Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, also spelled Paullinus, (flourished 1st century CE) was a Roman general.
He went to Mauretania with the rank of praetor in AD 42 to suppress a revolt and soon earned promotion to legatus legionis. He was the first Roman to cross the Atlas Mountains. In 59 he received command of the army in Roman Britain and became Governor general of the territories there.
Suetonius acted vigorously in suppressing revolt, especially in Wales, but he was campaigning against the druids of Mona when Boudicca razed Camulodunum (circa 60) and he had to race southwards. He could not reach Verulamium or Londinium, and both settlements suffered heavy damage. Suetonius advanced down Watling Street to choose a battlefield to his advantage. He took a stand at an unidentified location in a defile with a wood behind him, believed to lie in the Midlands near Manduessedum near the modern day town of Atherstone in Warwickshire along Watling Street. The discipline of the 14th legion sufficed to rout the numerically superior Britons. According to Tacitus 20,000 Roman troops faced around 100,000 Britons at the Battle of Watling Street. The army of Boudicca advanced straight at the waiting Romans, but when the forces met the superior weapons and discipline of the legionaries forced them back. Tacitus states that the Britons' own baggage train then prevented their flight, and defeat turned into slaughter. Possibly 80,000 Britons died, while Roman casualties remained under 1,000. (The British casualties included women and children, for families accompanied the combatants.)
Following the victory, the new procurator, Gaius Julius Alpinus Classicianus, expressed concern to the EmperorNero that Suetonius's punitive policies would only lead to continued hostilities. An inquiry was set up under Nero's freedman, Polyclitus, and an excuse, that Suetonius had lost some ships, was found to relive him of his command. He was replaced by the more conciliatory Publius Petronius Turpilianus.
Paullinus became a consul ordinarius in 66. During the civil war following the death of Servius Sulpicius Galba in January 69, Paullinus agreed to lead the forces of Marcus Salvius Otho against the supporters of Aulus Vitellius, and won a victory near Cremona against Aulus Caecina Alienus. But Otho suffered a decisive defeat at Bedriacum. Despite fighting on the losing side, Paullinus received a pardon in 69. His eventual fate remains unknown.
In 61 Suetonius made an assault on the island of Mona (Anglesey), a refuge for British fugitives and a stronghold of the druids.
Suetonius brought Mona to terms and marched along the Roman road of Watling Street to Londinium (London), the rebels' next target, but judged he did not have the numbers to defend the city and ordered it evacuated.
Suetonius was captured by Vitellius and obtained a pardon by claiming that he had deliberately lost the battle for Otho, although this was almost certainly untrue.
Paullinus alleged that he feared the effects of so much additional toil and so long a march, apprehending that the Vitellianists might issue fresh from their camp, and attack his wearied troops, who, once thrown into confusion, would have no reserves to fall back upon.
Then SuetoniusPaullinus, thinking that it befitted his reputation, which was such that no one at that period was looked upon as a more skilful soldier, to give an opinion on the whole conduct of the war, contended that impatience would benefit the enemy, while delay would serve their own cause.
Paullinus and Celsus no longer opposed, for they would not seem to put the Emperor in the way of peril, and these same men who suggested the baser policy prevailed on him to retire to Brixellum, and thus secure from the hazards of the field, to reserve himself for the administration of empire.
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