The rebellion had been long brewing, and for it the Roman civil and military administration, above all the Roman capitalists, were to blame. To create farms for retired veterans the military chiefs had recklessly evicted native landowners. The military settlers insulted and oppressed their British neighbours. The discipline of the legions, relaxed by years of guerrilla warfare, was probably bad, and it would seem that Paulinus, a soldier before all, was not the man to trouble himself about the rights of civilians, especially if they were also barbarians. The Imperial procurator (_i.e._, practically financial agent), Decianus Catus, was calling for the repayment of various loans advanced by Claudius to chiefs; presumably Nero needed money for his expensive pleasures. The British chiefs were careless and ostentatious, and, now that they could not enrich themselves by plunder in war, were apt to borrow heavily--of course, from Roman capitalists. Many of them were hopelessly embarrassed, unable to pay the iniquitous interest, much less the principal; and the greedy usurers were only too ready to drag them further into the toils. Nero’s famous minister, the Stoic Seneca, was one of the worst offenders. Usury was a chief source of his vast income. Now, as if to add fuel to the smouldering fire, he suddenly called in his British loans, 40,000,000 sesterces (£360,000). _Cherchez la femme!_ say the French when trouble threatens. No doubt the saying is not without truth, but a study of history, and especially of Roman history, leads rather to the conclusion that the greed of the speculator has been responsible for a great deal of the world’s misery. Just at this juncture died Prasutagus, King of the Iceni. He made the Emperor heir to his kingdom, and joint inheritor of his vast personal wealth, evidently in the hope that his widow Boudicca and her two daughters would thereby be assured of protection. Paulinus and Catus must share the blame for what followed. The country of the Iceni was treated like conquered territory. Military violence went hand in hand with civil spoliation. The widowed queen was actually whipped by the scoundrels who dishonoured the Roman name; her orphaned daughters were foully outraged. One can only hope that the vile deeds were committed by one or two especially degraded creatures; but neither their associates who looked on, nor those who sent them, can escape blame.