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- Herausgeber: Birlinn
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
For over three centuries, the inhabitants of North Britain faced the might of Rome, resulting in some of the most extraordinary archaeology of the ancient world. This richly illustrated new history of Roman Scotland explores the complex, often tumultuous and frequently brutal interaction between the world's first superpower and the peoples who lived north of Hadrian's Wall. With reference to the latest research and featuring all the key sites, it offers though-provoking re-assessments of many aspects of the story of the Romans in Scotland, from the loss of the IXth Legion and the reasons for building and maintaining Hadrian's Wall, to considering what spurred at least four Roman emperors to personally visit the edge of the empire.
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John Reid is chair of the Trimontium Trust in Melrose and has published and lectured widely on the Roman Iron Age. For two decades he has led the Trust’s research projects, most notably at Burnswark Hill. Recent work has culminated in the complete renovation of Scotland’s only museum dedicated to the period of the Roman invasion. Originally intending to study classics, he trained as a doctor specialising in diseases of the heart and lungs, but has now returned to his first love of Scotland’s early history.
‘The Eagle and the Bear is a fascinating account of the complex, and often violent, interactions between indigenous communities and Roman power in northern Britain. It is engagingly written and well-informed – a must read for anyone with an interest in Scotland’s past.’
Manuel Fernández-Götz, Abercromby Professor of Archaeology, University of Edinburgh
‘Probably the most complete history of Roman Scotland I’ve had the privilege to read. At once, scholarly, compellingly written and thought provoking, it brings a fresh perspective to the available evidence and provides genuine new insight into the study of the subject matter, with a forensic eye for detail. Most certainly a welcome addition to the genre.’
Douglas Jackson, author and creator of the Gaius Valerius Verrens series
Winter has come. Housesteads Roman fort on Hadrian’s Wall, looking west.
First published in 2023 by
Birlinn Ltd
West Newington House
Edinburgh eh9 1qs
10 Newington Road
www.birlinn.co.uk
Copyright © John H. Reid 2023
ISBN 978 1 78885 580 8
The right of John H. Reid to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Designed and typeset by Mark Blackadder
Printed and bound by PNB, Latvia
‘The eagle of the Roman army goes at the head of every legion – the king of birds, most powerful of them all. . .’
Josephus, Bellum Judiacum, on the First Romano-Jewish War
•
‘Laureolus gave up his naked flesh to a Caledonian bear . . .’
Martial, Liber Spectaculorum, on the inaugural games of the Colosseum
To my parents, Watson and Jenny,who first sowed the seed and toErica, Simone, Jonathan and Scout,whose unconditional lovehelped nurture it
Contents
List of plates and figures
Acknowledgements
Introductory note
Foreword
1. What’s in a name? How we tell the story of Scotland’s past
2. Lost and found: the rediscovery of Roman Scotland
3. Scotland before the Romans
4. The gathering storm: a warning from the East
5. Tracking the tempest
6. Enter Agricola
7. Smell the smoke: the post-Agricolan black hole
8. Exit the IXth
9. The Wall
10. Burnswark: dark deeds in Dumfriesshire
11. Hail Imperator: the Antonine invasion
12. A Wall too far?
13. Trouble up north: bribery and incursions
14. The African emperor and his brats
15. The post-Severan aftermath and the rise of the Picts
16. The man who changed the world: the coming of Constantine
17. Stilicho and Traprain Law, the harpooned whale
18. Entering the darkness
19. Conclusion: the Eagle and the Bear
Places to visit
Glossary
Further reading
Index
Frontispiece. Artist’s impression of the interior of a Caledonian settlement.
List of plates and figures
Plates
1. Detail, processional frieze, National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh
2. Dun Carloway broch, Isle of Lewis
3. Gold torcs, Blair Drummond, Perthshire
4. Roman campaign axes from Newstead
5. Horse skulls from Newstead
6. Housesteads fort showing field systems
7. The Vallum and Hadrian’s Wall looking east
8. Burnswark Hill from the north
9. Hoard of Roman lead sling bullets, Burnswark
10. Bow Castle broch, Scottish Borders
11. Rough Castle Roman fort, Antonine Wall
12. Capital of the Sol altar from Inveresk
13. Modern ‘distance’ sculpture, Cow Wynd, Falkirk
14. Antonine Wall ditch traversing Croy Hill
15. Roman pillars from Bar Hill Fort
16. Jasper intaglio of Caracalla, Newstead
17. Traprain Law from the south-west
18. The Traprain Treasure
19. Dumbarton Rock
Figures
1. Map of Roman Iron Age Scotland
2. Theodor Mommsen
3. Erasure of Geta – damnatio memoriae
4. Mosaic of bestiarii and a bear, Roman villa, Nennig, Germany
5. Excavations at Mumrills in the 1920s
6. Sir George Macdonald in the ditch at Mumrills
7. a) Vercingetorix at Alesia;
b) Arminius at Teutoburg Forest
8. Thornycroft’s Boudicca sculptural group, London Embankment
9. Schematic of the Roman invasion of Britain
10. Timothy Pont’s map
11. Arthur’s O’on replica, Penicuik House
12. Burnswark plan by General Roy
13. Cultivation terraces at a) Chatto Craig and
b) Hownam forts, Scottish Borders
14. The ‘Dying Gaul’, Capitoline Museum, Rome
15. Reconstruction of Ptolemy’s map of North Britain
16. Woden Law hillfort
17. Detail of the Bridgeness sculpture
18. Settlement patterns of Iron Age Scotland
