Battle of Watling Street

Roman Britain with Watling Street highlighted in red.

Date

AD 60 or 61

Location

Watling Street

Result

Decisive Roman victory

End of Boudica's revolt
Roman rule secured

Belligerents

Roman Empire

Iceni, Trinovantes, and other British peoples

Commanders and leaders

Gaius Suetonius Paulinus

Boudica KIA

Strength

10,000

Dio claims 230,000; Plus women, children and non-combatants

Casualties and losses

Tacitus claims 400

Tacitus claims 80,000

Decisive Roman victory

The Battle of Watling Street took place in Roman-occupied Britain in AD 60 or 61 between an alliance of indigenous British peoples led by Boudica and a Roman army led by Gaius Suetonius Paulinus. Although heavily outnumbered, the Romans decisively defeated the allied tribes, inflicting heavy losses on them. The battle marked the end of resistance to Roman rule in Britain in the southern half of the island, a period that lasted until 410 AD.

Historians are dependent on Roman sources for accounts of the battle. The precise location is not known, but most historians place it between Londinium and Viroconium (Wroxeter in Shropshire), on the Roman Road now known as Watling Street. This name for the road originated in Anglo-Saxon times, thus the modern name of the battle is anachronistic as well as being somewhat speculative.

In AD 43, Rome invaded south-eastern Britain. The conquest was gradual. While some kingdoms were defeated militarily and occupied, others remained nominally independent as allies of the Roman empire.

One such people was the Iceni in what is now Norfolk. Their king, Prasutagus, secured his independence by leaving his lands jointly to his daughters and to the Roman emperor, Nero, in his will. But when he died, in 61 or shortly before, his will was ignored. The Romans seized his lands and violently humiliated his family: his widow, Boudica, was flogged and their daughters raped. Roman financiers called in their loans, which must have placed an increased burden of taxation on the Iceni.

...
Wikipedia