Ever since 1987, March has been designated Women’s History Month. And in honor of that tradition, we at Her Campus Binghamton would like to give a shout out to all of the awesome women in history and on campus.
And to start it off, here’s Boudica.
Reaching back into the bowels of history, you’ll find this Iceni Queen really kicked some butt back around 43 AD. She was married to the king of the Iceni tribe and was of royal descent herself. And at that time, Rome was the big baddie in the area. The King, Prasutagus, had decided to protect his land and his people, he’d strike up a peace treaty with Rome. And, as was custom, in his will, he wanted his wife and daughters to be co-heirs with the Roman Empire.
Of course, things didn’t play out the way he had planned once Prasutagus died, come on, when did the Romans ever play fair? And they decided not to honor the ‘co-heir’ thing, since they didn’t see women as being able to inherit. So they planned on taking Iceni just like they had taken other tribal areas during that time. The Romans went in, and legend has it that they even beat Boudica and her daughters were raped and the loan sharks were called in.
But the question arises, did Boudica just roll over and let them do all of this to them? Ha! Of course not, we wouldn’t be writing about how awesome she was if she had. Instead, she round up a group of rebels who named Boudica as their leader and they started a campaign across the Roman Empire in England. They demoulished a city and the Roman troops inside and then set their sights on modern-day London. The Romans abandoned Londinium and Boudica and her people burnt down that city and continued onwards.
Finally, the Romans had the courage to collect an army to fight against the cause, at which point the rebel army had 230,000 people in it. Boudica, at this point, was not claiming to be a Queen out for revenge for her country but rather a normal person fighting back for her pride, her lost lands and heritage and the lost purity of her daughters.
Unfortunately, the Britons lost that battle, were trampled by a more organized force. And legend has it that Boudica either killed herself or died of an illness. But whatever the case was, she’s been considered a hero since her story was brought back to light during the Renaissance. She’s just awesome like that.