Warrior Queens: Boadicea's Chariot (72 page)

Although no authentic portrait or bust of Zenobia is known, her appearance can be imagined from that of this contemporary Palmyrene noblewoman; late third century
AD
.

A general view of the ruins of Palmyra today.

The romantic European image of Zenobia; an eighteenth-century engraving by William Sharp from a drawing by Michelangelo.

A nineteenth-century statue of Zenobia as a captive by Harriet Hosmer.

Semiramis, the legendary Queen of the Assyrians (based on Sammuramat, Babylonian widow of a ninth-century
BC
Assyrian king), seen in an engraving
c
. 1800.

The tomb of Longinus (a Thracian member of an auxiliary cavalry unit) which was defaced and cracked by the Britons during the sack of Colchester; the crouching figure – probably a representation of death – may have been mistaken by them for a symbol of subjugation.

A battle between the Romans and Gauls, from a Roman sarcophagus; the armed Roman soldiers contrast with the naked Celtic fighters.

Gold tores from the hoards found at Snettisham in north Norfolk in 1948/50, which were deposited between 25
BC
and
AD
10; each tore weighs nearly 1,000 grams. Queen Boudica would have worn something similar, as described by Dio Cassius, when urging the Iceni to battle.

Two examples of superb Celtic craftsmanship, early first century
AD
(shortly before the Boudican period): a beaten bronze shield, which would have been backed with wood or leather, found in the Thames at Battersea,

A decorated bronze mirror found at Desborough in Northamptonshire.

Illustration by A. S. Forrest to
Our Island Story, A Child’s History of England
by Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall; first published in 1905 – and written in Melbourne, Australia for the author’s children – this work provided formative images of history for many British children in the first half of the twentieth century, including the author.

Model of the Roman temple of Claudius at Colchester, as it would have appeared to the Britons who, infuriated by this symbol of alien rule, sacked it in
AD
60; from the Colchester and Essex Museum.