Septimius Severus: First Hammer of the Scots

[OC Richard]

Septimius Severus In Scotland

The Northern Campaigns of the First Hammer of the Scots

by Simon Elliott

2018

During the COVID lockdown I really went down the Roman Britain rabbithole, reading a number of the more recent books and watching lectures on YouTube.

Because nowadays you don't have to wait for archaeologists, anthropologists, historical geneticists, or historical linguists to publish- you can watch their lectures done as they're making discoveries.

And with Roman Britain new discoveries are made all the time! Not one Roman fort has been fully excavated, but as partial excavations are done on various known forts, and new arial photographs reveal hitherto unknown forts, bit by bit our knowledge increases about the movements of the Romans in Scotland. (There's a Roman fort on the Spey near Elgin, I didn't know the Romans got that far.)

I had read about the four known incursions of the Roman Army into Scotland, but when I saw a lecture by Simon Elliott about the elaborate preparations and procedures to supply Emperor Severus' massive invasion I knew I needed to read his book.

First I have to mention that pretty much 100% of the Social Media chat about Hadrian's Wall and the Romans in Britain are complete misinformation, stuff like "the Romans conquered the known world but when they met the Scots they had to build a wall" etc.

The Romans went wherever they wanted whenever they wanted. But three things need to be kept in mind:

1) Rome didn't go around grabbing all the land they could. Romans loved an Emperor who won battles and land, but at the same time Romans were pragmatic and they did sober cost/benefit analyses when it came to incorporating new territory.
Maintaining Legions in far-away places was extremely expensive! So when it came to invading Britain the profitability was long debated in Rome (they were making loads of money taxing the trade across the English Channel already) and when they did invade they went for the things the Empire needed: grain and mineral wealth.
They established huge farms and mines right away and shipped massive amounts to the Continent.
They also needed the money that came from taxing trade.

Thus Rome had zero interest in maintaining troops to occupy non-arable land sparsely populated with tribes too few and too poor to generate large amounts of tax money.

2) Rome considered Britain itself, and especially the North, as relatively unimportant. Problems closer to Rome always took priority. Each of the four Roman incursions into Scotland was terminated, and the Antonine Wall abandoned, not because anything that happened in Scotland but because of troubles elsewhere in the Empire.

3) Hadrian's wall was not unique but part of an Empire-wide programme by Hadrian to clearly establish the borders of the Empire. Walls of various sorts were built across Germany and North Africa etc at the same time.

Also, Hadrian's Wall was not a defensive structure, nor were Roman forts. The Roman Army didn't fight from within fortifications. Hadrian's Wall, and Roman forts, had enough gates so that the Roman troops could go out and fight the enemy in the open the Roman way. Hadrian's wall probably didn't have a walkway on top nor crenellations (none of the top survives, but similar walls in North Africa which are better preserved don't have any walkway on top).

There were always Roman forts north and south of Hadrian's Wall, and defensive ditches were dug both to the north and south as well. Seems that the main purpose of the Wall was to regulate and tax anyone going in either direction.

In any case the ill, ageing Emperor Septimius Severus, who had spent so much of his rule on military campaigns, was itching to do some last grand campaign to secure his legacy.

His sons Caracalla and Geta were getting too spoiled living the rich life in Rome, and he thought it would do them good to get as far away as possible and live rough on campaign.

So he jumped on the pretext of Britain needing help in the north and assembled a 50,000 man force to invade Scotland.

As he was assembling troops and supplies in York the Scottish tribes sent ambassadors suing for peace but Severus sent them away.

The invasion was three-pronged, with Caracalla commanding a large force building forts on the line from Glasgow to Perth to seal off the various passages into the Highlands while the Roman fleet (with a wide variety of ships and boats, some shallow-draft) going up the east coast and up the various waterways up to the Moray Firth to seal off the Highlands from that direction, which allowed Emperor Severus to smash the tribes in the Midland Valley.

The tribes sued for peace, treaties were arranged, and the Roman field army went south for winter quarters (leaving troops in watchful forts).

Soon enough the tribes were (in Roman eyes) breaking their treaties and attacking Roman troops so Severus, now too ill to campaign, sent his psychotic homocidal son Caracalla to conduct a campaign of genocide in the Midland Valley.

This was so successful (in Roman eyes) that no troubles were experienced by the Romans in Britain for four generations.

Archaeologists found that agricultural land returned to forest, and some settlements which had been occupied up to that time were abandoned for 250 years.

Yet when this campaign was completed and the area thoroughly turned into a deserted wasteland Severus died in York (which at the time was serving as the capitol of the Roman Empire) and sons Caracalla and Geta, now co-Emperors, couldn't abandon Scotland fast enough and themselves return to the good life in Rome. (Soon Caracalla had murdered his brother and many others besides, but that's another story.)

[Jock Scot]

Very interesting, thank you.

[Darrin1200]

Fascinating. When read in this context, the walls make sense.

[Nemuragh]

[I]Septimius Severus In Scotland
. (There's a Roman fort on the Spey near Elgin, I didn't know the Romans got that far.)

Coincidentally, yesterday I cycled past the remains of a 1st century Roman camp/fort called Bochastle, just outside Callander. This is north of the Antonine Wall.

John

[ASinclair]

Very interesting. Thanks Richard.

[OC Richard]

Coincidentally, yesterday I cycled past the remains of a 1st century Roman camp/fort called Bochastle, just outside Callander. This is north of the Antonine Wall.

