Dux Femina

Chapter 5 analyzes Tacitus’s image of Boudica as a warrior woman and considers the challenges she poses to Roman conceptions of masculinity. Whereas other women and wives become observers, placed on the outskirts of the battlefield, Boudica is a commander woman (dux femina), comparable to Vergil’s Dido. Several models and antimodels emerge from Roman history and myth to color a Roman reader’s interpretation of Boudica as a dux femina, including Camilla, Cleopatra, and the women of Tacitus’s ethnographic work, the Germania. Unlike other Roman female leaders, including Fulvia, Agrippina the Elder, and Agrippina the Younger, Boudica spurs on men to prove their masculinity. Boudica’s revolt becomes an insurrection not only against servitude, but also against Roman notions of masculinity and femininity, and leadership without morality. Boudica’s sex becomes a powerful tool to rouse her troops to fight for just vengeance, and to promise to win or die trying.