Emperor Ming creates his favorite Consort Ma (who is also a favorite of his mother Empress Dowager Yin) empress in 60, and creates her adopted son Prince Da crown prince.

The same year, to honor the generals and officials who had assisted his father Emperor Guangwu in reestablishing the Han Dynasty, Emperor Ming, perhaps echoing what Emperor Xuan had done, had the portraits of twenty-eight of them drawn on a palace tower (known as the "Yuntai 28 Generals").

Later, four more portraits will be added.

However, Ma Yuan, because he was the father of the empress, did not receive this honor, although his reputation is posthumously restored.

Prasutagas, king of the British Iceni tribe centered in present Norfolk, may have been one of the eleven kings who surrendered to Claudius following the Roman conquest in 43, or he may have been installed as king in 47 following the defeat of a rebellion of the Iceni.

In any case, as an ally of Rome, his tribe has been allowed to remain nominally independent, and to ensure this Prasutagus names the Roman emperor as co-heir to his kingdom, along with his two daughters.

Tacitus says he lived a long and prosperous life of conspicuous wealth.

It is normal Roman practice to allow allied kingdoms their independence only for the lifetime of their client king, who would agree to leave his kingdom to Rome in his will—the provinces of Bithynia and Galatia, for example, were incorporated into the Empire in just this way.

Roman law also allows inheritance only through the male line, so when Prasutagus dies in CE 60, his attempts to preserve his line are ignored and his kingdom is annexed as if it had been conquered; lands and property are confiscated and nobles treated like slaves.

Cassius Dio says that Roman financiers, including Seneca the Younger, chose this time to call in their loans.

Tacitus does not mention this, but does single out the procurator, Catus Decianus, for criticism for his "avarice".

Prasutagus, it seems, had lived well on borrowed Roman money, and on his death his subjects had become liable for the debt.

According to Tacitus, Boudica was flogged and their daughters raped.

All this leads to the revolt of the Iceni, under the leadership of Boudica.

Tacitus and the Greek historian Dio Cassius agree that Boudica was of royal descent.

Dio says that she was "possessed of greater intelligence than often belongs to women", that she was "tall and terrifying in appearance ... a great mass of red hair fell over her shoulders"; that she had a harsh voice and a piercing glare, and habitually wore a large golden necklace (perhaps a torc), a many-colored tunic, and a thick cloak fastened by a brooch.

Tacitus commented on the "red hair and large limbs of the inhabitants of Caledonia [Scotland]" (The Life of Agricola, Ch. 11), which he linked with some red haired German/Belgic Gaulish tribes.

While the current governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, is leading a campaign against the island of Mona (modern Anglesey) in the north of Wales, which is a refuge for British rebels and a stronghold of the druids, the Iceni conspire in CE 60 or 61 with their neighbors the Trinovantes, among others, to revolt.

Boudica is chosen as their leader.

According to Tacitus, they draw inspiration from the example of Arminius, the prince of the Cherusci who had driven the Romans out of Germany in CE 9, and their own ancestors who had driven Julius Caesar from Britain.

Dio says that at the outset, Boudica employed a form of divination, releasing a hare from the folds of her dress and interpreting the direction in which it ran, and invoked Andraste, a British goddess of victory.

The speed with which Suetonius takes Wales suggests that Veranius had already done much of the work.

The Romans mount a successful campaign across Wales, famously destroying the druidical center at Mona or Anglesey in CE 60 at what historians later called the Menai Massacre, named for the Menai Strait separating the island from the mainland.

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."

Tigranes invades the neighboring Kingdom of Adiabene in 61 and deposes its King Monobazes, who is a Parthian vassal.

The so-called Villa of the Mysteries is a large Roman country villa located near Pompeii, initially built in the third century BCE, and surrounded on at least three sides by a terrace with a colonnade.

The villa is remodeled sometime before the earthquake of CE 62-63, the colonnade being replaced on the main axis of the villa by a rectangular verandah.

Decorating a large (twenty-nine by nineteen feet/nine by six meters) rectangular hall in the villa are the superb paintings—dating from the first century BCE and late Hellenistic in style—that give the villa its name, featuring numerous life-size figures of humans and deities in a Dionysiac ceremony against vivid red walls.

The rebels' first target is Camulodunum (Colchester), the former Trinovantian capital and now a Roman colonia.

