Original subtitles

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.

Could this be the first reference found in archaeology of our great British

heroine, Boudicca?

Queen of the Iceni, a Briton and a Celt.

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 party 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.

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 the 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

in the southeast.

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 Snettersham Hoard, which was

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

and Norfolk was part of the territory of the Ithene tribe, which were led later

by Queen Boudica.

These are torques, 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 Torque of Snetterdam, 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 neckering itself is made out of eight ropes of gold. Each of those ropes

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 talk, 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

microscope to reveal the Ithene craftsman's secrets.

Oh, here we go.

This is extraordinary. It's amazing detail.

I thought this was fascinating because I wondered how this had been made.

I looked at that and thought it was stamped, but it doesn't look like that

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

If you look at the individual components here, for example, these two here and

those there, we can zoom in a little bit more.

You can see little grooves of some sort. You chase the metal with a little hand,

and that will give you the little ridges you see. Every time it moves a little

bit, it makes little grooves there. I'm amazed at that because this is

absolutely minute.

I mean, if we think that this is three millimetres across here, 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 hammering that tiny little

chisel. This is the magic of metalwork.

The Great Torque reveals Celtic craftsmanship at its peak.

But an even more surprising result comes from studying the broken fragments of

torques also discovered in the hoard.

These exposed ends reveal that this torque is actually gold -plated.

So it looks as though the darker areas are the roms, the main metal that this

torque 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

an image on this computer... Right. And 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, 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

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 Ithene and many tribes

like them had long enjoyed ancient trading links stretching along the

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, Ordovici and Thaluri tribes, in the south and east,

tribes like the Ithene and Trinovantes, put up little defense their leaders had

long enjoyed luxuries of the mediterranean world

this is colchester in essex

two thousand 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 Camelos, the god of war.

The Romans would turn Camelodunum 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

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

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

pages of Roman writing. This is the Annals of Tacitus, which was written in

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.

Boudica herself strides onto the scene following the death of her husband, the

king of the Iceni, Prasutagus.

Deep within Tacitus' annals, we read that the king of the Iceni, Prasutagus,

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 Boudica.

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 Prosutagus 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 it's partly because we just

haven't heard about Celtic women from the Roman historians before. It's all

about the men, the warriors, fighting and drinking.

And then suddenly onto the stage drives 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 Ithene 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

in a single 80 -ton 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.

Dr Nicole Ebbinger -Rift is the project director.

I can immediately spot some human remains anyway. So there's teeth and a

there. 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.

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

this is a young woman. Does that fit with your assessment so far?

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

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

Yeah, it's the right arm. Pretty badly preserved, I see, isn't it?

The woman became known as the Betelbool 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

And it's gold.

2 ,600 years old.

Beautiful. She had a pair of these beautiful brooches, these fibulae.

Laying on her shoulder, one on the right side and the other one on the left

side. Now these are my favourite beads.

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 like that.

Presumably... This means that she was an incredibly important person, 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 a Celtic...

chieftains or kings and here we think that there were very important celtic

women queens or princesses or whatever you want to call them

according to

tacitus rome was dismissive of the will of the dead king prosutagus and the

respect due a grieving queen

They ordered their soldiers to take immediate control of the entire Ithene

kingdom.

When Boudicca objected, the Romans were quick to show they were in charge.

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 Ithene 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

And the unique military skills and technology of the Britons were even the

of Rome's greatest general.

When Julius Caesar arrived on these shores in 55 BC, he was confronted with

type of fighting that he hadn't encountered in any of his battles on the

continent. The British had devised... A new form of noble 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

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 have been used at the time.

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

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

their chariots across the Roman front line and hurl their javelins at them.

Now, you see, if we were galloping along, I really need to brace myself

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

actually put it together and you jump on it... It informs you of how it's used.

Absolutely. So was this the main function of the chariot, then? They're

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 hop on 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

organization i really want to go can i have a go you can you can i i

think you'd better put that on

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.

Caesar's account of his early invasion into Britannia makes specific note of

use of chariots.

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

Celtic longswords 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 Dean from the Royal Armory has been practicing 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?

Have a hold.

I mean, three and three and a bit pounds, but a lot of that weight is at

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, and so it sits in there nicely.

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

I mean... And I will hand it to you.

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, certainly if you start with the spine

through, but you've still got that thrust that would come through and out

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's roaring through as it leaves. So it's not...

It's not an axe. No. Chopping. 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.

Good night, Deanna.

The end.

It is horrific. That is awful. Minus the blood as well. You've got to keep

telling yourself that's minus blood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You think about the

impact on friends and colleagues of someone who's been wounded in that way

would be just... 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, every meat and bone

like that, as well as the physical pain.

For the one man you knock down, you're going to terrify ten either side. Yeah.

We learn from Tacitus that in 60 AD, the Ithene uprising was quickly gaining

momentum.

Mustering 100 ,000 warriors, Boudicca headed south to Camulodunum, the

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.

