met them,
Legate of the famed Roman Ninth Legion,
Her army killed all of their infantry,
Their horse fled to base and there sought safety.
A land forced to war from Catus' greed,
Boudicca took no pris'ners, and indeed
Catus soon fled to Gaul in sheer terror,
As all was destroyed by sword and fire.
Her next target was Verulamium,
Saint Albans, where Su'tonius had come,
With more troops than just the Fourteenth Legion,
All in all around ten-thousand armed men,
Yet Boudicca's army outnumbered them.

He chose a narrow place beside a wood,
In open plains, with no fear of ambush,
Boudicca held aloft her long spear,
Went around the tribes, her daughters with her,
And from her chariot, spoke that they'd hear:

"Though I am the offspring of noble birth,
I fight not for a Kingdom nor mere wealth,
I'm but a woman seeking liberty,
They violated daughters' purity,
And after their rapes, brutally beat me!
A legion that dared fight us did perish
And now hides, trying to flee us British!
So weigh our numbers, war's reasons to be,
We'll either perish, or know victory!"

The Britons, untrained and unarmoured,
Not lacking courage but be'ng unstructured
Fell, Icarus-like, beneath Roman steel,
On that fateful day Britons lost the field,
Some say Boudicca died of a fever,
Or imbibed poison so said another;
Yet some seventeen-hundred years later,
Long after Rome had fallen, passed away,
Regions Caesar never knew, since did sway,
Britain rose, none invincible as they.