Myths and Legends of the World

The humiliating flogging of the Iceni Queen Boadicea was truly a defining moment in the history of corporal punishment and prompted a violent and unexpected backlash which took the occupying Roman army by surprise and forced it into a terrible and bloody conflict. Boadicea was the wife of Prasutagus, King of the Iceni, a tribe whose lands spanned the modern counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and parts of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire. Prasutagus ruled his people through a long period of Roman occupation and, politically astute, had allied himself with his Roman conquerors in order to guarantee a peaceful life for his people. The Romans were prepared to allow this arrangement, like most occupying armies, on the basis of mutual benefit. However by the year 60 AD, Roman patience with the ancient Britons was running very low and anger had replaced tolerance, particularly following an attempt to subdue the ancient Isle of Mona, long a refuge for Druids and discontented Britons who wish...