Episode 3 The Celts: Blood, Iron and Sacrifice with Alice Roberts and Neil Oliver

NEIL OLIVER: In early 2015, an ancient burial site was unearthed

in Gloucestershire that dated back to the Roman occupation of Britain.

Nearly 150 bodies, both male and female, were discovered.

But what caused excitement was a name carved on a gravestone...

..Bodicacia.

Could this be the first reference found in archaeology

of our great British heroine, Boudicca?

Queen of the Iceni...

a Briton...

and a Celt.

-ALICE ROBERTS:

-In Britain, we're never far from our Celtic past.

The Celts seem to belong to a shadowy, wilder, more primal time

than anything in more recent history.

But much about their origins, beliefs and ultimate fate

remains a mystery.

But a story etched in vivid colour

is how these powerful tribal people battled for survival

against their arch-enemy, the Roman Empire.

From the first Celtic raiding parties

that rampaged through ancient Italy

to Julius Caesar's campaign in Gaul

and the Celts' last stand under Britain's warrior queen Boudicca.

One of the greatest cultural conflicts

that still defines our world today

and reveals Europe's most enigmatic ancient people.

After centuries of conflict in Europe, the Celts were being crushed

under the modern might of the Roman Empire.

SHOUTING, SWORDS CLASH

In 52 BC, Caesar and his legions finally defeated Vercingetorix -

leader of the rebellion in Gaul.

Classical Rome was now at its peak,

shaping the world around its own image of civilisation

and laying down a Roman legacy.

But one place that Rome had not conquered was Britain.

And, in 43 AD, they launched a full-scale military invasion

and much of the south and east of the island

became a province of Rome.

Just 17 years later, in 60 AD,

the Britons rose up against their imperial rulers

in a wave of terror.

This is a story of the last stand of the Celts.

It's a tale of righteous rebellion.

But most of all, it's the story of a formidable warrior queen -

the first great British hero -

Boudicca.

In 54 BC, Caesar had staged a short-lived invasion of Britain

and seized lands in the South East.

He found a culture of extraordinary riches

and sophisticated technological skills.

And some of the most amazing artefacts from that period

can be found in the collections of the British Museum.

This wonderful treasure is just part of the Snettisham Hoard,

which was discovered in a ploughed field in Norfolk in the late 1940s.

And Norfolk was part of the territory of the Iceni tribe,

which were led later by Queen Boudicca.

These are torcs - ornate golden neck rings.

One of the marks of elite Celtic leaders and warriors

found throughout Europe.

They are a sign of a shared artistic style and culture.

This is the great Torc of Snettisham and it really is beautiful.

It's an amazing amount of gold to look at,

but also the craftsmanship that's gone into it is mind-blowing.

The neck ring itself is made out of eight ropes of gold,

each of those ropes of gold is

made of eight golden wires twisted together.

But it's the ends of it, these terminals, that really blow me away.

They are exquisite pieces of craftsmanship.

Whoever owned this torc, whoever commissioned it,

must have been somebody incredibly rich and powerful.

This was surely worn by Celtic royalty.

Producing work as complex and as detailed as this

would be a formidable challenge,

even for a modern goldsmith.

Nigel Meeks, one of the museum's metallurgists, has been using

an electron microscope to reveal the Iceni craftsmen's secrets.

Oh, here we go.

That's just extraordinary, it's amazing detail.

I thought this was fascinating,

because I wondered how this had been made.

Cos I looked at that and thought it was stamped,

but it doesn't look like that here.

It's not. It's very, very subtle.

If you look at the individual components here -

for example, these two here, and those there -

well, we can zoom in a little bit more.

You can see little grooves of some sort.

You chase the metal with a little hammer - tap, tap -

and that would give you the little ridges you see.

Every time it moves a little bit, it makes a little groove there.

I'm amazed at that, because this is absolutely minute.

-When you think that this is 3mm across here...

-Yes.

..each one of these little gouges is, what, half a millimetre?

-Less than half a millimetre.

-Yes, that's right.

-And you know that each of those ridges is somebody...

-Yes.

-..hammering that tiny little chisel.

-Yes, absolutely.

This is the magic of metalwork.