19. a) Wheelhouse, Grimsay
b) broch village at Gurness, Orkney
20. Reconstructed crannog
21. a) Chesters hillfort, East Lothian
b) Eildon Hill North
22. Etruscan tombs and grave goods at Cerveteri, north of Rome
23. Drawing of Ruberslaw hoard
24. Roman soldier with trophy head on Trajan’s Column
25. Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of need’ as applied to archaeology
26. Masada, Israel, showing Roman siege ramp
27. a) The Colosseum
b) detail from the Arch of Titus in Rome
28. Roman forts and camps, Chew Green, Northumberland
29. a) Roman military installations in Britain
b) non-military structures
30. Dendrochronology
31. Statue of Agricola, Fréjus, Côte d’Azur
32. a) Roman lead pipes from Chester
b) Agricola’s campaigns
33. Battlefield detritus from Kalkriese
34. Suggested site of the battle of Mons Graupius
35. a) Rampart of Ythan Wells Agricolan-period camp
b) Northern campaign camps
36. a) Deskford carnyx
b) Agricolan forts
37. Inchtuthil plateau
38. Plan of Inchtuthil fortress
39. Inchtuthil nail hoard
40. Vindolanda spatha
41. Burnt layers at Birrens
42. Abandoned weapons at Newstead
43. Artist’s impression of the last stand of the IXth
44. IXth Legion tile stamps
45. VIIIIth Legion inscription from York
46. Rosemary Sutcliff in her study
47. The Silchester eagle
48. Bronze diploma of Gemellus
49.Paterae on Trajan’s Column
50. Roman patera found in Castle Craig broch
51. a) The Dowalton Loch patera
b) Roman ironwork hoard, Carlingwark Loch
52. Roman finds from non-Roman sites in southern Scotland
53. Scout at Hadrian’s Wall
54. The Maginot Line
55. Reconstructions of Roman walls at a) Saalburg and b) Vindolanda; c) Wall map
56. Hanoverian fortress, Fort George near Inverness
57. Hadrian’s Wall ditch cut through rock at Limestone Corner
58. a) Defensive pits on the berm at Byker in Newcastle;
b) the Wall in winter
59. Milecastle 39 and Sycamore Gap
60. The Military Way
61. The Vallum at Limestone Corner
62. Metal detectorist at Burnswark
63. Burnswark Hill and Roman siege camps from the east
64. The plan of Burnswark siege complex
65. Some of George Jobey’s finds from Burnswark
66. a) Burnswark sling bullets, 2016
b) slingshot distribution map
c) slingshot with holes
67. Altar to Victory from Rough Castle
68. a) Newstead annexes as cropmarks
b) Lollius Urbicus inscription, Corbridge
69. The Urbicus family mausoleum at Tiddis, Algeria
70. a) Artist’s impression of the attack on Leckie broch
b) possible heat-cracked ballista ball
71. Map of the Antonine Wall
72. a) Antonine Wall ditch at Croy
b) Limes ditch at Saalburg
73. a) Pits on the berm of the Antonine Wall, Falkirk
b) lilia, Rough Castle
74. Structural elements, Antonine Wall
75. Lines of carbonised turf in the rampart at Rough Castle
76. The Croy Three, probably a grave marker from Croy Hill
77. Magnetometry of Newstead fort showing annexes
78. Ardoch fort on the outskirts of Braco
79. Roman settlement at Inveresk
80. Sol altar from the Mithraeum at Inveresk
81. The Bridgeness stone
82. Glasgow–Edinburgh railway bisecting Castlecary Roman fort
83. The Synton hoard, Trimontium Museum, Melrose
84. Inscription of Calpurnius Agricola, Corbridge
85. Evidence of burning at Newstead
86. Coin of Commodus
87. Roy’s plan of the likely Severan camp at Channelkirk
88. Bust of Severus
89. The Cramond lioness
90. Gateway carving from Carpow
91.Traiectus coin of Caracalla
92. Enlarged granaries at Corbridge
93. The marching camp at Carnwath
94. Carlungie souterrain
95. Falkirk coin hoard, National Museum Scotland
96. Artist’s impression of a Pictish warrior
97. Class I symbol stone
98. Class II symbol stone
99. a) and b) Pictish symbols
100. a) Pictish neck-chains
b) detail of locking ring
101.Turricula or Roman dice tower from Bonn
102. The Pictish fort of Burghead from the north
103. Constantine the Great, York Minster
104. a) Gold crossbow brooch, Moray Firth
b) Erickstanebrae brooch
105. Stilicho diptych
106. Progressively diminishing coinage
107. Traprain Law
108. Traprain treasure detail
109.Denarius of Trajan and silver penny of King Harold
110. Map of the post-Roman kingdoms
111. Pictish cross slab
112. Pictish cemetery at Garbeg
Acknowledgements
Most books are written with the generous assistance of others. For their scholarship, exchange of ideas and major contributions of time and energy, I am indebted to many people. With respect to previous works, I have tried to present here a broad perspective of early Scotland’s experience of the Roman invasion by incorporating material gleaned from recent investigations and contemporary debate that builds upon a canon of fine scholarship stretching back many years. Pointers to some of the many publications are provided at the end of this book.
In response to the great asymmetries of power and existential crises that played out in North Britain at the time of the Roman occupation, this work documents something of what was a 300-year collision between two very different cultures. For stimulating my interest in that confrontation and in the potentially devestating effects of contact with Rome’s seductive military machine, I wish to thank Manuel Fernández-Götz and Nico Roymans for their inspirational work in the field of conflict archaeology. Although this book is founded on fifty years of personal pursuit of the Roman army and its interaction with the peoples of ancient Scotland my horizon widened as my appreciation of non-Roman perspectives grew. For pointing me in the direction of a more balanced narrative, I am grateful to Kay Callander and Louisa Campbell, who introduced me to important indigenous themes I had not previously considered.