The Roman veterans who had been settled there have mistreated the locals and a temple to the former emperor Claudius has been erected there at local expense, making the city a focus for resentment.

The Roman inhabitants seek reinforcements from the procurator, Catus Decianus, but he sends only two hundred auxiliary troops.

Boudica's army falls on the poorly defended city and destroys it, besieging the last defenders in the temple for two days before it falls.

Archaeologists have shown that the city was methodically demolished.

The future governor Quintus Petillius Cerialis, at this time commanding the Legio IX Hispana, attempts to relieve the city, but suffers an overwhelming defeat.

His infantry is wiped out—only the commander and some of his cavalry escape.

The location of this famous battle is now claimed by some to be the village of Great Wratting, in Suffolk, which lies in the Stour Valley on the Icknield Way west of Colchester, and by a village in Essex.

After this defeat, Catus Decianus flees to Gaul.

Suetonius, when news of the rebellion reaches him at Anglesey, hurries along Watling Street through hostile territory to Londinium.

A relatively new settlement, founded after the conquest of CE 43, Londinium has grown to be a thriving commercial center with a population of travelers, traders, and, probably, Roman officials.

Suetonius considers giving battle here, but considering his lack of numbers, and chastened by Petillius's defeat, decides to sacrifice the city to save the province.

Londinium is abandoned to the rebels, who burn it down, slaughtering anyone who had not evacuated with Suetonius.

Archaeology shows a thick red layer of burnt debris covering coins and pottery dating before 60 CE within the bounds of Roman Londinium.

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.

Suetonius regroups with his own Legio XIV Gemina, some vexillationes (detachments) of the XX Valeria Victrix, and any available auxiliaries, while Boudica's army continue their assault in Verulamium.

IX Hispana had been routed trying to relieve Camulodunum, and the prefect of Legio II Augusta, Poenius Postumus, stationed near Exeter, ignores the call, but nonetheless the governor is able to call on almost ten thousand men.

He takes a stand at an unidentified location, probably in the West Midlands somewhere along the Roman road now known as Watling Street, in a defile with a wood behind him—but his men are heavily outnumbered.

Dio says that, even if they were lined up one deep, they would not have extended the length of Boudica's line.

By now the rebel forces are said to have numbered two hundred and thirty thousand, however, this number should be treated with skepticism—Dio's account is known only from a late epitome, and ancient sources commonly exaggerate enemy numbers.

Boudica exhorts her troops from her chariot, her daughters beside her.

Tacitus gives her a short speech in which she presents herself not as an aristocrat avenging her lost wealth, but as an ordinary person, avenging her lost freedom, her battered body, and the abused chastity of her daughters.

She said their cause was just, and the deities were on their side; the one legion that had dared to face them had been destroyed.

She, a woman, is resolved to win or die; if the men want to live in slavery, that is their choice.

However, the lack of maneuverability of the British forces, combined with lack of open-field tactics to command these numbers, puts them at a disadvantage to the Romans, who are skilled at open combat due to their superior equipment and discipline.

Also, the narrowness of the field means that Boudica can put forth only as many troops as the Romans can at a given time.

First, the Romans stand their ground and used volleys of pila (heavy javelins) to kill thousands of Britons who are rushing toward the Roman lines.

The Roman soldiers, having used up their pila, are now able to engage Boudica's second wave in the open.

As the Romans advance in a wedge formation, the Britons attempt to flee, but are impeded by the presence of their own families, whom they have stationed in a ring of wagons at the edge of the battlefield, and are slaughtered.

This is not the first instance of this tactic—the women of the Cimbri, in the Battle of Vercellae against Gaius Marius, were stationed in a line of wagons and acted as a last line of defense.

Ariovistus of the Suebi is reported to have done the same thing in his battle against Julius Caesar.

Tacitus reports that "according to one report almost eighty thousand Britons fell" compared with only four hundred Romans.

According to Tacitus in his Annals, Boudica poisoned herself, though in the Agricola, which was written almost twenty years prior, he mentions nothing of suicide and attributes the end of the revolt to socordiam (indolence); Dio says she fell sick and died and then was given a lavish burial; though this may be a convenient way to remove her from the story.

Considering Dio must have read Tacitus, it is worth noting he mentions nothing about suicide (which was also how Postumus and Nero ended their lives).

Postumus, on hearing of the Roman victory, falls on his sword.

Suetonius conducts punitive operations.