The Wolf and the Hare: Boudica's Political Bodies in Tacitus and Dio
This article analyzes how Tacitus and Dio use the concept of exemplarity in their narratives of Boudica’s revolt in order to present the queen as a complex model of female leadership. Tacitus’ Boudica assimilates herself to positive Roman models from Livy; Dio’s Boudica separates herself from Herodotean anti-models, as well as from the imperial women of Rome. In her condemnation of Nero, Dio’s Boudica criticizes the populace for succumbing to the influence of a negative model of leadership. Exempla contribute to each author’s characterization of Boudica; a comparative reading reveals significant differences in each author’s position on the efficacy of exempla in historiography.
The Provincial Centre at Camulodunum: Towards an Historical Context
Present assessment of the provincial enclosure at Camulodunum, more particularly how far it can be compared to the standard picture of similar centres elsewhere, is inevitably constrained by the limited evidence at our disposal. With no numismatic sources to draw on and in the absence of a single record of the provincial priesthood — a striking void that calls for comment — documentary testimony is restricted to what can be made of two passages in the literary authorities. The first, a notorious sneer in Seneca's Apocolocyntosis (VIII.3), tells only that a temple of some sort was associated somehow with the emperor Claudius. The second text, an obscure allusion in Tacitus, is at first sight no more enlightening but, on closer analysis, the phrase templum Divo Claudio constitutum (Ann. xiv.31) yields the invaluable inference that the temple was to the deified, not the living Claudius; in which case construction must have been begun in a.d. 54 or later. Archaeological data throw no light on the origins of the temple or of the precinct in which it stood but exploration has steadily enlarged our knowledge of the site itself, and understanding of the remains has now reached the stage at which, for all its puzzling lacunae, the centre is as well known in some ways as the triple-tiered complex at Tarraco, the provincial enclave of Hispania Citerior. We have arrived at the point where the British sanctuary and its counterparts on the Continent can be mutually illuminating.
The Roman Theatre at Colchester
Graffito Drawing of a Pharos. Gerald Brodribb writes: In the course of recent tile-research in the store of the British Museum I discovered a complete tile of bessalis size measuring 205 x 200 x 40 mm. On the right-hand side of the face a drawing had been scratched on roughly with the point of a sharp instrument in a way that left raised edges. The drawing takes the form of what seems to be a stepped three-staged building with possibly a large chimney-pot on top (PL. XXXIA). The tile bears the number '56/7-1, CRS 703' which shows that it comes from the Roach Smith Collection, and it is recorded as number 703 on page 53 of his 'Catalogue': a hand-written note in the B.M. copy of the Catalogue says of this item that 'on it is scratched a plan or elevation'. The first impression on seeing this graffito was that it represented a light-house or Pharos, though it might be some sort of tower as once stood at Richborough. The present remains of the Pharos on the East cliff at Dover, and information in a paper on 'The Roman Light-houses at Dover' (Wheeler, Arch. Journ. 86(1929), 29-46) support the idea of the graffito being of a Pharos. The original appearance of the now-lost 'Tour d'Ordre' at Boulogne is fully known from the plans and drawings made of it by Chatillon, topographer of Henry IV. This 200 ft. building had numerous stepped stages of the kind seen in the graffito. I wish to thank the Trustees of the British Museum for permission to publish this tile and to reproduce a drawing of the graffito.