The Women Who Terrified Rome
Today, I feel like a woman on a mission. The mortgage payment is coming up and I’m stressed that all of my brilliant business ideas aren’t working as fast as I need them to, which led me to feeling helpless, which led me to looking for inspiration.
That is how I stumbled upon four bad-ass women who made the entire Roman empire quiver with fear.
So, obviously, I have to summarize what I found so you can also feel inspired enough to make an ancient empire shake in their sandals.
Teuta, Boudica, Zenobia, and Amanirenas are the women of this blog post that made me feel as though I could conquer the world. You probably have never heard of them before now.
When Rome wrote its story, it called itself eternal, and when a woman stood against that eternity, she became a threat worth remembering only in fragments.
Teuta of Illyria: The Pirate Queen Who Mocked an Empire
Queen Teuta ruled Illyria not from a throne, but from the sea. When her husband, King Agron, died suddenly, Teuta became regent for her young stepson Pinnes. The kingdom she inherited was one of warriors and wanderers, and to Rome this way of life was considered piracy.
Under Teuta’s command, Illyrian ships grew faster and bolder and swept through the Adriatic faster than my ceramic knives through butter in the morning. She was raiding Roman merchants and Greek ports out of strategy as Rome’s expansion was closing in and Teuta refused to watch her sovereignty shrink beneath the Roman sun.
When envoys arrived from Rome in 229 BC demanding submission, Teuta received them aboard her ship.
One of them was apparently arrogant and dismissive of her and spoke to her as though she were a child.
So, when he continued on with his insults (I’m sure none of which were very original either), she had him killed and sent the other home with the story as a warning.
This act sparked the First Illyrian War, Rome’s first great crossing of the Adriatic. Their legions came out of pure pride, to remind the world what happened to those who defied them.
Even when her allies turned, even when Roman sails darkened her horizon, she met them with a heart that did not yield and bravery that I personally, admire.
Defeated but unbroken, she signed a treaty that confined her ships to the waters near Lissus and forced Illyria to pay tribute to Rome. The empire may have claimed victory over her in the end, but the sea still bent to her and her ships.
Teuta’s story was written by men who feared her, so of course Greek historians called her reckless, and the Romans called her barbaric.
Boudica of Britain: The Woman Who Set the World on Fire
Boudica was queen of the Iceni, a Celtic tribe in the green, wind-bitten lands of Britannia.
Her husband, King Prasutagus, ruled in uneasy alliance with Rome. When he died, he left half his wealth to the emperor and half to his daughters, believing diplomacy might protect them all.
Rome’s response was cruel and swift.
They seized his lands, flogged Boudica in public, then they raped her daughters.
And with that, the empire wrote its own reckoning. Hell hath no fury like a woman with something to prove and vengeance on her mind.
From Camulodunum (modern Colchester) to Londinium (London), her army burned everything Rome had built.
Temples fell, statues melted, the Roman governor Suetonius fled to regroup as thousands of legionaries died in the mud.
For a brief, blinding moment, Britain was free thanks to Boudica.
Ancient chroniclers claimed 70,000 Romans and collaborators were slain, which were numbers Rome would later downplay and claim it was nowhere near there, but the terror they felt was real. For the first time, an empire that believed itself invincible trembled before a woman with fire in her eyes and daughters by her side.
When the legions finally rallied, discipline and steel crushed her wild brilliance.
Some say she drank poison to escape capture, while others claim that she faded into the forest and became legend.
But either way, Rome didn’t get to parade her around in chains.
Zenobia of Palmyra: The Queen Who Claimed Rome’s East
Zenobia ruled the city of Palmyra, a desert jewel shimmering between Rome and Persia.
Her mind was sharper than her crown stories claimed, she was fluent in Greek, Aramaic, Latin, and Egyptian, and her rule was a fusion of intellect and iron.
After her husband, King Odaenathus, was assassinated, Zenobia seized power in the name of her young son, Vaballathus.
Her regency was no passive guardianship, it was a coronation in motion.
She expanded her borders until her banners flew over Syria, Egypt, and much of Asia Minor.
Her image appeared on coins beside her son’s as an equal in sovereignty, intellect, and divine right.
She wore armor as often as she wore silk dresses, and she rode at the head of her troops, the philosopher-queen who quoted Plato between commands, a woman whose empire was not just built on conquest, but on the idea that culture itself could be a weapon.
Emperor Aurelian demanded her surrender, and of course, Zenobia refused. When she was finally captured crossing the Euphrates, Aurelian marched her through Rome in golden chains.
Some say she spent her remaining years in a Roman villa, granted comfort and survival, a political trophy to be flaunted at parties.
Others claim she escaped, her story dissolved into sand and legend.
Amanirenas of Kush: The Warrior Queen with One Eye and Infinite Vision
Far to the south, beyond the Roman province of Egypt, lived a queen whose people called her Kandake, the Mother of Kings.
Sound familiar? This stunning and beautiful woman in my mind is who I turn to when I feel like life is more than I can handle.
Amanirenas faced down Augustus himself and when Augustus Caesar extended his grasp beyond the Nile, he finally found that his reach had limits. Rome demanded tribute and taxes, but Amanirenas sent armies.
When they invaded Kush, she met them head-on, losing an eye in battle to an arrow, but not her iron will.
She captured a Roman fort, tore down a statue of Caesar Augustus, and brought his bronze head back to Meroë, where she buried it beneath the temple stairs, so her people would forever walk over Rome’s pride.
Rome signed peace with her after years of fighting as they were unable to defeat her and her armies.
She is one of the few who fought the empire and won.
The Forgotten Empire of Women
They weren’t goddesses or myths, they were leaders, warriors, and mothers who refused to bow.
Their names were carved out of history because of Rome’s contempt, their legacies surviving in ruins, and rewritten texts hidden around the world.
Teuta ruled her seas, Boudica burned her grief into legend, Zenobia out-thought the empire, and Amanirenas even treated Caesar’s will like a toddler throwing a tantrum.
Centuries later, when I’m feeling powerless in a world that’s too expensive to buy the amount of groceries I want to, I turn to their stories for ways to feel powerful.
Sometimes it’s nice to know that through all of the drama and day-to-day going-ons of the world, all it can take is one woman to stand up for what she believes in.
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