Menai Massacre

Menai massacre is a name given by Richard Williams Morgan (bardic name 'Mor Meirion', c. 1815-c. 1889) to the report by Tacitus of the slaughter of Druids on the Isle of Anglesey (Mona) under the command of Gaius Suetonius Paulinus during the Roman conquest of Britain in AD 60 or 61. Morgan proposed the event excited the country to a religious war from which Druidism never recovered.^[1][2]

The word "Menai" refers to the Menai Strait separating the island from the mainland.

The massacre was a key event that led to Boudica's Uprising because Paulinus attacking Mona left the rest of the country open to attack.^[3]

Tacitus is the only source on the massacre and no details are known beyond what is given in Annals 14.30 and the later account on Boudica's revolt in Cassius Dio's History of Rome (62.1-11). Tacitus' account in the translation of Church and Brodbribb (1876) is as follows,

"[Paulinus] prepared to attack the island of Mona which had a powerful population and was a refuge for fugitives. He built flat-bottomed vessels to cope with the shallows, and uncertain depths of the sea. Thus the infantry crossed, while the cavalry followed by fording, or, where the water was deep, swam by the side of their horses. On the shore stood the opposing army with its dense array of armed warriors, while between the ranks dashed women, in black attire like the Furies, with hair dishevelled, waving brands. All around, the Druids, lifting up their hands to heaven, and pouring forth dreadful imprecations, scared our soldiers by the unfamiliar sight, so that, as if their limbs were paralysed, they stood motionless, and exposed to wounds. Then urged by their general's appeals and mutual encouragements not to quail before a troop of frenzied women, they bore the standards onwards, smote down all resistance, and wrapped the foe in the flames of his own brands. A force was next set over the conquered, and their groves, devoted to inhuman superstitions, were destroyed. They deemed it indeed a duty to cover their altars with the blood of captives and to consult their deities through human entrails."

References

1. ^ Saint Paul in Britain Or, The Origin Of British As Opposed To Papal Christianity (2nd ed. 1880) by Rev. R. W. Morgan
2. ^ Pillar in the Wilderness by Benjamin John (1936)
3. ^ "Buduica led her army against the Romans; for these chanced to be without a leader, inasmuch as Paulinus, their commander, had gone on an expedition to Mona, an island near Britain." Cassius Dio, 62.7

See also

• List of massacres in the United Kingdom
• Battle of Watling Street
• Boudica

Coordinates: 53°17′N 4°20′W / 53.283°N 4.333°W / 53.283; -4.333