After Mons Graupius

My first actual post (other than the intro) and I'm committing heresy......

Here's a challenge for all you Romanophiles: explain the atypical behaviour of the Romans after winning Mons Graupius (and if you can prove this battle actually took place you get 5 points).

To refresh memories, according to Tacitus, the Romans fought and defeated a Caledonian army of 30,000, killing 10,000 of them and driving the rest from the field (which has never been identified). They managed this feat with the loss of no more than 360 auxiliaries and one single solitary Roman citizen, an Aulus Atticus (while the Legions present sat back and twiddled their thumbs).

This is where the story begins to fall apart. The normal procedure of a Roman army after such a victory was to settle in and consolidate, bribe a few of the local bigwigs, kill some of the others, erect a commemoration stone or two, and build a base for further operations.

In this case, they didn't. Yet, according to Tacitus, all

It is said that most Caledonians escaped the battlefield so while a defeat it was not decisive.

The main reason for the retreat was, probably, the Dacian War. In 85 Dacians launched a raid on Moesia forcing a major concentration of Roman forces on the Lower Danube. In 86 at the first battle of Tapae the romans were defeated, the pretorian prefect killed and Legio V Alaude was almost annihilated. The war continued in Dacia for another year and the peace was embarrassing for Romans, so they strengthened their forces in Moesia. At the same time romans had trouble in Pannonia and later in Germany. With all this conflicts the roman did not had the manpower to continue fighting in Scotland so they withdrawn much of their forces.

I agree 100% with Kosmo. The Romans' mindset was that they would occupy the whole of Britannia and move on the Hibernia. These were pre-Hadrianic days when the concept of a limited Empire was to a large extent an alien concept. Like Britannia itself following Caesar's initial invasion, the Highlands of Scotland would always be something they could come back to when the time was right, so the motivation to occupy rather than just conquer was not absolute.

Conquest was arguably the more important of the two - to be able to send word to Rome that all the tribes had been subdued was all the glory Agricola really wanted. No doubt, without the Dacian hoo-har, he would have stayed and made a token effort to occupy, but even then, there was little motivation. The Highlands had very little to offer the Roman Empire in terms of wealth, and that's why they were chiefly in the Empire building business. Talk of Glory was just that - talk. Denarii in the pocket were what really motivated individual Generals in the field.

There's a number of reasosn why the Romans withdrew. Firstly, the emperor Domitian was suspicious about Agricola's motives in the wake of a succesful campaign abroad and had him recalled to Rome, evisdently with a view to keeping 'friends' closer. Secondly, there weren't any resources to interest the Romans in occupation of another stretch of wilderness. Thirdly, despite the victory at Mons Graupius and claims of outright Roman victory, the territory was not fully secured and represented a difficult challenege to maintain.

Bear in mind that the Romans were essentially urban in character. The Picts had no cities to occupy, no infrastructure to faciltate governance, and were clearly not going to like Roman presence. Also I believe the motives for the campaign are misunderstood. I don't actually believe the expedition was there to 'conquer' Caledonia. Instead it makes more sense to view it as a punitive expedition to force the Picts to back down, thus making the frontier safer. This was a standard Roman strategy which they had employed in Germania.

Then of course, the Romans had bitter memories of the Varian Disaster, which resulted from an attempted colonisation of a 'barbaric' wilderness. Therefore it's unlikely the Romans were keen to stay in hostile territory. To counter that we have the evidence of the creation of permanent fortress sites in Caledonia, abandoned before completion. Instead of seeing that as a primary motive, it might be better to view it as forward thinking and some evidence of local initiative - and perhaps some intent to claim Caledonia as a 'conquered' region - which was why Domitian recalled Agricola in the first place. He didn't want ambitious generals returning in triumph with a victorious army behind them. In other words, the campaign was pacification, and tacitus might be presenting Agricola in a better light than he deserves.

