♀️ Feminist Friday ♀️ Cartimandua Cartimandua was of very ..

♀️ Feminist Friday ♀️ Cartimandua Cartimandua was of very high birth and was referred to as the queen (regina) of the Brigantes by the Roman author Tacitus (Histories 3.45). It is highly likely that she was a hereditary ruler, and her name is of Celtic origin and a compound, thought to mean “white-filly”. As for her position of queen, or the rulers of the Brigantes as kings and queens, there is some evidence for other native British tribes using the Latin word “rex” which means king, on coins which pre-date Britain becoming a Roman province, so this suggested that power and rule lay in the hands of individuals, but there are also coins which have pairs of names, so there was obviously differences in the setup of power and governance. Although much less than Boudica, she is an important figure and provides an interesting case study for looking at relations with Rome in the early period of post Roman conquest, and for considering the place of women in the ancient world. Unfortunately nothing is known of her life other than what is told in the Roman literary sources from AD 51-69 (Tacitus Histories, 3.45 and Annals, 12.36 and 12.40) and this - as with Boudica - is always problematic. We must always remember we are viewing these figures through the lens of the Romans, with all the inaccuracies and exaggerations or simple bias that this entails. The relations between Rome and the Brigantes seems to have been a positive one. As we have seen, the Romans created mutually beneficial relationships with the local elite in provinces as a means of asserting and maintaining control/peaceful relations It is thought that Cartimandua effectively had a “client-queen” type of relationship with the Romans, although it may not have been formalised as such; there was certainly some form of treaty between the two sides which benefitted both. This capitulation of the Brigantes to Rome may have occurred very early on. It is possible that Cartimandua may have been one of the 11 “kings” of Britain who surrendered to Claudius at Camulodunum (Colchester) in 43 CE. This is recorded in an inscription from the triumphal arch of Claudius in Rome, which was dedicated in 51 CE, to commemorate his victory. No names are recorded in the inscription and there is no mention in the literary sources of who the kings were so it cannot be known if Cartimandua was among them.