I am also grateful to those experts who have patiently tolerated my questions and challenges over many years. Knowingly or otherwise, their comments, arguments and contributions have allowed me to form many of the opinions expressed in this book (without them necessarily agreeing with any of its conclusions). I am particularly indebted to Fraser Hunter who has freely shared his prodigious knowledge of the material culture of Scotland’s Iron Age. I would also like to thank the many other scholars who have taken time to answer my enquiries, either by correspondence or by allowing themselves to be button-holed at many archaeological conferences over the last decade. These include Ian Armit, Geoff Bailey, Jo Ball, Paul Bidwell, Mike Bishop, Andrew and Barbara Birley, Chris Bowles, David Breeze, Richard Brickstock, James Bruhn, Dave Cowley, Andrew Fitzpatrick, Stephen Greep, Bill Griffiths, Bill Hanson, Nick Hodgson, Beccy Jones, Lesley Macinnes, Frances McIntosh, Gordon Noble, James O’Driscoll, Al Oswald, John Poulter, Tanja Romankiewicz, Eberhard Sauer, Niall Sharples, Matt Symonds, Richard Tipping, Alan Wilkins and Allan Wilson.
I wish to make special mention of colleagues from Germany who kindly provided information and access to important material from their areas of expertise. These include the late Sebastian Sommer whose genial personality and insightful perspectives of the Roman frontiers of Scotland and Germany will be sorely missed. Thanks also go to Ruth Beusing, Axel Posluschny, Regine Müller and Sabine Klein for generously providing much of the data that lies behind our improved understanding of events at Burnswark Hill and Trimontium. I am also grateful to Achim Rost and Susanne Wilbers-Rost for my initiation into the fascinating world of the Varusschlacht and the lessons to be learned from ancient battlefield debris, and to Holger von Grawert for helping me understand the intricacies of Roman military equipment. Great thanks also go to Jörg Sprave for his verve and ingenuity in ballistic experimentation.
I wish to particularly express my gratitude to Andrew Nicholson for his professionalism and archaeological rigour during our investigations at Burnswark, to Robin Edwins for his energy and logistical skills, to Derek and Sharon McLennan for their expert detecting survey, and to Sir John Buchanan-Jardine and Andrew Macgregor for their unstinting support and access to the site. Don Reid’s slinging expertise was also fundamental to experiments that radically altered our appreciation of Roman assault tactics.
It has been a privilege to know and correspond with Lawrence Keppie on Romano-Scottish topics for decades. My relationship with Professor Keppie goes back to when he was director of my first dig at Bothwellhaugh Roman bathhouse in the 1970s (even earlier if it should count that we briefly shared the same Latin teacher) and he has been an inspiration since. His theories of events at Burnswark and the fate of the IXth Legion have been influential in my thinking and his helpful replies to many queries have been invaluable.
I wish to thank Strat Halliday for walking with me in the Borders hills to explore the nature of cultivation terraces and for opening my eyes to the myriad indigenous Iron Age settlements that dot the landscape of southern Scotland.
I am indebted to Danny Syon of the Israel Antiquities Authority who gave up a considerable portion of his time to introduce me to the archaeological wonders of Roman period Israel. The experience of hearing him read from the Jewish War atop the siege ramp of Masada and at Titus’ breach in the wall of Gamla sparked a radical realignment of my thinking about the nature of siege warfare and the connectedness of contemporary events.
I wish to thank my children, Simone and Jonathan who have tolerated their father’s behaviour for far too long and for allowing me to take them on innumerable Roman excursions, including two memorable expeditions to the West Bank and the Golan. They have not only borne my Roman fixation with fortitude but also openly encouraged it. And here’s to you, Scout – for a decade of canine companionship, irrespective of the weather – as you cheerfully accompanied us over ditch and rampart.
My special gratitude goes to my exceptionally understanding wife Erica who has not only put her own projects on hold to allow this one to reach fruition but has also done a masterful job of editing out much superfluous material for which I am sure the reader will be grateful. Her resilient personality, which has propped me up on several occasions, is as solid as the foundation of the broch at the bottom of her family croft on the Isle of Lewis.
Finally, I would like to thank my editor and publisher, Hugh Andrew, for many helpful suggestions and for his own special insights into post-Roman and Early Medieval Scotland, and Andrew Simmons and James Rose at Birlinn for their help in guiding this work to completion.
Image credits
Many thanks are owed to Alan Braby (20, 23, 36b, 43, 55c, 70, 96, 99a & b, frontispiece and p.234) for his atmospheric artwork and to Jan Dunbar (1, 9, 15, 29a & b, 32b, 64, 74, 86) for her high-quality drawings and diagrams. Thanks also go to Margaret Wilson, picture librarian at NMS, and Sarah Dutch at HES archives for helping me source material from their image libraries. The author and publisher would also like to acknowledge thanks for permission to reproduce the following illustrations: AOC archaeology 80; Paul Bidwell 58a; M.C. Bishop 38; Ruth Beusing/RGK 77; Chester Museum (author photo) 32a; Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society 41, 65; Christophe Finot, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons 31; Gerd Eichmann, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons 54; Mark Gerson (© National Portrait Gallery) 46; Hannes Grobe/AWI, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons 30; Historic Environment Scotland 19a, 56, 93; Historic Environment Scotland and courtesy of the Society of Antiquaries Scotland, 5, 6, 73b, 75; William Brassey Hole (photograph by Antonia Reeve) courtesy National Galleries of Scotland colour plate 1; LVR LandesMuseum Bonn 101; Pablo Llopis, SERF Project, University of Glasgow 50; Loescher & Petsch via Wikimedia Commons 2; Los Angeles County Museum Image © Museum Associates 104b; Derek McLennan 62; Myrabella via Wikimedia Commons 7a; Image © National Library of Scotland 12, 87; National Museum of Scotland (Images © National Museums Scotland) 36a, 51, 89, 108, and colour plates 3, 4, 5, 12, 16, 18; Andrew Nicholson 66b and colour plate 9; Nouçeiba, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons 69; Carole Raddato CC BY-SA 2.0 47; José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro CC BY-SA 4.0 2; Tom Ritson 83; Sodabottle via Wikimedia Commons 27b; TimeTravelRome via Wikimedia Commons 4; © Trustees of the British Museum 48, 91; York Museums Trust: http://yorkmuseumstrust.org.uk/ CC BY-SA 4.0 45; Vindolanda Trust 40; Thomas Wolf, www.foto-tw.de, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, via Wikimedia Commons 7b. All other diagrams, images and aerial photographs by the author.