The great torc reveals Celtic craftsmanship at its peak,

but an even more surprising result comes from studying

the broken fragments of torcs also discovered in the hoard.

These exposed ends reveal that this torc is actually gold plated.

So it looks as though the darker areas are bronze -

the main metal this torc is made of -

-and then there's something light on the surface.

-Right.

-So can we analyse that, then?

-We can do that now.

-So if you'd like to scan an image on this computer, right.

-Up it pops!

So we're getting peaks here, which correspond to different metals.

-And the really big peak is gold and mercury.

-And mercury, you see?

The only way mercury and gold would be found together is

if they'd been deliberately mixed.

It's now believed this is an example

of a technique called mercury gilding.

Gold dissolves into liquid mercury, creating a paste

that can be spread over the surface of the bronze.

By applying heat, the mercury boils off,

leaving a thin veneer of gold coating the object.

But mercury ore is not found in Britain,

and it's believed to have come all the way from Spain.

As well as being extremely sophisticated craftsmen,

the Iceni, and many tribes like them,

had long enjoyed ancient trading links stretching along

the Atlantic coastlines of Europe and into the Mediterranean world.

So, when Rome invaded in 43 AD,

despite being challenged in the North and West

by the Brigantes, Ordivici and Siluri tribes,

in the South and East,

tribes like the Iceni and Trinovantes put up little defence.

Their leaders had long enjoyed luxuries of the Mediterranean world.

This is Colchester in Essex.

2,000 years ago, it was a Celtic stronghold -

the capital of the Trinovantes tribe -

who actually welcomed the Romans when they arrived.

In 43 AD, the Romans invaded and they marched through the South East

and then, just a few weeks after that initial invasion,

the Roman Emperor himself - Claudius - rode into Colchester

to receive the surrender of the local tribes,

on the back of an elephant, if you believe the folklore.

From now on, the Romans were in charge.

And they made this place their capital.

They called it Camulodunum - after Camulos, the God of War.

The Romans would turn Camulodunum into a showcase of imperial power.

Roman theatres and baths were built and, where the castle stands today,

there was a huge temple dedicated to the Emperor Claudius.

It was an advert for the exotic Mediterranean way of life

that would be on offer to local tribes,

if they submitted to Roman rule.

It showed the locals that, as long as they complied

with the Roman way of life, they would be allowed to prosper.

They would enjoy the privileges and luxuries of Roman citizens

as long as they submitted to certain economic demands from Rome -

taxes, duties, customs.

And, crucially, the Celtic tribal leaders

would become clients of Rome.

They would retain some control over their kingdoms as long as

they agreed to cede their territory to Rome when they died.

It was this sly land grab

that would trigger a sudden and unexpected uprising.

It's the story of Boudicca, a powerful woman

in a world dominated by emperors, kings and sword-wielding men.

Victory for Boudicca could have changed British history forever,

leading to a very different heritage of the land we inhabit today.

The red-headed, chariot-riding Celtic Queen - our image of Boudicca

is an indelible part of our cultural history.

But the story of Boudicca has grown much bigger

than the brief references to her in Roman histories.

Everything we know about Boudicca and her Celtic rebellion

comes from just a few pages of Roman writing.

This is the Annals of Tacitus,

which was written in the early part of the 2nd century AD.

And when Tacitus was writing,

this was about 50 years after the Celtic Rebellion.

He was writing about events that happened within his own lifetime

and the passages take us right to the heart of one

of the most dramatic showdowns in British and Roman history.

Boudicca herself strides on to the scene

following the death of her husband, the king of the Iceni, Prasutagus.

Deep within Tacitus's Annals, we read that,

"The King of the Iceni, Prasutagus, a man renowned for long opulence,

"had made Nero his heir with his two daughters."

According to Tacitus, Prasutagus was hedging his bets.

He had acknowledged his obligation to Rome

by leaving half his kingdom to the Emperor Nero.

But he was also keeping the rest of his lands

within the family that he bore with his wife, Queen Boudicca.

He was protecting the future of the Iceni.

But that's not how the Romans saw it.

As far as they were concerned,

their deal with Prasutagus as a client king of Rome

ended with his death.

His kingdom would not be inherited by his family.

But they hadn't reckoned on the power, influence

and vengefulness of a Celtic Queen.