I take your points, but you're all forgetting the timing issue. I know that nowadays communication is almost instantaneous, but back then it wasn't. Immediately after "winning" Mons Graupius, Agricola withdrew his legions below the "Bodotria" - which is normally considered to be the Forth Estuary. Now, let's be nasty and think this was actually the Tay. That would put his main fortress somewhere around Carpow.

If it was the Forth, the depot at Cramond just isn't big enough to supply two full legions and their auxiliary units, so we are then looking somewhere around Melrose.

Getting back for a moment to the timing issue, Domitian could not have recalled Agricola before the news of his "victory" reached Rome, nor could the recall have arrived before the Dacian adventures......

You're also forgetting the insidious nature of a paranoiud emperor. It's hardly likely that given the communication lag (which you rightly point to) that Domitian was going to trust his general completely. It isn't beyond reason that spies and agents were on hand to observe what was going on, even possibly armed with a recall letter should they feel that Agricola was attempting to create a breakaway power base by conquest. Don't forget, once Britain was totally conquered, it was (as it always has been) a challenge to conquer because of geography.

Now I admit that this is based on speculation. However, we also shouldn't forget that our mental image of a totally obedient professional army is one based on our own modern experience, not that of the Roman. From the very start the Romans had attempted to ensure that no army was commanded by one man alone - and as later history shows, with good reason. Emperors were usually well aware of the fickle nature of their legions. Many of them would come to power via their good graces, and many would be on their receiving end.

I often see many articles or forum posts praising Roman civil engineering or the finer points of their society. Whilst I can't argue with that, it tends to be a rosy picture of the Roman Empire. It ignores the corruption, greed, and violence within it. It ignores the insidious nature of a very Roman desire to control another person - not just slavery, but by manipulation, association, and threat as well. Not for nothing does Cassius Dio frequently refer to men being made slaves of when in fact they officially free.

Therefore to describe the end of the Caledonian campaign we need to observe it from a Roman perspective - not a familiar modern one.

 

Here's a challenge for all you Romanophiles: explain the atypical behaviour of the Romans after winning Mons Graupius (and if you can prove this battle actually took place you get 5 points).

 

I'd like to see some logical reasons for this atypical behaviour. Leaving aside all the usual comments about Roman over-inflation of the numbers of their opponents, and, just this once thinking these estimates were accurate, explain their behaviour.

First of all, welcome to the boards.

Second, let me assure you that I'm coming from a pro-Scotish perspective. (Even though relatives on my father's side were invited to leave Scotland (politely, I'm sure) shortly after "The Forty-five," I have great respect for Scotland, especially the Scotish Enlightenment of the 1700s.)

Rome's lack of follow-through after a major victory is not unprecedented. Rome sacked the capital of Parthia (Ctesiphon) three times without maintaining a permanent occupation in Parthia.

Perhaps it was because Parthia (and probably Scotland) lacked a centralized government to replace. Parthia was a large feudal system without a pre-existing government infrastructure that could be easily replaced by a Roman government.

Ultimately, however, the costs and risks of permanent Roman rule would have greatly outweighed the benefits. Unlike Dacia and other conquests, rural and undeveloped Scotland was not known as a place rich with the coveted resources such as precious metals (silver and gold), spices, slaves, a developed agricultural system, etc.

With many precedents, Scotland would have been quickly conquered and subjugated if the ruling elites thought it were in their interests.

guy also known as gaius

The underlying idea here is that many of us are thinking in terms of conquest and territorial ownership. That was not necessarily on the minds on the Roman commanders, who had more sophisticated or short term objectives to consider. Although they had yet to contruct Hadrians Wall, there nonetheless a need to establish the security of the current border of what the Romans considered theirs. In other words, it wasn't enough to simply build a few watchtowers and patrol the road, it was also necessary t impress upon the Picts that the Romans were not to be messed with.

In the early empuire the legions still pursued what might be described as 'aggressive policies' as opposed to the frontier safeguards common to the late period. In much the same way that some countries launch air strikes against troublesome nations for limited objectives, so the Romans also marched into foreign lands not necessarily to conquer, but to intimidate and dominate.