Caractacus was the main leader of Briton resistence against the 43 AD Roman conquest of Britain.
A king, he emerged as the victor of a civil war which erupted in southwestern Britain in the years leading up to the conquest. When the defeated faction fled to Rome, Caractacus, believing that the Romans would not dare attack him, sent Emperor Claudius a series of "insulting demands" for the extradition of the fugitives. Claudius and his advisors decided the only way to save face would be to invade Britain and occupy it permanently, levying four legions for the purpose — the XX Valeria Victrix, the II Augusta, the IX Hispania, and the XIV Gemina — under the command of Aulus Plautius. Supported by "Gallic auxiliaries", the army had a total strength of about 40,000 men. Caractacus gathered a large army of allied southern Briton tribes to match his, but his army was defeated at the crossing of the Medway River, with the bulk of the Roman forces defeating him under Plautius's command while the Second Legion, under future emperor and then Legate Vespasian "crossed the river and outflanked the Britons". A "second, similar battle" at the River Thames sealed the Britons' defeat, (GAME: "The Romans in Britain" [+]Part of The Legions of Death, J. Andrew Keith, The Doctor Who Role Playing Game (FASA, 1986).) with the survivors scattering. (GAME: "The War Chief" [+]Part of The Legions of Death, J. Andrew Keith, The Doctor Who Role Playing Game (FASA, 1986)., "Falco's Story" [+]Part of The Legions of Death, J. Andrew Keith, The Doctor Who Role Playing Game (FASA, 1986).)
This was historically meant to spell Roman victory in the conquest, though the War Chief would go on to attempt to interfere with this by amassing a second Briton army near the Sacred Wood. His aim was not to use the Briton army itself in the long run, but rather to use it to lure Claudius into a trap, then hypnotise him and thereby take control of the Roman Empire; he had previously dismissed Cattigern and Caractacus as unsuited to his purposes because they were "too strong-willed to be easily dominated", besides which the army itself was "twice-beaten and brittle". (GAME: "The War Chief" [+]Part of The Legions of Death, J. Andrew Keith, The Doctor Who Role Playing Game (FASA, 1986).)