The story of Boudicca is a compelling one,

and its partly because we just haven't heard about Celtic women

from the Roman historians before.

It's all been about the men, the warriors, fighting and drinking.

And then suddenly onto the stage

strides this incredible woman with flame red hair

prepared to take on the might of the Roman Empire.

Not just a Queen - but a true leader.

Archaeological discoveries have revealed that powerful women

have always played a part in Celtic society.

The evidence for that can be found over 600 miles south of Iceni lands,

near Stuttgart in Germany.

In 2005, archaeologists here started excavating the remains

of an Iron Age burial chamber.

To protect it from looters, the entire chamber

was later removed from the ground in a single 80-tonne block,

and driven to a specially-built laboratory,

where it could be excavated securely.

Within the mud, they discovered the remains of the grave's occupant.

Someone who lived 2,600 years ago.

-Hello, Nicole.

-Hello Alice.

Dr Nicole Ebinger-Rist is the project director.

I can immediately spot some human remains anyway.

-So there's teeth and a skull there.

-Yeah.

The teeth are better preserved than the bone, which is quite normal.

Although, even here, we can see that they've been worn down during life.

-That's right.

-And you can see that the incisors there

have been worn at the tips and we've got the dentine exposed

in a line there and exposed on the surface of the molars,

so I would say that this is a young woman.

Does that fit with your assessment so far?

Yes, because we know she's around 30 years old so, so yeah.

-And we've got some bones of the arm just here.

-Yeah, it's the right arm.

Pretty badly preserved, actually, isn't it?

The woman became known as the Bettelbuhl Princess.

Because, within the mud,

Nicole and the team found more than just human remains.

She was taken to her grave

with an extraordinary collection of Celtic jewellery.

-And it's gold 2,600 years old.

-ALICE GASPS

Look at that! Beautiful! So she had a pair of these...

-Yeah. Here is the second one.

-..beautiful brooches, these fibulae?

Laying on her shoulders, one on the right side,

and the other one on the left side.

Now these are my favourites.

Beads.

Gosh, it's incredibly fine work, isn't it?

Amazing to think they're doing this with no lenses either.

-They haven't got magnifying glasses or anything.

-That's the point.

Presumably, this means she was an incredibly important person.

-Absolutely.

-An extremely high status woman.

650 years before Boudicca,

this burial reveals not a Celtic warrior,

but a woman of power.

We just tend to think of Celtic chieftains or, you know, kings.

And here we're seeing there were very important Celtic women.

-Queens or princesses.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Whatever you want to call them.

According to Tacitus, Rome was dismissive of the will

of the dead king Prasutagus and the respect due a grieving Queen.

They ordered their soldiers

to take immediate control of the entire Iceni kingdom.

IT THUDS ON THE FLOOR

When Boudicca objected,

the Romans were quick to show THEY were in charge.

SHOUTING

Boudicca was publicly flogged.

And her daughters were raped.

A dispute over inheritance

had developed into a demonstration of imperial power,

through an act of brutal humiliation.

Boudicca became determined to extract revenge -

for her family, her tribe and the entire Celtic world.

For years, she'd enjoyed the trappings of a Roman lifestyle.

But she was a Briton...

..a Queen...

and a Celt.

To restore Iceni pride and reclaim its ancestral lands,

a Celtic rebel army would have to take on

the most powerful military force on the planet.

Our history rested on a knife-edge, as Britain faced the possibility

of a very different, very Celtic future.

Beneath a veneer of Romanisation,

the beating heart of England remained Celtic.

And the unique military skills and technology of the Britons

were even the envy of Rome's greatest general.

When Julius Caesar arrived on these shores in 55 BC,

he was confronted with a type of fighting that he hadn't encountered

in any of his battles on the Continent.

The British had devised a new form of mobile warfare.

What an amazing sight. This is wonderful.

I'd like to think that, just over 2,000 years ago,

there were Iron Age people doing the same thing,

practising with their chariots on this beach.

According to Caesar, the Britons had thousands of two wheeled-chariots,

each equipped with a driver and a heavily-armed warrior.

The speed and versatility of these machines was enough

to send fear and panic through the ranks of their enemy.