Introductory note
This book is about early Scotland’s contact with the Roman Empire and almost all the events described take place in the Christian era – dates are therefore AD unless otherwise stated. Since the names of areas of North Britain and the peoples who inhabited them were either not defined or were altered considerably during this period, specific titles are used only where possible and generic terms such as Scotland and Caledonians are employed for convenience. The term ‘native’ (literally meaning a person born in an area) where used, describes an indigenous inhabitant and carries no derogatory connotation.
When describing distances, Roman units of measurement, such as miles or paces, may be employed but wherever appropriate, measurements will be converted to metric units. Surface areas of camps and forts will be quoted in acres rather than hectares owing to the continued use of the former in a substantial body of modern scholarship.
1 Roman mile = 1,000 paces = 5,000 Roman feet
1 Roman mile = 0.92 Statute miles = 1.48km
1 Roman pace = 5 Roman feet = 1.48m
1 Roman foot = 11.65 inches = 296mm
Abbreviations
BAR British Archaeological Reports
BM British Museum
HES Historic Environment Scotland
LiDAR Light Detection and Ranging
NMS National Museums Scotland
RGK Römisch-Germanische Kommission
SAS Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
1. Map of Roman Scotland showing Roman military sites and native centres of power.
Foreword
Many aspects of Roman Scotland remain enigmatic – even the name itself is misleading. The country was never really ‘Roman’ at all, and certainly not colonised the way England and Wales were. At best, the empire managed to intermittently occupy the land to the south of the Highland Line and at worst, the Romans kept Scotland and its inhabitants at arm’s length with, in the end, little attempt at civil development. But for over 300 years the Roman army, the most fearsome fighting force of the ancient world, was regularly pitched northwards, spurred on by imperial will. During this turbulent period at least six high-ranking generals, who either were or would become Roman emperors – literally masters of the ancient world – would take a personal interest in invading or annexing this small country. The onslaught of course was not directed against the landscape, but against the flesh and blood of the indigenous population. So why did the world’s first truly intercontinental superpower expend so much time and resource directing its military might at what must have been a comparatively modest group of tribes?
It is not only this broad question of motivation that remains without consensus, but also much of the detail – such as the purpose of the Walls (Antonine and Hadrianic), the reasons for Roman advances and retreats and the causes of other singular events such as the apparent disappearance of the IXth Legion. In recent decades many scholars have proposed a variety of solutions to these conundrums, but modern explanations have a tendency to pacify the past and conflict has played a lesser role in the historical narrative. In contrast, early commentators were in little doubt about the nature of the relationship between Roman and native in the north of Britain. While acknowledging the superiority of Roman arms, authorities such as Mommsen (1885), Macdonald (1934) and Richmond (1955) suggested that the Caledonians and their successors, the Picts, represented a significant military obstacle to the invaders. Such an assumption appeared logical – since the indigenous peoples had been dispossessed of their ancestral lands, why wouldn’t they resist? The story of this struggle appeared to be supported by comparatively reliable Roman literary sources such as the great historians Tacitus and Dio. The physical evidence of centuries of frontier warfare was also there to see – the extraordinary offensive-defensive engineering of the Walls of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius with their hinterlands bristling with forts and fortlets, which in turn supported a force of Roman auxiliary soldiers unparalleled in the empire. Scotland also boasted one of the highest concentrations of campaign camps in the Roman world, silent testimony to numerous incursions by the Roman army. Now, however, it is suggested that indigenous hillforts should no longer be seen as strongholds, but simple farms with little defensive purpose. Multiple ramparts, both Roman and native, are currently interpreted as status symbols and formidable Roman frontiers have lost their military function to be interpreted as imperial vanity projects. Wrecked forts and tumbled brochs have become a long series of accidents or victims of shoddy renovation – the concept of concerted confrontation has become trivialised. The warlike Caledonians and Picts whose resistance once precipitated the wrath of Septimius Severus, have been converted into timid tribesmen, desperate for imperial largesse, and eager to be ‘Romanised’. The indigenous peoples are now represented as irritating cattle rustlers or dazzled bystanders who looked on in awe as the legions came and went. In the words of one modern author the northern tribes have been described as: ‘an enthusiastic rabble’ and ‘such military action that did take place . . . fell into the category . . . of cattle-theft and petty banditry’ (Corby 2010).
2. Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German historian and early commentator on the geopolitics of Roman Scotland.
Is this perception biased? A book about Roman frontiers (Breeze 1982) appeared to presage this phenomenon. It suggested that the ultimate insult to the peoples of North Britain was for them to be written out of history by others, something that not only had academic portent but also was loaded with ideological consequence. In his landmark treatise Ways of Seeing (1972), the art historian John Berger pointed out ‘a people . . . which is cut off from its own past is far less free to choose and to act as a people . . . than one able to situate itself in history’. It presented the chilling possibility that what may be happening, accidentally or otherwise, was a modern form of damnatio memoriae.
