a valiant British queen in the time of Nero the emperor. She was the wife of Prasutagus, king of the Iceni, a people inhabiting the eastern part of Britain. On his deathbed Prasutagus named the emperor heir to his accumulated treasures conjunctly with his own daughters, in expectation of procuring by that means Nero's protection for his family and people; but he was no sooner dead than the emperor's officers seized all. Boadicea opposed these unjust proceedings; which was resented to such a pitch of cruelty, that they ordered the lady to be publicly whipped, and her daughters to be exposed to the brutality of the soldiers. The Britons took arms, with Boadicea at their head, to shake off the Roman yoke; and with a force of 100,000 men, she took the colony of Camulodunum or Colchester, and massacred the Romans wherever they could be found. In a word, the whole province of Britain would have been lost, if Suetonius Paulinus had not hastened from the Isle of Mona or Man to London, and at the head of 10,000 men engaged the Britons. The battle was fought with great obstinacy, and for a time with doubtful success, but at last victory inclined to the side of the Romans. This conflict took place A.D. 61. Boadicea, who had behaved with all the bravery imaginable, soon after dispatched herself by poison.