This replica has been faithfully built for us,

based on images of war chariots

and using materials we know could've been used at the time.

Riding in it is Mike Loades, an expert on ancient warfare.

Caesar tells us that the first thing that happened is the warriors

would bring their chariots across the Roman front line

and hurl their javelins at them.

And you see, if we were galloping along,

I'd really need to brace myself, because I'm hands free.

These look like a random shape.

But my knee fits in here and, on the opposite side of the chariot,

my foot is against that strut,

so I'm really wedged in here in quite a stable way.

This is the great thing about experimental archaeology

is that, as soon as you put it together and you jump on it...

-It informs you of how it was used.

-..and use it.

-Absolutely.

-Yeah.

So was this the main function of the chariot? They're throwing spears

-from the chariot - that's their base?

-That's their first stage.

That is their gesture, that's their war dance.

Then what happens is the chariots come back,

and then they take the warrior in

-and the warrior dismounts for hand-to-hand fighting...

-Yeah.

..and that is draining.

You can't do that for more than a few minutes.

Then the charioteers would come in

and you'd hop in like a number 37 bus and away you go

to get a breather and somebody else comes in and takes over the work.

It shows us that the Celts really understood troop rotation.

It shows us how sophisticated they were as a military organisation.

I really want a go. Can I have a go?

-THEY LAUGH

-You can. You can.

I think you'd better put that on.

Oh, you can't help but think of Boudicca

when you're on a chariot like this. It's fantastic!

Riding into battle against the Romans!

The creak of the harness, the ringing of the bronze.

This was the sound of the Celts going to war.

CHEERING

Caesar's account of his early invasion into Britannia

makes specific note of the use of chariots.

But the Britons were also famed for another deadly battle tool.

Celtic long swords and their scabbards,

patterned with intricate symbolic designs,

were the prized possessions of elite warriors.

And in the hands of an expert, this is a fearsome weapon.

Andy Deane from the Royal Armouries has been practising for decades.

That does look like a great deal of hard work.

It is, yeah. It takes a lot of practice and it strains on the arm

a little bit with all the weight in the blade there.

-It's always trying to escape your grip.

-Is it heavy anyway?

-Yeah.

Have a hold. I mean, three, three and a bit pounds,

but a lot of that weight is at this end.

-There's no counterbalance with these early swords.

-Right.

So that's why it's wonderful to have these small grips.

I think we've both got Celtic marvellous small hands...

-NEIL LAUGHS

-..and so it sits in there nicely.

In practised hands, then, what kind of damage does this do?

-I mean...

-And I will hand it to you! LAUGHTER

Well, I mean, this is a good facsimile -

a pig carcass is very similar to an adult human being.

Now, this sword may well be able to slice through the whole carcass,

if you start with the spine and come through.

But you've still got that thrust

that would come through and out the other side fairly, fairly easily.

-And that's all she wrote.

-I mean, that wasn't any effort at all.

And, of course if, with the cut, I come down at an angle,

the sword drawing through as it leaves. So it's not like a....

-It's not an axe chopping.

-No, not at all.

-It's slicing.

-Yeah.

You don't use it like a rounder's bat.

You use it in a sort of drawing motion.

Goodnight, Vienna.

The end.

-Wow.

-It is horrific.

-That is awful. Minus the blood as well!

-You've got to keep telling yourself that's minus the blood.

-Yeah, yeah!

You think of the impact on friends and colleagues of someone who's been

-wounded in that way and would be...

-And agonising as well.

-Yeah.

-And you've known him all your life and he's just been cut down.

-Yes.

So yeah, the psychological effect of a sword slice through meat

-and bone like that, as well as the physical pain and upset.

-Yeah.

-For the one man you knock down, you terrify ten either side.

-Yeah.

We learn from Tacitus that in 60 AD

the Iceni uprising was quickly gaining momentum.

Mustering 100,000 warriors,

Boudicca headed south to Camulodunum,

the peaceful and prosperous capital of Roman Britain.

A potent symbol of enemy occupation.

The rebel numbers were swelled by members of the Trinovantes tribe,

Rome's old allies, who were inspired by the resistance movement

to retake their Celtic city.

Boudicca waited until nightfall before attacking.

