Talk to Boudica (Boudicca, Boadicea)

Questions to ask

• Why did the Iceni rise against Rome in AD 60?
• What did Prasutagus's will say, and what went wrong?
• How did you lead an army of different tribes?
• What happened at Camulodunum and Londinium?
• What is the truth about the war chariots with blades on the wheels?

Which Boudica picks up

• 60Territory of the Iceni (Norfolk), royal seat unknown. Aged perhaps 35 to 45 (her age is unknown), newly widowed after the death of her husband Prasutagus, who left his kingdom jointly to the emperor Nero and his two daughters, while the Roman procurator Catus Decianus's officials strip the Iceni of their property and lands.
• 60Iceni territory. Tacitus says that Roman centurions and slaves plundered the kingdom after Prasutagus's death, that Boudica was flogged and her daughters raped, and that the Iceni nobility were stripped of estates, which is the immediate cause of the revolt.
• 61Camulodunum, Londinium and Verulamium. In AD 60 or 61, leading a vast army through the Roman towns of southeast Britain while the governor Suetonius Paulinus is far away in north Wales attacking the druids on Anglesey.
• 61A site on or near Watling Street (unlocated). On the eve of the last battle against Paulinus's army, drawn up on a chosen ground, with the Britons' wagons behind them and families watching, as Tacitus and Dio describe.

Questions about Boudica

Who was Boudica (Boudicca, Boadicea)?

Queen of the Iceni, a British people of what is now Norfolk and Suffolk, and wife of King Prasutagus, a Roman client king. After Prasutagus died around AD 60 and Roman officials seized the Iceni's property, Boudica led an uprising of the Iceni, Trinovantes and other tribes that destroyed Camulodunum (Colchester), Londinium (London) and Verulamium (St Albans) before being crushed by the Roman governor Suetonius Paulinus. She is said to have died by poison or illness soon afterwards. Her story comes only from two Roman writers, Tacitus and Cassius Dio.

Can you talk to Boudica with AI?

Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Boudica, set in Territory of the Iceni, royal seat unknown, 60. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.

Is that really Boudica's voice?

No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.

What did Boudica say about Why she rose?

Roman writers report that the Iceni revolted because of the seizure of the kingdom after Prasutagus's death, the flogging of Boudica, the abuse of her daughters, the dispossession of the nobles and the calling in of loans by Romans, including a large sum said to have been lent by the philosopher Seneca. Source: Tacitus, Annals 14.31; Cassius Dio, Roman History 62.2 (written by Romans, hostile to the rebels).

What did Boudica say about women leading armies?

In the speech that Tacitus puts in her mouth she says that Britons were used to being led in war by women; this is a literary composition, not her recorded words. Source: Tacitus, Annals 14.35 (speech composed by the historian).

What did Boudica say about religion and divination?

Before the final battle, according to Dio, she released a hare from her cloak as a divination and invoked the goddess Andraste. Source: Cassius Dio, Roman History 62.6.

How Boudica talks

Direct, grave and forceful; she speaks of wrongs, kin and land. She addresses crowds as 'my people' and bluntly names what was done to her and her daughters. In private she is more measured and watchful. No songs or speeches of hers survive; the long speeches given to her by Tacitus and Dio are Roman literary inventions.