Celtic Scotland

by W. F. Skene

Such was the position of the two armies when the echoes of the wild yells and shouts of the natives, and the glitter of their arms, as their divisions were seen in motion and hurrying to the front, announced to Agricola that they were forming the line of battle. The Roman commander immediately drew out his troops on the plain. In the centre he placed the auxiliary infantry, amounting to about 8000 men, and 3000 horse formed the wings. Behind the main line, and in front of the great vallum or rampart, he stationed the legions, consisting of the veteran Roman soldiers. His object was to fight the battle with the auxiliary troops, among whom were even Britons, and to support them, if necessary, with the Roman troops as a body of reserve.

The native army was ranged upon the rising grounds, and their line as far extended as possible. The first line was stationed on the plains, while the others were ranged in separate lines on the acclivity of the hill behind them. On the plain the chariots and horsemen of the native army rushed about in all directions.

Agricola, fearing from the extended line of the enemy that he might be attacked both in front and flank at the same time, ordered the ranks to form in wider range, at the risk even of weakening his line, and, placing himself in front with his colours, this memorable action commenced by the interchange of missiles at a distance. In order to bring the action to closer quarters, Agricola ordered three Batavian and two Tungrian cohorts to charge the enemy sword in hand. In close combat they proved to be superior to the natives, whose small targets and large unwieldy swords were no match for the vigorous onslaught of the auxiliaries; and having driven back their first line, they were forcing their way up the ascent, when the whole line of the Roman army advanced and charged with such impetuosity as to carry all before them. The natives endeavoured to turn the fate of the battle by their chariots, and dashed with them upon the Roman cavalry, who were driven back and thrown into confusion; but the chariots, becoming mixed with the cavalry, were in their turn thrown into confusion, and were thus rendered ineffectual, as well as by the roughness of the ground.

The reserve of the natives now descended, and endeavoured to outflank the Roman army and attack them in the rear, when Agricola ordered four squadrons of reserve cavalry to advance to the charge. The native troops were repulsed, and being attacked in the rear by the cavalry from the wings, were completely routed, and this concluded the battle. The defeat became general; the natives drew off in a body to the woods and marshes on the west side of the plain. They attempted to check the pursuit by making a last effort and again forming, but Agricola sent some cohorts to the assistance of the pursuers; and, surrounding the ground, while part of the cavalry scoured the more open woods, and part dismounting entered the closer thickets, the native line again broke, and the flight became general, till night put an end to the pursuit.

Such was the great battle at ‘Mons Granpius,’ and such the events of the day as they may be gathered from the concise narrative of a Roman writing of a battle in which the victorious general was his father-in-law. The slaughter on the part of the natives was great, though probably as much overstated, when put at one-third of their whole army, as that of the Romans is under-estimated; and the significant silence of the historian as to the death or capture of Calgacus, or any other of sufficient note to be mentioned, and the admission that the great body of the native army at first drew off in good order, show that it was not the crushing blow which might otherwise be inferred.

On the succeeding day there was no appearance of the enemy; silence all around, desolate hills and the distant smoke of burning dwellings alone met the eye of the victor; but, notwithstanding his success, he evidently felt that, with so difficult a country before him, and a native army probably re-assembling in the recesses of a mountain region, which, if gained, it would manifestly be impossible to retain, and knowing too somewhat better what the great barrier of the so-called Grampians was, both to the invading and the native army, he was in no condition to follow up his advantage. The attempt to subjugate the northern districts was substantially abandoned, and Agricola appears to have crossed the Tay and led his army into the country which he had overrun in the third year, and whose inhabitants are now termed ‘Horesti.’ Having taken hostages from them to prevent their joining the hostile army, he returned to his winter quarters south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde with his troops, while he directed his fleet to proceed along the coast to the north till they had encircled the island.

This voyage the fleet accomplished, coasting round Britain till they reached the Trutulensian harbour in the south, and then returned to their station in the Firth of Forth, giving certain proof of its insular character, and some indication of the extent and nature of the still unsubjugated country. In the course of their voyage they passed and took possession of the ‘Orcades’ or Orkneys in name of the Roman Empire, and they saw the peak of a distant island to the north, which they concluded might be the hitherto mysterious and unvisited Thule. They described as peculiarly remarkable that great feature of Scotland, the long lochs or arms of the sea penetrating into the interior of the country, and winding among its mountains and rocks.

Thus terminated what proved to be Agricola’s last campaign in Britain. Whether he resolved to renew the contest for the possession of the barren region of the north, or had practically abandoned the attempt, we know not, as the jealousy of the Emperor Domitian recalled him, ostensibly for a better command, as soon as this great battle was known in Rome. There is no doubt that he seriously contemplated the subjugation of Ireland and its annexation to the Roman Empire. Had he remained to fulfil this intention, the colour of the future history of these islands might have been materially altered. As it was, the fruit of his successes was lost, and the northern tribes retained their independence. The result of his campaigns was that no permanent impression was made on the country beyond the Tay, the limit of his third year’s progress.

Such is the conception which we think may be fairly formed of Agricola’s campaigns in Scotland, from a careful and attentive consideration of the condensed narrative by Tacitus, taken in combination with an accurate examination of the physical features of the country. They form too important a feature at the very threshold of the history of the country, and have been too much perverted by a careless consideration of the only record we have of them, and the intrusion of extraneous or spurious matter, to be passed over in less detail.

Agricola’s successor, Lucullus, was put to death on a trifling excuse by the tyrant Domitian, and the entire country which had formed the scene of these campaigns since the first appears to have fallen off from Rome and resumed its independent state, the Roman province being again limited to the boundary it possessed on the north when Agricola assumed the government.