THUNDER RUMBLES, RAIN PATTERS

Showing no mercy,

the Celts slaughtered the Roman inhabitants and laid it to waste.

Now, 2,000 years later,

archaeology is revealing the true extent of that attack,

and the widespread destruction as Camulodunum was razed to the ground.

One set of recent finds is being conserved by Emma Hogarth.

What exactly are we dealing with here?

What we've got here is an assemblage of jewellery and coins.

First of all, and most obviously, we have a pair of matching armlets.

-Fantastic.

-Stylistically, they are Roman.

We're very lucky to actually have this small surviving earring.

One of a pair with pearls on.

You say jewellery. Is it all for a woman?

No. We have gold jewellery and then there is the silver jewellery.

And the silver jewellery, which consists of two matching armlets

and this larger armlet and medallion,

are the sort associated with the Roman military.

This one has got a sort of hunt scene of panthers and a chase.

And then with a central medallion, showing Roman gods.

The panther motif on it sort of suggests an award for valour.

So are we talking about a soldier, or a fighting man?

At the time of the Boudiccan revolt,

Colchester had become a town where Roman legionaries retired to,

so the population was Roman legionaries and their wives

who were hopefully wanting to enjoy a slightly quieter retirement

after their military service.

So it's veterans rather than active fighting men?

That's what we assume, yes.

So potentially this is a legionary and his wife.

This jewellery takes us back to a frightening reality.

It's a unique window into what happened in one house

to one Roman family almost 2,000 years ago.

It seems that the jewellery had been hidden

in a hastily dug hole in the kitchen.

From charred pottery and carbonised figs and dates,

we also know that the kitchen was set ablaze.

What we're witnessing is a moment of sheer terror.

It's such a vivid image.

That idea of a couple, or a family,

trying to find somewhere to hide valuables,

perhaps while their home was already on fire around them.

Yes, and it was done obviously in the expectation that

they would be able to retrieve them later.

But unfortunately we know clearly they didn't.

This assemblage of material, the hidden jewellery and coins,

it tells such a vivid human story of a traumatic and violent event.

It's physical evidence,

real forensic evidence of Boudicca's attack on Camulodunum.

And as well as bringing history to life,

it also verifies the account of the attack that was recorded by Tacitus.

The reason Boudicca had faced so little resistance in Colchester

was because the bulk of the Roman army was busy extending its empire

in the remote and hostile lands of the north and west Britannia.

According to Tacitus,

the Roman Governor of Britain Gaius Suetonius Paulinus

had led his own legions on a special mission to

the remote island of Mona - modern day Anglesey.

He was there to destroy the stronghold of the priests

and power brokers of Celtic society - the Druids.

The Romans saw the Druids as a dangerous element in Celtic society.

They were extremely powerful priests,

the keepers of sacred knowledge, wisdom and history,

and they were king makers.

The Druids were the spiritual glue that bound Celtic tribes together

in shared belief.

The Druids are perhaps the single most evocative

and mysterious element of Celtic society.

Everybody has heard of them, but they remain remarkably elusive.

The fact is, we know next to nothing about Celtic religion or belief.

But if you know where to look, there are tantalising glimpses to be had

of how the Celts understood the cosmos and their place within it.

One thing we know was important was the annual cycle of Celtic feasts.

This one is a modern version,

a revival of the ancient May Day custom.

The Festival of Fire is held in Edinburgh every year,

starting on the last day of April.

This is Beltane.

It's a Celtic word.

I've always understood it to mean something like "bright fire".

Something like this has been happening at this time of year

for a very, very long time.

There are mentions of it in the Irish records

and chronicles, about 10th century, but the chances are

people were coming together to do something like this hundreds,

if not thousands of years before that.

In this dance of the passage of the seasons,

the May Queen, representing summer,

confronts and defeats the Green Man of winter,

using the power of fire to reinvigorate the year.

Beltane was just one of a number of festivals

spread throughout the year.

In order to plan these the Celts needed an intimate knowledge of

the seasons and astronomy.

Thanks to a unique discovery made in France a century ago,

we now know far more about how the Celts understood

and marked the passing of the year.

These are fragments of a tablet that some experts believe

was created in Roman Gaul in the 2nd century AD,

to record ancient Druidic traditions banned by Rome.

