Destruction of Londinium
Who Fought
Boudica's combined Iceni and allied British tribal forces attacked the abandoned settlement. Suetonius Paulinus had withdrawn Roman forces before the assault, having already suffered the defeat of a detachment of the Legio IX Hispana.
History & Significance
Londinium, also known as Roman London, was probably the capital of Roman Britain during most of the period of Roman rule. Most twenty-first century historians think that it was originally a settlement established shortly after the Claudian invasion of Britain, on the current site of the City of London, around 47–50 AD, but some defend an older view that the city originated in a defensive enclosure constructed during the Claudian invasion in 43 AD. Its earliest securely dated structure is a timber drain of 47 AD. It sat at a key ford at the River Thames which turned the city into a road nexus and major port (which was built between 49 and 52 AD), serving as a major commercial centre in Roman Britain until its abandonment during the 5th century.
Following the foundation of the town in the mid-1st century, early Londinium occupied the relatively small area of 1.4 km2 (0.5 sq mi), roughly half the area of the modern City of London and equivalent to the size of present-day Hyde Park (not including Kensington Gardens). In 60 or 61 AD, the rebellion of the Iceni under their queen, Boudica, compelled the Roman forces to abandon the settlement, which was then razed. Following the defeat of Boudica by the Roman governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus a military installation was established, and the city was rebuilt. It had probably largely recovered within about a decade. During the later decades of the 1st century, Londinium expanded rapidly, becoming Britannia's largest city, and it was provided with large public buildings such as a forum and amphitheatre. By the 2nd century, Londinium had grown to perhaps 30,000 or 60,000 people, almost certainly replacing Camulodunum (Colchester) as the provincial capital, and by the mid-2nd century, Londinium was at its height. Its forum basilica was one of the largest structures north of the Alps when Emperor Hadrian visited Londinium in 122. Excavations have discovered evidence of a major fire that destroyed much of the city shortly thereafter, but the city was again rebuilt. By the second half of the 2nd century, Londinium appears to have shrunk in both size and population.
Although Londinium remained important for the rest of the Roman period, no further expansion resulted. Londinium supported a smaller but stable settlement population as archaeologists have found that much of the city after this date was covered in dark earth—the by-product of urban household waste, manure, ceramic tile, and non-farm debris of settlement occupation, which accumulated relatively undisturbed for centuries. Some time between 190 and 225, the Romans built a defensive wall around the landward side of the city. The London Wall survived for another 1,600 years and broadly defined the perimeter of the City of London.
The ground they fought on
The site of Destruction of Londinium lies on Eocene claystone, bedrock that formed in the Eocene. The rock here is claystone.
When Boudica's army reached the abandoned commercial settlement of Londinium, they burned it utterly; Tacitus recorded that the town, though undistinguished by the name of colony, had been much frequented by a number of merchants and trading vessels, making its destruction a severe blow to Roman commercial interests in Britain. The rebel forces, who had already destroyed Camulodunum, swept through Londinium and then Verulamium, killing an estimated 70,000 to 80,000 Romans and Britons in total before Suetonius at last turned the tide against them.
- An estimated 70,000 to 80,000 Romans and Britons were killed across the course of Boudica's rebellion, which encompassed the destruction of Camulodunum, Londinium and Verulamium.
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