Boudicea's Reasons For Going To War

This essay will use primary and secondary sources to justify war. The primary sources used will be a speech from the Queen of the Celts, Boudicea, and one from Great Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The two secondary sources will come from scholarly, peer reviewed sources. They will be used to back up the primary sources. These two speeches took place at different times in history. However, both show the justifications that these leaders used to encourage their people to fight with them. Having a reason to fight is important when leading one’s countrymen into war.
When it comes to going to war with the invading Roman military, Boudicea justifies the act to her people in a short speech. Tacitus, an ancient Roman historian, wrote about this period in time. He retells these reasons, “But now,” she said, “it is not as a woman descended form noble ancestry, but as one of the people that I am avenging lost freedom, my scourged body the outraged chastity of my …show more content…
Instead, the consequence of this action, had the opposite effect after Prasutagus died. What happened to his family after his death, was reason enough to go to war. Adler goes on to discuss another ancient historians differing view point on the justifications Boudicea’s reasons for going to war. “According to Dio, the reasons for the rebellion were threefold: the procurator Decianus Catus’ confiscation of money that the emperor Claudius previously bestowed on prominent Britons; Seneca islanders: and the entreaties of Boudica herself, which Dio considers the fundamental cause of the revolt” . Adler interprets the writing of these two ancient historians in this way, “To a certain extent, it is unreasonable to assume that Tacitus or Dios—or any other Roman historian—would be capable of offering a portrayal of a Celtic rebellion utterly divorced form a Graeco-Roman perspective on native rebellions. After all they were not Britons; they likely did not possess much firsthand knowledge of the