Isurium Brigantum (Aldborough) Yorkshire United Kingdom

Ostorius is recalled east, however, after a new rebellion by a faction of the Brigantes.

This is quickly suppressed but reveals the dangers in the Romans' client kingdom system of which the Brigantes are a part; troops from the Legio XIV Gemina are stationed in the area to keep the Brigantian peace.

The Legio II Augusta at this time holds the command in the southeast, …

Queen Cartimandua is first mentioned by Tacitus in CE 51, but her rule over the Brigantes may have already been established in 43 when Claudius began the organized conquest of Britain: she may have been one of the eleven "kings" who Claudius' triumphal arch says surrendered without a fight.

If not, she may have come to power after a revolt of a faction of the Brigantes was defeated in 48 by Ostorius.

Of "illustrious birth" according to Tacitus, she has probably inherited her power as she appears to have ruled by right rather than through marriage.

She and her husband, Venutius, are described by Tacitus as loyal to Rome and "defended by our [Roman] arms".

Caractacus, his forces defeated by Ostorius in North Wales, flees to Cartimanduas, but in 51 she turns him over, in chains, to the Romans, who have supported her in a number of anti-Roman revolts among her subjects.

Caratacus is sent to Rome as a war prize, presumably to be killed after a triumphal parade.

The Brigantes are nominally an independent kingdom, but the Roman historian Tacitus says the rulers Cartimandua and Venutius were loyal to Rome and "defended by Roman power".

Cartimandua, having given Claudius the greatest exhibit of his triumph, in the person of the resistance leader Caratacus, has been rewarded with great wealth.

Venutius has now become the most prominent leader of resistance to the Roman occupation, however: Cartimandua had apparently tired of him and married his armor-bearer, Vellocatus, whom she has elevated to the kingship in Venutius's place.

Venutius initially seeks only to overthrow his ex-wife, and will only later turn his attention to her Roman protectors.

Cartimandua has seized and holds hostage Venutius' brother and other relatives, Venutius makes war against her in 57, then wars against her Roman protectors.

Building alliances outside the Brigantes, he stages an invasion of the kingdom.

The Romans, having anticipated this, send some cohorts to defend their client queen.

The fighting is inconclusive until Caesius Nasica arrives with a legion, the IX Hispana, and defeats the rebels.

Thanks to this prompt military support from Roman forces, Cartimandua retains her throne.

Tacitus presents Cartimandua in a negative light in his moralizing narratives, the Annals and the Histories.

Although he refers to her loyalty to Rome, he invites the reader to judge her "treacherous" role in the capture of Caratacus, who had sought her protection; her "self-indulgence" (her sexual impropriety in rejecting her husband in favor of a common soldier); and her "cunning strategems" in taking Venutius' relatives hostage.

However, he also consistently names her as a queen (regina), the only one such known in early Roman Britain.

Boudica, the only other female British leader of the period, is not described in these terms.

Venutius of the Brigantes, as civil war rages in Rome in 69, the “year of four emperors”, takes advantage of Roman instability and weak governors unable to control the legions in Britain, by staging another revolt, again with help from other nations.

His ex-wife, Queen Cartimandua, appeals for troops from the Romans, who had previously defended her but are now only able to send auxiliaries.

Cartimandua is evacuated, leaving her ex-husband Venutius in control of the north of the country and a kingdom at war with Rome.

After this, Cartimandua disappears from the sources.