Boudicea, Warrior Queen, Queen of Iceni
Venta Icenorum was the Civitas Capital of the powerful and independent
Iceni tribe, who inhabited the flatlands and marshes of Norfolk and earned
immortality for their revolt against Roman rule under their queen Boudica
(or Boadicea) in the winter of AD61. The Iceni had close ties with their
neighbouring tribe the Trinovantes to the south and possibly also with the
civilised Coritani to the north-west, and their former adversaries the Catu-
vellauni lay to the south-west.
Caistor St. Edmund is recorded on two itinera in the Antonine Itinerary of
the second century. In Iter V, entitled "The route from London to Carlisle on
the Wall", it is named Icinos and is listed 19 miles from Villa Faustini
(Scole, Norfolk)and 35 miles from Camboritum (Lackford, Suffolk). It also
appears as the starting point or terminus of the Ninth Itinerary, "The route
from Venta Icinorum to London", a reported distance of 128 miles in total.
In this itinerary Caistor is listed 32 miles from the Sitomagus station, which
has not been positively identified, though the two main contenders are Ix-
worth or Saxmundham, both in Suffolk, and both of which lie at approxi-
mately the required distance from Venta.
The town is readily identified in the otherwise confusing seventh century
document, the Ravenna Cosmology (R&C#103), appearing as Venta Ceno-
mum and listed between Durobrivae (Water Newton, Cambridgeshire) and
Lindum Colonia (Lincoln, Lincolnshire). The town is also one of only seven
south-eastern British townships depicted on the Peutinger Table, a Medieval
copy of an earlier Roman map. The westernmost surviving portion of this
document shows a town named Ad Taum, which lies 22 miles from a settle-
ment called Sinomagi (q.v. Antonine Sitomagus), the former station may be
reasonably identified with Caistor St. Edmund.