Boudicca and the Fridge Magnets

The souvenir stall is built right up against the plinth, so the caps and the fridge magnets sit at eye level and Boudicca is above them with her spear raised. She led the revolt that burned Roman London to the ground, and here she is now, the roof over a rack of I ♥ LONDON signs.

TIL that she led a revolt against the Romans in Britain and burned London to the ground.

Boudicca’s husband, Prasutagus, was king of the Iceni (in what is now Norfolk) as a client under Roman suzerainty. When Prasutagus died in 60 with no male heir, he left his private wealth to his two daughters and to the emperor Nero, trusting thereby to win imperial protection for his family. Instead, the Romans annexed his kingdom, humiliated his family, and plundered the chief tribesmen. While the provincial governor Suetonius Paulinus was absent in 60 or 61, Boudicca raised a rebellion throughout East Anglia. The insurgents burned Camulodunum (Colchester), Verulamium (St. Albans), the mart of Londinium (London), and several military posts. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, Boudicca’s rebels massacred 70,000 Romans and pro-Roman Britons and cut to pieces the Roman 9th Legion. Paulinus met the Britons at a point thought to be near present-day Fenny Stratford on Watling Street and regained the province in a desperate battle. Upon her loss, Boudicca either took poison or died of shock or illness.

Considered a national heroine of England, Boudicca inspired numerous books and movies.

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