Damnatio memoriae
The Latin term given to the systematic erasure of the records of existence of an enemy of the state. The Romans believed the ultimate punishment for opposing the will of Rome was not only to physically chasten an individual by torture and death (often including the culprit’s family) but also to expunge any historical trace they had ever existed. Graphically illustrated by the many defaced Roman images or stone inscriptions from across the empire, damnatio was decreed to happen not only to public records but to private property as well.
3. This painted panel – the socalled Berlin Tondo – portrays the Severan royal family. The face of Geta (lower left) has been erased by an act of damnatio memoriae ordered by his fratricidal brother Caracalla (lower right).
Indeed, it has been argued in a major journal that there are only polarised views of Roman Scotland, dependent on one’s personal inclination and that this phenomenon colours all historical and archaeological interpretation: either pro-Roman in which Roman supremacy is always a given, or pro-Caledonian where the northern tribes present a major threat to Roman interests (Breeze 2014). Unfortunately, this hypothesis invites one to subconsciously adopt a factional position and has the tendency to write off any argument as hopelessly flawed by personal prejudice. Is it possible then to disentangle, as Macaulay put it, the interplay between reason and emotion?
Prejudice aside, over the last half century, the paradigm has undoubtedly shifted from the ebb and flow of Iron Age warfare to one of cold costbenefit analysis, making it appear that Roman aggression was only checked by the calculation of a poor financial return for the effort involved in annexing a wild and apparently worthless land. This viewpoint, which veers uncomfortably towards inferiorism, is at the very least unhelpfully Romanocentric.
So is there anything new to say? There are numerous scholarly works focused on specific areas of Roman Iron Age archaeology to which I am greatly indebted, and I acknowledge much has already been written about Roman England. However, the recent narrative of Roman Scotland, with a few exceptions, is affected by something of a colonial bias when assessing the impact of the empire on northern peoples and vice versa. A way of viewing the history of North Britain that arguably skews our perception of events by concentrating on details of Roman military process and culture at the expense of a wider synthesis and by diminishing what was likely to have been a prolonged and exceptionally violent period of confrontation. So, for me, there are several reasons to offer a new history of Roman Scotland: to provide a less Roman-centred overview of the period; to share new insights into some particular controversies based on recent discoveries; to challenge some current concepts; and, finally, to make a small contribution to restoring the voice of a lost people from a time and a place that are dear to me.
John H. Reid
CHAPTER ONE
What’s in a name? How we tell the story of Scotland’s past
One of the earliest links in classical literature between Scotland and the Roman Empire is a reference to urso Caledonio, the Caledonian bear that had been transported to Rome to provide one of the Colosseum’s gory entertainments. The no-doubt distressed animal, which was to execute a prisoner bound to a stake, made its literary appearance in Liber Spectaculorum, a collection of epigrams produced by the poet Martial. These made reference to 100 days of games given by the Emperor Titus to mark the official opening of the Roman world’s largest amphitheatre in the year 80. Martial (40–104), a Spanish provincial who made a precarious living in the capital by associating with rich patrons like the doomed Seneca, recognised the importance of inserting references to remote lands. This vignette, however, reveals more than his grip on geography or Rome’s morbid fascination with public bloodletting – it suggests that within a year of the first Roman incursions, the empire was exploiting Scotland’s natural resources and that Caledonia had already entered the public consciousness.
Anyone writing today about Caledonia, the Iron Age land we now call Scotland, walks into an etymological minefield. It is easy to forget that before the construction of Hadrian’s Wall there was no border and that the concept of Scotland as a single country (which would initially become known as Alba) would not emerge until much later when it was unified under Kenneth MacAlpin in the ninth century.
If consensus for the name of the land is difficult to achieve, agreement on the origin of the people who inhabited it is even more elusive. From the eighteenth century, scholars recognised there was at least a linguistic link between the ancient peoples of north-west Europe and those who still inhabited Scotland. However, their concept of a unified Celtic nation, which encompassed the peoples of the western seaboard of Europe, has been seriously challenged in recent years with some justification – the Romans, for example, never used the term Celt to describe any of the peoples of the British Isles. It is probably more appropriate to see the ‘Celts’ as Atlanticfacing regional groupings who at some point shared significant cultural and trading crossflow, rather than a unified mass who swarmed out of Central Europe to take refuge on the west coast.
4. A mosaic from a Roman villa at Nennig, Germany, shows bestiarii fighting with a bear. The animal has terminally wounded one of its attackers.
The word Scot is also problematic – the original Scotti, who appeared in Roman literary sources in relation to the ‘Barbarian Conspiracy’ in the 360s, and from whom the country now takes its name, were fourth-century (or even earlier) Gaelic speaking invader-settlers from Ireland who blended with the other indigenous peoples in the west of Scotland.
Rome itself, certainly initially, considered mainland Britain and its smaller islands a single entity called Britannia. The word seems to have originated via a Greek form Pritannike from an ancient term used to describe the island as a whole. This desire for semantic unity was probably partly driven by Roman familiarity with insular geography and partly because successive emperors for the next 300 years considered total subjugation of the whole island as a work in progress. Roman prose and poetry made frequent references to northernmost Britain as Caledonia, particularly when an author, for literary effect, wished to emphasise the area’s wildness. As far as we can tell, the Caledonia of the Romans more specifically referred to the country north of the Forth–Clyde isthmus. For ease of use however, this name will occasionally be employed for the whole area north of Hadrian’s Wall and for variety, the term North Britain will also be used despite its geographic vagueness and its previous pro-Hanoverian connotations.
