Verulamium > St Albans Hertfordshire United Kingdom

…probably establishing a municipium at Verulamium (St. Albans).

His tactical skill rather than his political acumen is his strength, however.

He has received a difficult brief as the Claudian lowlands are economically unspectacular and Britain's mineral wealth lies in the barbarian lands instead.

Capture of these will have to wait until later years.

The settlement the Romans have named Verulamium was known before the Roman arrival as Verulamion (perhaps meaning "[settlement of] Uerulamos [Broad-Hand]" in Brittonic), the capital of the Catuvellauni tribe.

It had been established by their leader Tasciovanus and in this pre-Roman form, is among the first places in Britain recorded by name.

The Roman settlement is granted the rank of municipium in about CE 50, meaning its citizens have what are known as 'Latin Rights', a lesser citizenship status than the colonias possess.

Verulamium (St. Albans), which had grown into a substantial town in the past decade, is sacked and burnt: a black ash layer has been recorded by archaeologists, thus confirming the Roman written record.

In the three settlements destroyed, between seventy and eighty thousand people are said to have been killed.

Tacitus says that the Britons had no interest in taking or selling prisoners, only in slaughter by gibbet, fire, or cross.

Dio's account gives more detail; that the noblest women were impaled on spikes and had their breasts cut off and sewn to their mouths, "to the accompaniment of sacrifices, banquets, and wanton behavior" in sacred places, particularly the groves of Andraste.

Tacitus, the most important Roman historian of this period, took a particular interest in Britain as Gnaeus Julius Agricola, his father-in-law and the subject of his first book, served there three times.

Agricola was a military tribune under Suetonius Paulinus, which almost certainly gave Tacitus an eyewitness source for Boudica's revolt.

Cassius Dio's account is only known from an epitome, and his sources are uncertain.

He is generally agreed to have based his account on that of Tacitus, but he simplifies the sequence of events and adds details, such as the calling in of loans, that Tacitus does not mention.