Boudica
In Our Time: History
03/11/10
•42m
About
Comments
Featured In
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and mythologisation of Boudica.On the eve of battle with the Roman Empire, an East Anglian leader roused her forces by declaring: 'It is not as a woman descended from noble ancestry, but as one of the people that I am avenging lost freedom'. Her name was Boudica, warrior Queen of the Iceni.In 60AD, Boudica's husband Prasutagus died and Roman troops tried to incorporate his lands into their Empire. Soldiers publicly flogged Boudica and raped her daughters. In retaliation, she led an army of tribesmen and sacked Camulodunum, modern day Colchester, before marching on London. Such was the ferocity of Boudica's attack that she came close to driving the Roman Imperial power out of Britain before she was finally defeated.Boudica was largely forgotten in the Middle Ages, but her image reappeared during the rule of Elizabeth I as a striking symbol of female power and heroism, before being denigrated by Elizabeth's heir, James I. In Victorian Britain, Boudica once again emerged, this time as a symbol of British Imperial power. The challenger to the Roman Empire had been transformed into the icon of the British Empire and to this day her statue stands guard outside the Houses of Parliament.With Juliette Wood, Associate Lecturer in Folklore at Cardiff University; Richard Hingley, Professor of Roman Archaeology at Durham University; and Miranda Aldhouse-Green, Professor of Archaeology in the School of History and Archaeology at Cardiff University.
Previous Episode
The Indian Mutiny
February 18, 2010
•42m
Melvyn Bragg and guests Faisal Devji, Shruti Kapila and Chandrika Kaul discuss the Indian Mutiny of 1857 and the rebellion which followed.On 10th May 1857 Indian soldiers from the Bengal section of the East India Company's army rose up and shot their British officers. By nightfall the troops had marched on Delhi and the aged Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah II had been nominally restored to power. Nearly 15 months later, after great violence on both sides, the revolt was suppressed, but it left British rule in India transformed and, arguably, doomed.The trigger for the Mutiny was a rumour that cartridges for the new British rifles were coated with pig and cow fat, thereby insulting both Hindu and Muslim troops. But the Indian Rebellion was also a more complex story of economic strains, religious insensitivity and well-intentioned but provocative liberal reforms.The events of 1857 have resonated through history and have been appropriated and mythologised by the British press and Indian nationalists alike. However, the shocking violence of the Rebellion on both sides has meant that it has defied attempts to fit it into a coherent narrative structure. It has overshadowed British foreign policy and Indian politics ever since.Chandrika Kaul is Lecturer in Imperial and Indian History at the University of St Andrews; Faisal Devji is University Reader in Indian History at St Antony's College, University of Oxford; Shruti Kapila is University Lecturer in History and Fellow and Director of Studies at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge.
Next Episode
The City - a history, part 1
March 25, 2010
•42m
Melvyn Bragg presents the first of a two-part discussion about the history of the city. With Peter Hall, Julia Merritt and Greg Woolf.The story of cities is widely held to begin in the 8th millennium BC in Mesopotamia. By 4000 BC, there were cities in the Indus Valley, by 3000 BC in Egypt, and by 2000 BC in China. What happened in the west was the furthest ripple of that phenomenon. In 1000 BC Athens still only had a population of one thousand. At its height, Athens' position as a powerful Mediterranean trading city allowed it to become the birthplace of much that would later characterise western cities, from politics through architecture to culture. Then, early in the first millenium AD, the world saw its first million-strong city: Rome. Maintaining a population of this size required stupendous feats of organisation and ingenuity. But in following centuries, as Rome declined and fell, the city itself, in the west at least, declined too; power emanated from kings and their mobile courts, rather than particular settlements.In China, urban trading posts continued to flourish, but their innovative energy dwindled before the end of the first millennium. Between 1150 and the onset of the Black Death in 1350, the city underwent a resurgence in Europe. City-states developed in Italy and in Germany. At this stage, there was no omnipotent power-centre to match Ancient Rome. But with the growth of sea and then ocean trade, and the centralisation of power in capitals ruling nation-states, cities like London, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam and St Petersburg became increasingly wealthy, dynamic and ostentatious. By 1801, one of these - London - finally matched Ancient Rome's peak population of a million. Along the way, the city had become an ideal to be revered and a spectre to be feared.Peter Hall is Professor of Planning and Regeneration at The Bartlett School of Planning, University College London; Julia Merritt is Associate Professor of History at the University of Nottingham; Greg Woolfis Professor of Ancient History at the University of St Andrews.
If you like this episode you’ll love
Promoted