From the earliest contact with the peoples of the Mediterranean basin, Caledonia and Caledonians appear to have had a niche in classical geomythology. So how do the relative latecomers, the Picts, fit into this story of proto-Scotland? Although the word Picti was introduced in Latin literary sources from the end of the third century to describe the tribes or confederation of peoples of northern Scotland, there has been considerable speculation about the origin of the word itself with suggested derivations of varying levels of complexity. However, it probably simply represented the slang Latin term for the ‘painted ones’ alluding to body decoration, possibly tattooing.
To further confound the nomenclature, Roman writers frequently did not differentiate between the ethnic origins of their foes and the subjugated peoples, and often employed the single blanket term ‘Britons’. This is not very different from the habit of modern Americans, who when referring to the Scots and Welsh often describe them as English. In the Agricola, the modern name given to the work by the Roman historian Tacitus about his father-in-law’s life and his campaigns in Scotland, there are eleven direct references to indigenous peoples living north of the Forth–Clyde isthmus. In three, he uses the term ‘the inhabitants of Caledonia’ but in eight he describes the enemy, i.e. Caledonians, simply as ‘the Britons’. Putting aside any cultural sensitivity, it is easy to see why the agent of a superpower would take this casual semantic approach. However, the flexible Roman use of the terms ‘Britannia’ and ‘Briton’ has a consequence for interpretation. Modern scholars have occasionally understood ‘war in Britannia’ to refer to more southerly parts of the island although on the evidence of troop dispositions, Roman writers were likely to be referring to warfare in North Britain. Other specific opportunities for this confusion are: what was inferred by the Roman term Expeditio Britannica, the ‘British campaign’, prosecuted sometime during Hadrian’s reign; or the demeaning term Brittunculi (‘little Britons’) used on one of the Vindolanda tablets? Both of the above are equally likely to have referred to the place or peoples of modern Scotland.
Even the term Iron Age is open to interpretation. Broadly speaking, it represents the epoch when iron began to supplant, or be used alongside, bronze, the earlier utilitarian alloy of copper and tin, but the acknowledged timing of this transition is different depending on where in the world it took place. For North Britain, scholars have suggested it extended from approximately 800 bc to the epoch we now call the Early Medieval. More specifically, the period on which this book is primarily focused is the Roman Iron Age, which for Scotland spanned the first 400 years of the first millennium.
Literary sources
Aphorism or not, history is always influenced by zeitgeist and the prejudices of the writer. It is important therefore to acknowledge from the outset that all contemporary literary evidence for Iron Age Britain is derived from a few highly biased Roman sources. Although there is some evidence from inscriptions on indigenous coinage from southern Britain that the tribes there were at least symbolically acquainted with Latin before the Roman invasion, the peoples of North Britain did not use coins and they had no written language. Consequently, none of what would have been their oral history has been preserved to present their view of the Roman occupation.
Apart from works by Tacitus, Cassius Dio and Herodian, little survives of what may have been written by the Romans themselves about Scotland. Most likely this is due to Caledonia’s marginal importance to the Roman world, but it must be partly the result of the serendipity by which ancient texts are preserved. All modern translations of the Agricola, for example, are derived from a single medieval copy that was sequestered in a German monastery. If it had been lost to the ravages of fire or hungry mice, we would have no detailed references at all. Barbarian destruction, accidental conflagrations and cutbacks in maintenance budgets of the Roman world’s fabulous libraries, such as those at Alexandria and Pergamum, have created huge lacunae in our knowledge. The result is, that although several works mention the existence of Caledonia, few other than the Agricola and Dio’s history of the Emperor Severus, provide any detail of Roman strategy or everyday accounts of the struggles on the north-west frontier. Even Hadrian’s visit to Britain in 122, is barely covered in the Augustan Histories with only a single sentence making direct reference to the initiation of his Wall, despite it being by far the largest physical manifestation of almost 400 years of Roman rule.
Josephus’ history of the First Romano-Jewish War (66–73), another fortunate accident of literary survival, is an exceptional example of this type of historical discordance. He produced a singularly detailed account of the tumultuous events of this period of the Roman occupation of Judea (modern Israel), which is still used extensively by scholars today. And yet, the same interlude to which it pertained, received relatively scant mention by other Roman historians. If Josephus had committed suicide, as his compatriots had urged him to during the siege of Jotapata, and his book had never been written, there would be an even greater gap in our knowledge of how Rome dealt with recalcitrant subjugate peoples.
So how else do we gain further insight into the empire’s impact on the indigenous population of Scotland? To supplement the relative paucity of literary sources we must turn to the discipline of archaeology. Although it would seem a logical next step towards our understanding of what life was like for both sides of this clash of cultures it is worth noting that archaeology has occasionally been misused by historians and populists as a means of vindicating their theories or nationalistic viewpoints. The symbiosis between history and archaeology is a natural one and when utilised with care, this marriage of disciplines can be one that is made in heaven. However, to avoid the union from hell, one must be wary of allowing confirmation bias to shape the narrative.
Cognitive bias
As with most disciplines that rely on interpretation of data, archaeology is prone to a number of cognitive and perceptual biases. Confirmation bias is when an observer selectively emphasises data that confirm a particular theory while failing to gather or consider evidence that challenges it. Cognitive dissonance may be thought of as one step higher in the bias hierarchy, where an observer, uncomfortable with the implications of conflicting evidence, develops a variety of excuses or a blind spot for the offending data.
