Prasutagus

Prasutagus was king of the Iceni under Roman protection, and his will provoked the rebellion that nearly ended Roman Britain. The Iceni occupied what is now Norfolk and northern Suffolk. They had submitted voluntarily when Claudius invaded in AD 43 and were left as a client kingdom, which was standard Roman practice on a new frontier: cheaper than occupation, and reliable while the client lived. They rose once, around AD 47, when the governor Ostorius Scapula tried to disarm the tribes within the province, and were beaten and left in place. Prasutagus was wealthy — Tacitus says famously so — and probably owed much of it to Roman subsidies and loans, including large sums advanced by Seneca and by the procurator Catus Decianus. He died around AD 60 and left his kingdom by will to the Emperor Nero jointly with his two daughters, an arrangement he clearly intended as insurance: a share for Rome to satisfy the imperial claim, and a share for his family to preserve the line. Roman law did not recognise it. Client kingdoms reverted to Rome entirely on the death of the client, women could not inherit a kingdom, and the outstanding loans were called in at once. The estate was plundered, the nobles' lands seized, his widow Boudica flogged and his daughters raped. The revolt that followed destroyed Camulodunum, Londinium and Verulamium and killed perhaps seventy thousand people before Suetonius Paulinus defeated it. Nero is said to have considered abandoning the province. The client-kingdom system was applied more carefully in Britain afterwards.

• Nationality: British
• Roles: ruler