And this is a reproduction, a photograph, of all that remains.

The original was 1.5 metres across and a metre high.

It was carved into a single panel of bronze,

but all that survives are these fragments.

It's a calendar, but it's not just any calendar.

Each of the large words is the name of a lunar month

in the Gaulish language, but spelt out in Latin letters.

It represents a cycle of five years, broken into 16 columns.

What we're seeing is the way in which the Celts

made sense of their year and punctuated it with feasts,

because close by the names of the months is the little word - ivos,

which means feast.

We think that this calendar starts its year around here

where you see the word - Mid Sam.

It's probably around the month of November.

Soon after you've got ivos,

which means the feast at the end of summer.

It's called Samhain in the Celtic world,

we still celebrate it today, but we call it Halloween.

Halloween has become a modern Day of the Dead festival,

and the association with the macabre may go back deep into prehistory.

2,000 years ago, the Romans wrote about Celtic death rituals,

including headhunting and human sacrifices performed by the Druids.

One place where evidence for such gruesome practices has emerged

is a Celtic land that Rome never subdued - Hibernia, Ireland.

Wetlands like these were once sacred.

And it's here that we still find

the remains of ancient Iron Age beliefs and human sacrifice.

It's quite astonishing to look at his face.

This is the face of an Irish Celt.

This is the face of somebody from the Iron Age.

It seems that he was hit in the face with a blunt instrument,

an injury which could have knocked him out, could even have killed him,

but there are more injuries to the back of his head,

injuries that look as though they've been created by an axe.

Iron Age bodies discovered in the bogs reveal ritualistic activity.

Not wanton violence, but something calculated and symbolic.

Holes cut in arms, containing twigs of hazel.

Nipples that have been almost completely sliced off.

And there are clues which suggest that these victims

weren't ordinary Celts...

they were special.

We can tell that he was probably somebody of high social standing,

and the reason that the archaeologists believe this

is that when we look at his hands,

they are very smooth, there's no callous or roughness here.

He didn't use his hands to make a living.

His fingernails are beautifully trimmed.

Archaeologist Ned Kelly has been studying bog bodies for 12 years,

seeking out clues to Celtic ritual and beliefs.

So this is the remains of Cashel Man?

Cashel Man form County Laois.

We think it's in fact the earliest fleshed bog body

from anywhere in Europe.

Why are they not just the bodies of murder victims

who have been disposed of in the bog?

Well, first of all, in ancient Ireland, bogs were sacred places.

They were places where ritual practices took place.

And we know that there was a form of ritual killing,

which was appropriate to the killing of a king.

And I think the type of multiple injuries which occur on these bodies

reflect that tradition.

Decapitated, then sliced right through.

Killed and then symbolically killed again.

This was a Celtic sacrifice of a chief or a king.

And forensic archaeology is suggesting that

such ancient rites were seasonal.

Rolly Read, Head of Conservation at the National Museum of Ireland,

has been investigating Moydrum Man - a newly discovered bog body.

So, Rolly, what is this object that you have so carefully extracted from

the innards of this bog body?

We think that it's probably a sloe stone.

And it has just come from this area here of the bog body.

You can see there's a line of them.

-So all those little ovals are little sloe stones?

-Yes, that right.

And they seem to be following roughly

the line of the large intestine.

-That's hundreds of sloes.

-Hundreds and hundreds.

I've actually done a count of the X-ray. There's at least 300 there.

This is a bit peculiar, isn't it,

because I've tasted a sloe and it wasn't very nice.

-I mean, they're bitter, sour, little plums, aren't they?

-They are, yeah.

So what is happening here?

Why is somebody eating a meal of hundreds of sloes?

Nobody is going to ingest 300 sloes, no matter how hungry they are.

I think we can say this is a ritual meal. First of all,

the sloe ripens at the end of October, the beginning of November,

-that is the festival of Samhain.

-Halloween.

-Modern Halloween.

And that is the time of year,

which according to the early Irish written material, kings were killed.

-Really?

-Almost every reference to the ritual killing of a king,

it takes place at Samhain.

Scientific evidence from Irish bog bodies suggests that

the Romans were right to be wary of the untamed lands to the West.