The archaeology of Roman Iron Age Scotland
One definition of the discipline of archaeology is the study of past human culture by the systematic examination of its physical traces. In modern times, this systematic examination is made up of many associated subspecialties which include pottery, coinage and other material cultural analyses, landscape archaeology, aerial photography, geophysics (assessing subterranean structures by non-invasive techniques), dendrochronology (securing dates and climate information from tree-ring analysis) and taphonomy (studying how things decay) to name but a few.
5. The 1927 excavations at the Antonine fort of Mumrills near Falkirk.
Today, archaeology is perceived as a science that adopts a painstakingly careful approach to investigating sites and artefacts, utilising intricate techniques to produce reliable results. This has not always been so. A significant proportion of the archaeological investigation of Roman Scotland took place in the transitional period between the age of antiquarians (enthusiastic Georgian and Victorian amateurs) and the scientific revolution of the early twentieth century. Antiquarians often record the ‘turning over’ or ‘clearing’ of a site, in effect ransacking and plundering it for prominent stonework, inscriptions and pottery, with foremen directing labourers who used picks and shovels rather than trowels, hand brushes and microscopes. Hence many of the early investigations of Roman Scotland, while well-intentioned and energetic, lack detail or accurate recording. The best of this period’s publications is crude by modern standards and even Edwardian excavations often overlooked many subtleties such as wooden structures and organic residues.
Allied to archaeology, and important to the story of Roman Scotland, are three other disciplines. The first is epigraphy, a term used to describe the study of inscriptions. The Romans were prodigious inscribers, writing on buildings, altars, memorials, gravestones and milestones – right down to items of equipment and even scraps of pottery. On rare occasions civil or military inscriptions, particularly military diplomas, are discovered which can shed light on a very specific time period, such as the year of the tribunician power of an emperor, making them invaluable for accurate dating of associated objects or sites.
The second is prosopography, which in the context of this history is a technique used to make historical assumptions based on the expected career pathways of groups of Roman military or political personnel. For example, by knowing the average age of promotion of a Roman politician to the governorship of a province, one can use his inscribed curriculum vitae (the posts he held and the military units he commanded), to work backwards to determine the presence or absence of that unit from a theatre of war. Notably, this process has been used in assessing the mysterious movements of the IXth Legion.
Since history is often said to simply consist of a series of battles, the story of Scotland’s Iron Age is inextricably bound to the exploits of the Roman army. Consequently, the last of this group of disciplines, conflict archaeology, offers novel insights into the army’s interactions with the indigenous population that would otherwise have remained invisible. Employing methods such as large-area prospecting by metal detectors, conflict archaeologists can extrapolate from positional data of battlefield detritus to help them understand the choreography of episodes of warfare. Using these techniques it may be possible to build, for example, an impression of an individual engagement such as at Burnswark Hill, or by locating marching camps, a whole campaign such as the Severan invasion. However, it is more challenging to identify ephemeral events like famine or pestilence that complete the picture of the devastating consequences of what conflict with Rome may have brought to Scotland.
No matter how large the gaps are in our knowledge, there are strong indications from surviving Roman literature and modern archaeology that the land which was to become Scotland was exceedingly turbulent during this period. Combined evidence suggests North Britain remained a thorn in the flesh of Rome for more than 300 years of partial conquest – an incomplete occupation requiring the empire to introduce unique measures and make extraordinary commitments in resources and manpower to keep its northern frontier under control.
It is perhaps equally remarkable that for the last half-century or so, contrarian interpretations of that same evidence have come to the fore, suggesting that Scotland was a backwater to which the Romans were almost indifferent. Syntheses have been framed that propose Rome was almost the sole agency at work, minimising the effect of the empire on the indigenous peoples and vice versa. In contrast to the previous narrative of almost continuous warfare, it became fashionable to portray conflict in Caledonia as inconsequential, with much softening of causality, such as ‘misguided Roman venture’, ‘political expediency’ or ‘imperial vanity’. Theories that, although closely argued, went against the grain of Roman historians themselves. What in the mid-twentieth century caused this shift of emphasis away from an earlier conflict-centred account of Roman Scotland supported by such figures as Curle and Macdonald? Was it personal prejudice or a rejection of militaristic views of history, society and archaeology as a response to the devastating effects of two world wars?
6. Sir George Macdonald (1862–1940) gives a characteristic scowl as he looks up from the bottom of a recently excavated ditch at Mumrills.
To help explore this, it may be worth considering a possible bias which it has been suggested permeated the twentieth-century study of Roman Britain in its broadest sense – how a significant proportion of effort favoured, until relatively recently, the detailed investigation of the actions of the Roman state alone. Perhaps it is as David Mattingly, Professor of Roman Archaeology in Leicester, succinctly put it in An Imperial Possession (2006): ‘in pursuing this agenda over the last 100 years or so, archaeologists have consciously or unconsciously implanted a basic sympathy with Rome and its elite culture at the core of Romano-British studies’. Much of the light cast on previous endeavours appears to have been refracted through this Romanocentric prism.
Imperialism and nationalism
Philosophers have asked for centuries if there is such a thing as disinterested enquiry? Regarding those with pro-Roman sympathies, I am inclined to think not, as the hammer tends to regularly seek out the Roman nail. However, the diametrically opposite perspective, where invincible woadcovered freedom fighters engage in guerrilla warfare until the Romans are forcibly expelled at the end of the fourth century, is equally damaging to the integrity of historical understanding. This is particularly true today when xenophobia is again on the rise and where any foreigner is seen as an enemy. Britain is not unique in adopting this conflicted position. France and Germany in the last 300 years have had imperial aspirations of their own, with leaders such as Napoleon borrowing strongly from Roman motifs.