Showing no mercy, the Celts slaughtered the Roman inhabitants.

and laid it to waste.

2 ,000 years later, archaeology is revealing the true extent of that

And the widespread destruction of 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're Roman.

We're very lucky to actually have this small surviving earring, one of a pair

with pearls on.

Now, you say jewellery, is it all for a woman?

No, we have gold jewellery and then there's the silver jewellery. And the

jewellery, which consists of two matching armlets and this larger armlet

medallion, of 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, a reflecting man? At the time of the Badican revolt,

had become a town where Roman legions retired to, so the population...

Roman legionaries and their wives who were hopefully wanting to enjoy a

quieter retirement after their military service.

Veterans rather than active fighting men?

That's what we assume, yes.

Right. So potentially this was 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'd be able to retrieve them

but unfortunately we know clearly they didn't

This assemblage of material, the hidden jewelry 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

Camelodunum. 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 North and West Britannia.

According to Tacitus, the Roman governor of Britain, Gaius Teutonius 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 kingmakers.

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's 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 is 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 belting.

It's a Celtic word. I've always understood it to mean something like

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 of the 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

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

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

Gaul in the 2nd century AD to record ancient druidic traditions banned by

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 Evos, which means feast.

We think that this calendar starts its year around here, where you see the word

Midsam. It's probably around the month of November.

Soon after, you've got Evos, which means the feast at the end of summer. It's

called Sawin 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 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 one sacred

and it's here that we still find the remains of ancient iron age beliefs and

human sacrifice

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 as if 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.

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 that 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're 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,

clues to Celtic ritual and belief.

So this is the remains of Cashel Man.

Cashel Man from County Leash, yeah. 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

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

killing of a king.

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

that tradition.

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.

has been investigating Moidrum Man, a newly discovered bog body.

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

innards of this bog body?

We think that it's probably a slow stone.

and it's 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 slow stones?

Yes, that's right, and they seem to be following roughly the line of the large

intestine.

I mean, that's hundreds of slow stones. Hundreds and hundreds. I've actually

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

Now, this is a bit peculiar, isn't it? Because I've tasted the slow, 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

Nobody's 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

be wary of the untamed lands to the west.

Roman histories are full of lurid stories of bloodthirsty Celtic rites and

sacrifice, overseen by Druids.

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

encouraged insurrection and desired Celtic independence.

No wonder Paulinus felt compelled to march to Mona, the island of Anglesey,

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

Romans' 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

cities largely undefended.

After Camulogenum had been razed to the ground, Boudicca's army continued its

rampage in the Roman port and commercial centre of Londinium.

After London, it's the turn of the municipal town of Verulamium, now St

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 Ithene queen and her daughters.

But there may be much more to the 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 Boudican 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 about something much more important.

Polynice's assault on the Druids was an attack on everything the Celts believed,

everything they understood.

So when Boudica stood up to the Romans and said no...

The other British tribes stood up alongside her to defend their entire way

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 1.

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

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 favourite location is here, on the slopes above Manstetter, northeast

Birmingham.

Ancient military expert Mike Lodes 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 being 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 the

slope. So he's got the advantage of height. The attacking army has got to

to come up the slope. It's much easier to repel them down the slope.

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

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 the 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.

Okay. That shields 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. This is the interesting bit.

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 chariot might have been highly effective on open

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 used

shield to barge the person opposite them, but then 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 forward.

Okay.

That's great, stepping in with your shoulder. Now, do not make another step

you'll break line.

Okay. All of you have stepped that one step.

Okay.

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

Boom. Stab.

Crash.

Stab. Smash.

Stab. Bart.

Stab. Crash!

Stop! Come on!

Relentless! Relentless!

Passacus tells us what happens next.

The rest of the Britons turn tail, but their escape was blocked by their own

wagons. And the Roman troops didn't refrain even from the slaughter of

while pack animals that had been run through with spears increased the pile

corpses.

The triumph of mechanised discipline over individual warriors

who... in those circumstances, had no opportunity and no prospect of doing

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.

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

to the idea of a free Britain.

But while the Celtic rebellion was certainly real, can we be absolutely

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

discovered dating to the Roman occupation of Britain.

In amongst the human remains was a gravestone and on it was carved the name

Boudicaccia.

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

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.

Spittle, on the west coast of Ireland.

It's part of the Gaelic, 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, lived on.

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.

They're looking right into his face.

And look there, he's holding a spear, and then to 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.

Good, 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 sword to battle chariot.

This was the sound of the Celts going to war.

But if it wasn't for the classical historians, we might never have known

Celtic people were and what their leaders achieved.

How Brenneth 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.

Life at the ends of the earth, exploring the Outer Hebrides, grand tours of the

Scottish Islands, tomorrow at 7.

Next round, Dara O 'Brien didn't want you to see things you wouldn't hear on a

science documentary.

Mock the week.