Roman histories are full of lurid stories of bloodthirsty Celtic rites

and human sacrifice, overseen by Druids.

The Druids, they believed, were the embodiment of a brutal culture -

people who encouraged insurrection and desired Celtic independence.

No wonder Paulinus felt compelled to march to Mona,

the island of Anglesey, to put an end to them.

And he did, with ruthless efficiency.

The destruction of the Druid stronghold of Mona was part of

an endgame in the Roman's quest to annihilate an ancient culture.

They wanted no-one to be in doubt as to who was in charge,

or that the Roman view of civilisation had triumphed over

the barbarian Celt.

It had been less than 20 years since the Roman invasion of Britain.

In that time they had built cities,

proclaiming their imperial might - cities that still exist today.

But in leading his armies north to destroy the Druids,

Paulinus had left these cities largely undefended.

After Camulodunum had been razed to the ground,

Boudicca's army continued its rampage in the Roman port

and commercial centre of Londinium.

After London, it was the turn of the municipal town of Verulamium -

now St Albans.

Throughout the south and east, Romans were terrorised,

ritually mutilated and their cities burned.

Tacitus estimates that 70,000 people lay dead.

According to the traditional history, all this was triggered by

the Romans' brutal treatment of the Iceni Queen and her daughters.

But there may be much more to this Celtic rebellion

than this popular story of personal vengeance.

It seems too much of a coincidence

that these two events in British history -

Boudicca's revolt and the slaughter of the Druids by Paulinus -

should happen at exactly the same time.

The Boudiccan revolt involved an alliance of tribes,

but it might not just have been about the treatment of the Iceni

and their queen,

it may have been something much more important.

Paulinus's assault on the Druids

was an attack on everything the Celts believed,

everything they understood.

So when Boudicca stood up to the Romans and said, "No,"

the other British tribes stood up alongside her

to defend their entire way of life.

It wasn't until the Celtic insurrection was well underway

that news reached Anglesey.

Paulinus understood he had to act and fast.

From Anglesey, it was a long march south.

The two armies advanced towards one another

from opposite ends of Watling Street.

Paulinus was at the head of two legions -

10,000 highly-trained, battle-hardened troops.

But according to the ancient sources, Boudicca's force

might have outnumbered his force by as much as 20 to one.

The scene was set for one of the most important battles in

the history of our islands.

At stake was the fate of Britain and the future of Roman rule

in this outpost of their empire.

The two powers met for a final showdown that today is known as

the Battle of Watling Street.

No-one knows the precise location of the Battle of Watling Street,

but one favoured location is here,

on the slopes above Mancetter, northeast of Birmingham.

Ancient military expert Mike Loades has been studying

the tactics of the battle.

The only way Paulinus could stand a chance of facing a big army

is in terrain like this.

If he's got the smaller army then his big fear is being outflanked

and attacked in the rear.

Here he's surrounded by trees, woodland with thick bramble,

men cannot move quickly through there.

Horses cannot move quickly through there.

And we're told he was at the top of a slope,

so he's got the advantage of height.

The attacking army has got to work to come up the slope,

it's much easier to repel them down the slopes.

Tacitus tells us the Britons entered the battleground full of confidence.

They massively outnumbered their enemy, and knew that this was

their chance to finally defeat the Romans for good.

If beaten, the Romans knew they had little chance of escape.

If they had lost, none of them could have expected to live

and they could have expected to die horribly and gruesomely,

as they would have heard had happened in Colchester

and London and St Albans.

So they would have known what was at stake,

and they'd never faced the Celts in pitched battle like this.

400 years of conflict between the Celts and Romans

were about to come to a head.

Paulinus knew that if the Romans were to survive the onslaught

they had to hold their lines, or every last man would be slaughtered.

There's a wave of angry men.

Angry, big men. And that shield is a Celtic warrior

and that will have a similar momentum of a Celtic warrior

rushing at you, and you get to kill him.

I'm promising nothing.

OK, Andy, bring it on.

Look at that!

-He's down! The man's down!

-He is. And look what's happened.

Now this is the interesting bit.

It won't come out because of that head design.

-It's got kind of a barb.

-It's got a barb.

