24 Hours Before Rome Stormed the Druids Island

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033LvlhTJml8Vs5pyTUeaM Subscribe to Time Warp Cities: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpr1JAIc49gu9-FAlO4uAKw?sub_confirmation=1 North-west Wales, AD 60 or 61. You are a legionary of the Fourteenth, eight years in the army, standing on the mainland shore of the Menai Strait. Across a few hundred metres of racing tidal water lies Mona, the island we call Anglesey: the stronghold of the druids and the last refuge of everyone in the west who refuses to live under Rome. Tomorrow morning the army crosses. Over the next forty-six minutes you will live through the twenty-four hours before the attack: the tide that runs both ways, the flat-bottomed boats hammered together on the beach, the Batavian horsemen who swim the strait beside their horses, the rumours about priests, oak groves and altars, the general's council, a soldier's will made in the field, the fires that burn all night on the far shore, and the grey morning when the boats grind onto the sand and thousands of hardened soldiers stop dead in the shallows. Then the standards go forward, the groves come down, and a rider arrives from the east with news that changes everything. Built from Tacitus (Annals XIV.29-30, Agricola), Caesar and Strabo on the druids, Pliny the Elder on mistletoe and the oak, Lucan's sacred grove at Massilia, Cassius Dio, Vegetius, the Iron Age offerings from Llyn Cerrig Bach, Lindow Man and the tides of the Menai Strait, this is what the eve of the attack on the druids' island was really like for an ordinary Roman soldier. Chapters: 0:00 The Shore That Would Not Keep Still 1:58 A Soldier of the Fourteenth 3:14 Eight Men and a Centurion 4:52 Seventeen Years of War in the West 6:07 The General Who Crossed the Atlas 7:26 Why Rome Wanted the Island 8:47 Twenty-Four Hours to Go 10:11 A River That Runs Both Ways 11:45 Boats Built for Shallow Water 13:17 The Men Who Swim in Armour 14:48 A Legionary and Deep Water 16:04 Who the Druids Were 17:43 Oak, Mistletoe and the Sixth Day of the Moon 18:43 What Rome Said About the Altars 20:20 A Religion Rome Had Outlawed 21:44 Gifts in a Sacred Lake 23:21 The Man in the Bog 24:30 What the Scouts Saw 25:35 Bread, Bacon and Salt Water 26:40 The General's Council 28:09 The Centurion's Evening Walk 29:23 What the Camp Is Saying 30:58 A Will for a Boy with Nothing 32:06 Fires on the Far Shore 33:40 The Last Night 34:56 Before First Light 36:08 Across the Strait 38:14 The Line on the Beach 39:50 The Army That Stood Still 41:15 The Standards Go Forward 43:11 The Groves Come Down 44:56 The Rider from the East Key sources: — The attack on Mona: Tacitus, Annals XIV.29-30; Agricola 5, 14, 18 — Paulinus in Mauretania: Pliny the Elder, Natural History V.14-15; Cassius Dio LX.9 — The druids: Caesar, Gallic War VI.13-16; Strabo IV.4.4-5; Pliny the Elder, Natural History XVI.249-251, XXX.13 — The sacred grove: Lucan, Pharsalia III.399-425 — Batavian swimmers: Tacitus, Histories IV.12; Cassius Dio LX.20; Vegetius I.10 — The revolt of Boudica: Tacitus, Annals XIV.31-34; Cassius Dio LXII.1-2 — C. Fox, A Find of the Early Iron Age from Llyn Cerrig Bach (1946) — I. M. Stead et al., Lindow Man: The Body in the Bog (1986) — M. Aldhouse-Green, Caesar's Druids (2010); R. Hutton, Blood and Mistletoe (2009) — G. Webster, Boudica: The British Revolt against Rome AD 60 (1978) The tent party and the centurion are invented characters; the narration says where events are reconstructed. #AncientRome #RomanArmy #Druids #TimewarpCities