Roman Holiday

Country Roads

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-"

As Reyna disassociates and our IT team attempts to reset her, let us take a step back for a shameless info dump to better explain her horror.

Boudica.

The name alone was enough to make even the most seasoned of Roman legionnaires shake in their boots.

And for good reason.

See, back around sixty A.D., Rome had established a foothold in the British Isles after sending wave after wave of soldiers for years like some sort of tower defense game. Through various means such as diplomacy, trade, and violent, bloody war, many of the local kingdoms and tribes were convinced to form alliances with the great empire. Many were allowed to self-govern as they pleased- just so long as they paid tribute to Rome.

And that's where Boudica comes in...

Boudica was the queen of the Iceni, a tribe in eastern Britain allied with Rome, and would have faded into the pages of history if not for the death of her husband, Prasutagus. The king died and, in his will, left the kingdom to both his daughters and the emperor of Rome so that the status quo would be maintained.

It is important to note that the emperor at that time was one Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.

Yeah... You know where this is going...

Prasutagus' will was completely ignored, and Rome claimed the kingdom as its own. Some Romans say the annexation was because of back taxes, insane interest rates on loans, and other bureaucratic nonsense to justify the forced annexation, but they all grow silent and look at their sandals when asked if Rome's next actions were justified.

For besides using military force to assert their dominance over the kingdom, the Romans flogged Boudica to an inch of her life and raped her daughters. The Romans thought that this show of power would not just bring the Iceni in line but serve as a warning to the other tribes as well.

In military terms, this is known as a "massive fuck up."

Because those unspeakable travesties didn't break the proud Boudica as they hoped.

It only pissed her off.

With fire in her veins, and lightning in her eyes, the tawny queen rallied her kingdom and its allies into action, hellbent on driving the Roman scourge from their lands once and for all. Her war party washed across the land, first destroying the colonia of Camulodunum; killing the inhabits and desecrating the temple of Emperor Claudius. Two hundred Romans were sent to help the ransacked city, but only the commander and a few calvary escaped Boudica's wrath.

Emboldened by their victory, the warrior queen's forces turned their eyes to the Roman capital of Londinium. The Romans, still struggling to gather their forces and organize a counterattack, were forced to abandon the city and leave its inhabitants to fend for themselves. Anyone who did not flee before the arrival of Boudica were slain, and the city was razed until only ash and bone remained.

Boudica did not fuck around.

While uprisings were a common part of the Roman Empire and rarely received much attention in Rome, the Warrior Queen's was different. The sheer ferocity combined with the distance of the isles (not to mention the divine factors) had Nero's complete attention. The emperor was already an unpopular figure among Rome's elite, and the prospect of losing such hard-fought territory would only further tarnish his image. And a tarnished image was a death sentence in the world of politics- often quite literally.

Thankfully for Nero, the Roman forces managed to unite and, though heavily outnumbered, managed to defeat Boudica's forces.

Bummer, right?