Now, if I'm holding this shield,

it could have gone through enough to kill me, if you were strong,

but if not, I've got this, I can't get it out,

that's stuck in the ground. What am I going to do?

You throw away the shield, so you're now half the man you used to be.

I am now half the man I used to be.

The speed of Boudicca's chariots might have been highly effective

on open ground, but here they were useless.

And the Celtic swordsmen faced a solid wall of Roman shields.

You must not step out of line.

So in unison, to a rhythmic beat,

they use the shield to barge the person opposite them,

but they'd stab at the person diagonally.

And it doesn't matter if you don't kill them.

Your job is simply to create a wound

because you've got ten men behind you who can mop up and dispatch them

as your hobnail boots grind over their faces

-as you move forwards.

-OK.

That's great. Stepping in with your shoulder.

-Now, do not make another step or you'll break line.

-OK.

-All of you have stepped that one step.

-OK.

Good. Let's now see if you can drive us back down the field.

Boom. Stab. Crash.

Stab. Smash. Stab.

Barge. Stab. Crash. Stab.

Come on, man!

-Relentless.

-Yeah.

-Relentless.

Tacitus tells us what happened next.

"The rest of the Britons turned tail,

"but their escape was blocked by their own wagons

"and the Roman troops didn't refrain even from the slaughter of women

"while pack animals which had been run through with spears

"increased the pile of corpses."

It's the triumph of mechanised discipline over individual warriors,

who, in those circumstances, had no opportunity and no prospect

of doing what they had spent their lives training to do,

which was be individual fighters.

The defeat was total.

Boudicca's entire army was wiped out.

According to Tacitus, only 400 Romans were killed that day

compared with 80,000 Celts.

The last great Celtic rebellion was over.

We're told Boudicca survived the battle,

but poisoned herself shortly after.

And with her died any hope of another Celtic uprising

and an end to Roman rule in Britannia.

Boudicca disappeared from history and entered into national mythology

a martyr to the idea of a free Britain.

But while the Celtic rebellion was certainly real,

can we be absolutely sure that Boudicca played a part in it

or even existed?

No archaeological evidence for Boudicca herself has been found.

Then in the spring of 2015, in Gloucestershire,

an ancient gravesite was discovered

dating to the Roman occupation of Britain.

In amongst the human remains was a gravestone....

and on it was carved the name Bodicacia.

Underneath the stone lay a skeleton.

Could this finally be evidence of Britain's great warrior queen?

But the bones belonged to a man...

..and the myth of Boudicca continues to this day.

After centuries of conflict, the military might of Rome prevailed

and almost all of the Celtic lands of Europe were swept up

into the vast empire, crushed under the iron rule of the conquerors.

But Rome didn't conquer all of Europe

and Celtic society wasn't completely obliterated.

THEY SPEAK GAELIC

This is Spiddal on the west coast of Ireland.

It's part of the Gaeltacht, where, 2,000 years after Boudicca,

the first language is still a Celtic language - it's Gaelic.

Here, you can hear the past, you can feel it!

Across the fringes of Europe,

in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany and Cornwall,

the language of the Celts - their most important legacy - lives on.

CHATTERING IN GAELIC

'We've travelled thousands of miles from Turkey to Portugal

'in search of the roots of an incredible ancient culture.'

-They were subterranean?

-Yeah. Oh, yeah.

'Going back 3,000 years,

'we've uncovered the story of these Iron Age tribes...'

I'm looking right into his face.

Look there! He's holding a spear,

and then could be a man's severed head.

'..who built the first great city north of the Alps

'and created astonishing wonders

'fabricated in the most intricate artwork...'

It's incredibly fine work, isn't it?

'..who were at the forefront of military innovation...'

It's a cutting weapon.

It's a thrusting weapon.

'..from swords to battle chariots.'

This was the sound of the Celts going to war.

'But if it wasn't for the classical historians

'we might never have known who the Celtic people were

'and what their leaders achieved.'

'How Brennus defeated Rome...

'..how Vercingetorix defied Julius Caesar...

'..and how Boudicca reignited the spirit of Celtic rebellion.'

'Together we've discovered a remarkable story of our Celtic past.

'A culture that remains very much alive to this day.

'A Celtic spirit that burns deep within us as part of our world.'