This is a book that the reader will either enjoy or possibly want to throw down in annoyance after the first few pages. It is shot through with references to popular culture (I cannot think of another archaeological book that makes reference to Alexis Carrington of Dynasty fame!) that will either bring a smile or grimace to the reader’s face.

Howarth’s core subject matter is thin: the story of Cartimandua has been told many times and the limited literary evidence re-analysed to an extraordinary degree, but despite that the book held this reader’s attention. It is unashamedly a popular treatment and with an eye to the general reader rehearses the limitations of the evidence. To a similar end it includes a summary of the power and objectives of the women of the Imperial household and of recorded Roman attitudes to those female rulers that they encountered.

The main body of the volume, which incorporates enough descriptive passages to inform readers unfamiliar with the subject, is chronologically structured into three chapters. The first provides the reader with an overview of Brigantia and reprises the persuasive suggestion, resulting from the ongoing reappraisal of the Stanwick oppidum, that the site was probably Cartimandua’s ‘capital’, rather than the centre of the anti-Roman resistance led by Venutius. The second deals with the relationship between Cartimandua and her consort Venutius (H. favouring the reading of Tacitus that has two splits between the couple), her handing over of Caratacus to the Romans and the Boudican revolt. H. explores the bad press that Cartimandua, ‘The Quisling Queen’, has often had in modern literature in comparison with Boudica who is often portrayed as ‘a wronged mother’ or ‘freedom fighter’; the latter label being readily applied by many to Cartimandua’s ‘victim’ Caratacus. The discussion explores the motivations of the key players and pokes at our modern preconceptions that colour so many discussions: given that Caratacus abandoned his family to the Romans to carry on the fight elsewhere, whose interests was he concerned with — his people in south-east England, his family, or his own and the loss of power that the Romans threatened? Similarly, in handing him over was Cartimandua betraying the interests of her people, or protecting them from being dragged into an apparently unwinnable war and thereby maintaining Brigantian independence, albeit as a client state? The third chapter deals with the consequences of what H. sees as the second split between Cartimandua and Venutius and her replacement of the latter by Vellocatus. She explores how this may have been viewed by the Brigantian population and, with more evidence, Roman attitudes to female rulers, albeit using Tacitus who was hardly an objective observer: ‘humiliating feminine rule’ (Annals 12.40); before going on to describe the annexation of Brigantia.

The final chapter of the book — ‘The Queen, the Woman, the Invention’ — discusses Cartimandua against the mirror of other noble women known from the Roman world and speculates on her motivations and fate and the ambiguities of Rome’s attitude to her as a loyal ally (good) and female ruler (object of suspicion).

Even if you struggle with the allusions to popular culture, this volume is a worthwhile read; although you need to keep the limitations of the available evidence in mind.