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Caledonians
and Romans
Why
was Scotland not Conquered?
In the wake of defeat at the Battle of Mons Graupius,
as winter drew in, the Caledonians must have considered
themselves doomed, but then Roman politics intervened.
The Emperor Domition ordered Agricola back to Rome.
For Tacitus, Agricola’s son-in-law, Scotland
had been ‘let go’, however Rome was facing
a more pressing military crisis on the Rhine and Danube
frontiers.
In 122 AD Hadrian’s Wall was built between the Solway and the
Tyne, establishing a frontier for the Empire. Hadrian’s successor
as emperor, Antoninus Pius, pushed the frontier further north to
the Forth/ Clyde isthmus and built his own wall, the Antonine Wall.
This was built mainly for the prestige of expanding the Empire,
but on his death it was abandoned in favour of Hadrian’s Wall.
The
Antonine Wall - 142 AD
The wall ran 60km from the River Forth to the River Clyde. It
consisted of a turf rampart on a stone base behind a deep defensive
ditch. Forts and other defensive structures lined the wall which
marked the northernmost extremity of the Empire. This is one
of the best preserved areas of the ditch at Watling Lodge, near
Stirling |
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With
the exception of 3 years of war from 208-211 AD, in which the Caledonians
fought the Emperor Severus's troops using distinctly guerrilla tactics,
peace reigned on the frontier for a century.
The
Emergence of the Picts
Faced with so formidable an opponent, the northern
tribes united into the Pictish nation. The Picts’
name first appears in 297 AD and comes from the Latin
Picti, literally ‘painted people’.
By 306 AD the Emperor Constantius Chlorus was forced
to subdue his northern frontier in the face of Pictish
attacks on Hadrian’s Wall. However, the tide
was slowly turning against the Roman Empire.
Picts and Gaels invade Britannia 360-367AD
As Rome weakened the Picts became bolder. In 360 AD
they allied with the Gaels from Ireland and launched
a concerted invasion across Hadrian’s Wall. Julian,
the last pagan Emperor of Rome, sent legions to deal
with them but to little effect. Within four years
they were raiding deep inside Britannia until they
were finally repelled by Theodosius the Elder, father
of the emperor of the same name who made Christianity
the only official religion in the Empire in 367.
The
Roman Legions Depart
The Roman system of controlling of the tribes north of Hadrian’s
Wall broke down. Scouting was abandoned and forts like Newstead
north of Hadrian’s wall were left deserted. Hadrian’s
Wall itself was eventually abandoned and in 411 AD the legions departed
to deal with the barbarian crisis at the heart of the empire. The
Romano-Britons continued to appeal to Rome for help. Eventually
they hired other barbarians, the Angles and Saxons, to assist in
their defence against the Picts and other raiders. In one of the
great ironies of history the Scottish tribal raids on the Romano-Britons
helped to bring the peoples who created England to this island.
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