[Sidenote:—­2—­] The casus belli lay in the confiscation of the money which Claudius had given to the foremost Britons,—­Decianus Catus, governor of the island, announcing that this must now be sent back.  This was one reason [Lacuna] [Footnote:  It would seem natural to supply “for the uprising,” as does Reiske.] and another was that Seneca had lent them on excellent terms as regards interest a thousand myriads that they did not want, [Footnote:  The meaning of this phrase ( [Greek:  achousin]) is not wholly clear.  Naber purposes to substitute [Greek:  aitousin] ("that they were asking for").] and had afterward called in this loan all at once and levied on them for it with severity.  But the person who most stirred their spirits and persuaded them to fight the Romans, who was deemed worthy to stand at their head and to have the conduct of the entire war, was a British woman, Buduica, [Footnote:  Known commonly as Boadicea.] of the royal family and possessed of greater judgment than often belongs to women.  It was she who gathered the army to the number of nearly twelve myriads and ascended a tribunal of marshy soil made after the Roman fashion.  In person she was very tall, with a most sturdy figure and a piercing glance; her voice was harsh; a great mass of yellow hair fell below her waist and a large golden necklace clasped her throat; wound about her was a tunic of every conceivable color and over it a thick chlamys had been fastened with a brooch.  This was her constant attire.  She now grasped a spear to aid her in terrifying all beholders and spoke as follows:—­

[Sidenote:—­3—­] “You have had actual experience of the difference between freedom and slavery.  Hence, though some of you previously through ignorance of which was better may have been deceived by the alluring announcements of the Romans, yet now that you have tried both you have learned how great a mistake you made by preferring a self-imposed despotism to your ancestral mode of life.  You have come to recognize how far superior is the poverty of independence to wealth in servitude.  What treatment have we met with that is not most outrageous, that is not most grievous, ever since these men insinuated themselves into Britain?  Have we not been deprived of our most numerous and our greatest possessions entire, while for what remains we must pay taxes?  Besides pasturing and tilling all the various regions for them do we not contribute a yearly sum for our very bodies?  How much better it would have been to be sold to masters once and for all than to ransom ourselves annually and possess empty names of freedom!  How much better to have been slain and perish rather than go about with subservient heads!  Yet what have I said?  Even dying is not free from expense among them, and you know what fees we deposit on behalf of the dead.  Throughout the rest of mankind death frees even those who are in slavery; only in the case of the Romans do the very dead live for their profit.  Why is it that though none of us has any money,—­and how or whence should we get it?,—­we are stripped and despoiled like a murderer’s victims?  How should the Romans grow milder in process of time, when they have conducted themselves so toward us at the very start,—­a period when all men show consideration for even newly captured beasts?