The Truth About Boudica and Her Resistance Against the Romans
Champion of the oppressed, a feminist icon, or a brutal murderer?
If you visit London, you will see a magnificent bronze statue of a warrior queen facing Big Ben. She rides a chariot with a spear in her hand, draped in a flowing gown. The brave warrior’s daughters are crouching next to her. Two horses pull the chariot, but no one is in control of the reins.
The statue is of Queen Boudica, a British symbol of resistance to Roman tyranny. Thomas Thornycroft built it in the late 19th century. Named Boadicea and Her Daughters, the statue was inaugurated in 1902.
Boudica was not only revered as a freedom fighter but also as an icon of the early 20th-century suffragette movement. Women’s rights activists in Britain recognized her as an early feminist who defied the Roman patriarchy.
Writers over the past two centuries had a major impact on shaping our perception of historical characters from the ancient eras.
How realistic are these depictions? Or was there an ulterior motive for constructing an adored persona to unite people around a common ideological cause?
We often lose nuances when we glorify a character. The same thing happened to Boudica. People in the “glorious past”…