The old European powers saw themselves as natural inheritors of Rome’s legacy: Roman things good, barbarian things bad. Post-imperial Paris, London and Berlin are rich in monumental classical architecture. Columns and pediments abound, and Roman symbolism of eagles, standards and laurel wreaths is everywhere. However, in the recent past (from about the 1850s), France and Germany have also experienced a growing historical nationalism. Arminius in Germany and Vercingetorix in France are revered as anti-Roman freedom fighters with the erection of huge statues and considerable investment in systematic establishment-backed archaeology and historiography of these local heroes. In Britain however, Boudicca’s stand against Rome (finally and controversially immortalised in bronze by Thomas Thornycroft on the Thames Embankment) presented problems for Victorian historians and social commentators. Celebration of her bellicose response to Roman oppression caused some embarrassment for those who were already employing apologetic language for Britain’s imperialist actions in overseas dominions.
7a. The 7m-tall statue of Gaulish resistance fighter, Vercingetorix, at the site of Alesia, attacked by Caesar in 52 bc. He was captured, imprisoned and then ritually strangled on the Capitoline Hill in Rome.
b. The statue of Hermann (Arminius) in heroic pose at the Teutoburg Forest near Detmold in Germany. It was originally thought that the site of his victory over the Roman general Varus in AD 9 was near here.
Scotland is perhaps particularly guilty of (or to be admired for?) a neglectful attitude to its own local hero. Nowhere can you find a statue to Calgacus, immortalised by Tacitus as the leader of the Caledonian forces at the fateful battle of Mons Graupius in 83. Despite being the first ever Scot to be named and commemorated as a heroic figure by his Roman adversaries, he is totally unrecognised by the vast majority of his modern countrymen. To my knowledge, apart from Calgacus’ place in the stunning processional frieze of William Brassey Hole (1846–1917) in the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, where he is glared at malevolently by Agricola, there is not a single depiction of Scotland’s first folk hero (plate 1).
8. Thornycroft’s imposing bronze of Boudicca and her Roman-defiled daughters, riding forth in their chariot on the Embankment in London.
In contrast to this apparent self-inferiorisation, many continental European scholars have been happy to see the Caledonians as a match for the legions and to identify them unequivocally as the principal cause for the imposing scale of Hadrian’s Wall and the other traces of prodigious Roman military activity in North Britain. In the 1880s, the venerable German historian, Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903), was firmly convinced that the impressive engineering of the Hadrianic frontier was proportionate for defence ‘against the Highlanders of Britain, in whose presence the province was always in a state of siege’.
Time frames
The nomenclature for the episodes of Roman occupation generates its own difficulties. For ease of use and understanding, historians and archaeologists bracket time periods: such as Flavian (69–98) or Antonine (139–92). Although these can be helpful to conceptualise broad sequences, they create artificial boundaries that can stand in the way of a more comprehensive synthesis of events. For example, because of a lack of written sources between the withdrawal of the governor Agricola in 84 until the sketchy details of Hadrian’s involvement with the province of Britannia in 122, there appears to be a gap in the record and indeed the archaeology of Scotland. One could be forgiven for thinking that nothing happened in Caledonia at all during the reign of the Emperor Trajan (98–117). Even on the grounds of day-to-day military necessity irrespective of enemy incursions, this simply cannot be the case. Thankfully, the extraordinary information gained from the Vindolanda writing tablets has shone a little light on this dark period. There is an equally large lacuna in our knowledge during the reign of Hadrian (117–138) when it has been implied there was in effect a military moratorium creating a power vacuum north of the new Wall. Is it right to assume that there was complete Roman withdrawal from Scotland lasting for four decades from the end of the first century until the northern advance of Antoninus Pius in 142? It is hard to believe that the Romans, or indeed the Caledonians, were inert for two generations.
And so, to fill these and even larger gaps, it seems the story of Roman Scotland must be unavoidably fashioned from a complex blend of patchy stories bequeathed by ancient writers, mixed liberally with narratives provided by modern archaeology, and seasoned by zeitgeist, cultural politics, ethical judgement and a veneer of personal prejudice. Cognitive biases may seem a modern spin, but as we shall see with regard to Roman Scotland they have a long tradition stretching back to the birth of antiquarian enquiry.
CHAPTER TWO
Lost and found: the rediscovery of Roman Scotland
Melrose, a small picture-postcard town, nestles beside the River Tweed in the Scottish Borders. Above the burgh, the three Eildon hills rise majestically as a backdrop. Artisan shops, hotels and gourmet restaurants line its fetching Victorian streets – it even boasts its own Cistercian Abbey partially ruined by the forces of Henry VIII. Facing Market Square, and more relevant to this history, lies the Trimontium Museum, the only museum in Scotland dedicated to the Roman Iron Age.
A committed band of volunteers has staffed the museum for over thirty years and each morning, as they switch on the audio-visuals, they prime themselves for newcomers to Scotland’s Roman past. ‘Did they really get this far north?’ is perhaps the most frequently asked question. The enthusiastic docents explain how the Roman army not only battled into the Lowlands, but built strongpoints along the way, including the great fort at Trimontium just outside the town. Taking command of the Forth–Clyde isthmus, the legions then marched northwards up Strathmore skirting the Highlands – the museum’s audio-visuals map the invasion with upwardly curving arrows and a long string of forts and camps that penetrate as far north as the Moray Firth (overleaf).
Things, however, have not always been so clear-cut. For centuries the story of Roman Scotland lay lost beneath the soil, opaque to the enquiries of early historians. In the time of Bede (c.673–735), the venerable monk of Jarrow, writing only 300 years after the departure of the last Roman official, the facts were already becoming hazy. Soon, the stories behind the Roman walls and camps would become lost in the mists of time.
