But he was disappointed in his expectations. The Britons, taking
advantage of his absence, were all in arms; and headed by Boadicea,
queen of the Iceni, who had been treated in the most ignominious manner
by the Roman tribunes, had already attacked, with success, several
settlements of their insulting conquerors. Suetonius hastened to the
protection of London, which was already a flourishing Roman colony;
but found, on his arrival, that it would be requisite for the general
safety, to abandon that place to the merciless fury of the enemy. London
was reduced to ashes; such of the inhabitants as remained in it were
cruelly massacred; the Romans and all strangers, to the number of
seventy thousand, were every where put to the sword without distinction;
and the Britons, by rendering the war thus bloody, seemed determined
to cut off all hopes of peace or composition with the enemy. But this
cruelty was revenged by Suetonius in a great and decisive battle, where
eighty thousand of the Britons are said to have perished, and Boadicea
herself, rather than fall into the hands of the enraged victor, put an
end to her own life by poison.[*] Nero soon after recalled Suetonius
from a government, where, by suffering and inflicting so many
severities, he was judged improper for composing the angry and alarmed
minds of the inhabitants.
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