John

Thanks! Yes I see it on my Roman Britain map.

Roman marching forts are notoriously hard to date, generally impossible to know which unit built it, and impossible to know which direction they were marching. A Roman field army would built one every night on the march.

I see what appears to be a system of forts going Drumquhassie, Malling, Bochastle, Dalginross, Fendoch, and Inchtuthil sealing off the routes from which tribal raiding parties would come.

The usual Roman method to secure a border was to build a line of watchtowers within sight of each other, supported by a scattering of forts, and connecting roads. It's known that these watchtowers used signalling torches, what's not known is whether or not they had some sort of semaphore method for use during the day.

When a dodgy group was seen approaching word would get back to the nearest supporting fort and a rapid-response force would be sent out to meet the threat. (Watchtower systems, and indeed Hadrian's Wall, were manned by Auxiliary troops from across the Empire, not Legionaries. Auxiliary units were often cavalry.) This system was in place long before, during, and long after Hadrian built his walls around the Empire's borders.

The archaeological problem with forts is much worse with watchtowers. Like the temporary Roman forts the watchtowers were built of timber and leave even less behind to find.

[OC Richard]

Now I'm re-reading

Roman Britain

by Patricia Southern (2011)

It's interesting to read about the Romans' first incursion into Scotland.

It was the natural progression of the invasion of Britain in 43 AD, with the three Legions fanning out to the southwest, west, and north.

It wasn't until Wales was finally subjugated in 77 AD that Roman attention could be directed further north. Governer Julius Agricola, after pacifying the Pennines, headed into Scotland in 78 or 79 AD.

The timing of his seven seasons in Scotland and exactly where he went are unclear, except that he crossed the Tay in the third season. Evidently the fourth season was spent consolidating gains and building a string of forts along the Gask Ridge.

His fifth season was possibly spent in the west, occupying Strathclyde and building a string of forts along the Clyde-Forth line. Agricola's army was said to have reached a place where Scotland faces Ireland, and he considered invading the latter.

The sixth season was spent in the east, working his way north in co-operation with the Roman fleet which was raiding and harassing the natives.

Up until this time "the people of Caledonia" didn't risk engaging the Romans in battle, but retreated to the hills as the Romans advanced. However at some point the tribes began gathering in large numbers "and began arming themselves". When the natives acquired the intelligence that one of the three separated Roman columns was understrength they launched a night attack on the Roman camp. The Romans were hard-pressed but in the nick of time a relief column arrived and the natives, trapped between two Roman forces, retreated back into the mountains.

Agricola's seventh and last campaigning season started by pushing further north. The tribes were prepared this time. They had formed alliances and chosen a commander-in-chief named Calgacus (the Swordsman). When the Romans arrived at the place they called Mons Graupius the 30,000 man Caledonian army was waiting.

This was to be the first, and last, time that the Caledonian tribes formed up for battle in the open against the Romans. Agricola kept his Legions in reserve and advanced his Tungrian and Batavian auxiliaries. While these pinned down the Caledonian force from the front Roman cavalry attacked from the side and rear, resulting in a rout and slaughter of many of the tribesmen while the rest melted into the hills.

It being near the end of the campaigning season Agricola didn't pursue, but leisurely withdrew south into winter quarters.

Almost as soon as Agricola began consolidating his gains he was ordered to withdraw and to send much of his army to the Danube, due to the Dacians invading the Roman province of Moesia and defeating two Roman armies. The Roman forts north of the Clyde-Forth line were carefully demolished, anything of value buried or hauled away. Perdomita Britannia, statim missa.

The trouble about the great Battle of Mons Graupius is that we don't know where Mons Graupius was. The Romans spoke of being in the far north and of conquering "the whole island" of Britain but this is almost certainly not true.

The furthest-north Roman camps known are those between Elgin and Peterhead, the one at Auchinhove being dated to the right period and large enough to have held a large Roman force.

A line of Roman camps can be traced up the east coast to Aberdeen and from there through Inverurie and Huntly to a cluster of forts at Burnfield, Muryfold, Auchinhove, and ending at Bellie, the furthest-north known Roman camp AFAIK.

Is that where the Battle of Mons Graupius was fought?

The Romans did reach a northern coast of sorts, but certainly they could have looked across the Moray Firth and seen that they hadn't conquered "the whole island".

[Father Bill]

Now I'm re-reading

Roman Britain

by Patricia Southern (2011)

Thank you, Richard. I've just ordered it.

[OC Richard]

Thank you, Richard. I've just ordered it.

Awesome!

I'm a visual person and essential to me being able to follow along spatially was

Roman Britain by Ordinance Survey Historical Maps

Especially the Agricola and Severus invasions of Scotland are hard to grasp for me without a good map.

All the known Roman forts and marching camps are shown.

I went down the Roman rabbithole during COVID.

I tried to stick to more recent books because diggings are currently ongoing which are continuously adding to our meagre knowledge.

I really liked these

Pax Romana by Adrian Goldsworthy

The Complete Roman Army also by Adrian Goldsworthy

Conquering Jerusalem by Stephan Dando-Collins (this book is incredibly interesting)

The Anglo-Saxons by Marc Morris (what came after the Romans)

[kilted2000]

Another writer I would look out for is Mary Beard, classics prof at Cambridge. All her books are good and SPQR is a good one to start with. Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars is also very good if you want to go with primary sources.