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Aneirin -> RE: Goodbye fair Britannia. (4/2/2008 4:30:02 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: RealityLicks
Oh yeah, Marianne not Arriane! Thought it sounded a bit fucked!
Truth is, they've been striking alternative 50 pence coins for ages (the only one that has Britannia on) and only a simpleton would believe that any meaningful sense of nationhood is tied up in an image on one coin. Changing to the Euro maybe, not changing a picture on a 50 pence piece.
The Gainsbourg thing is pretty good but not his best. I still like Bonnie and Clyde but sadly, my French is hopeless so I never can get the lyrics.
Re. Vercingetorix - he was the recognised King of a vast and vastly important province to the Romans. There was actually enough cachet in his title that he was kept alive to be paraded before the citizens of Rome, hence a commemorative coin. Boudicca was a very minor figure by comparison, chieftain to a small part of an insignificant backwater - Britain.
Again - there isn't a link between her and Britannia, who was in any case only adopted as a symbol over 1500 years after she was snuffed out.
How sad that fervent patriots can't come up with anything worthwhile to rally around, something that actually stirs a bit of feeling. How come they could come up with this emblem in 1672 but no-one seems able to do so now? A poverty of ideas, I think.
True Vercingoterix was a renowned leader at the time, of a rich nation, but he was paraded in Rome because he gave himself up to the Romans to avoid the slaughter of his people, who incidently were led away as slaves.
Boudicca, did not quit, she fought to the end for what she believed to be right, rebellion against a treacherous invader who threatened her people. Do you not think the Romans would have liked to take her alive for a similar fate to the Gaul ? It was the Romans pleasure to display those that have troubled them, parade before Rome to show the vanquished.
Britannia, a backwater, if that is so, why did the Romans come here? Could it be that Julius Caesar was intriged whilst battling with Vercingetoix, wondering where the Gauls were getting their supplies from. Across the channel, a rich nation to be plundered. Still a backwater, why did they stay here for the best part of four hundred years? True, the land of the Britons were behind those of Gaul, this is not to do with insignificance, but the migrating ice sheets, it was colder here for longer.
If you still think Britannia was a backwater, I suggest you check your history.
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