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

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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