Scotland: Rome's Final Frontier

'78AD. The most powerful army in the world arrived here -

'a land of strange tribes and savage beasts.

'A place they called Caledonia.'

They would have terrorised the locals.

They believed that they had a divine right to rule.

'The mighty Roman legions had conquered all before them.

'By warfare, repression,'

bribery, genocide.

But when they got to here, they stuttered to a halt.

For over 300 years, the tribes of Northern Britain

proved the most frustrating and formidable of adversaries.

'I'm Dr Fraser Hunter. I'm an archaeologist.

'I've spent 20 years uncovering our earliest histories.

'The Roman invasion fascinates me.

'How a voracious superpower took on the tribes of Iron Age Scotland.'

CLAMOUR OF BATTLE

'A conflict from ancient history.

'But a conflict that resonates with our own world.'

This was a battle of

empire against insurgency.

A battle of control. Of division.

Of conquest.

Tales from the edge of empire. The story of Rome's final frontier.

'Our story begins here, in the heat and dust of North Africa,

'at the ancient Roman city of Volubilis, in Morocco -

'the southwest corner of the empire.'

From here it's 2,500 miles

to the eastern edge of the empire in Syria.

1,500 miles north, to the land they called Caledonia.

And strange as it may seem,

these ancient ruins hold a unique

and fascinating piece of evidence about the history of Scotland.

'This arch was built to celebrate the self-styled

'conqueror of the Caledonians,

'the Emperor Caracalla.

'He and his father, the Emperor Severus,

'had led massive military campaigns into third-century Scotland.

'A great statue of Caracalla once stood above the arch.'

So what we see today, is impressive, although it's restored,

but it's only a fragment of how it would have looked

cos the inscription that sits there at the moment

would have had... would have been built into

a much larger structure and on top of that,

you have this enormous, great, bronze statue.

'A fragment of cloak from Caracalla's statue has survived.

'Housed in the archaeological museum of the city of Rabat.

'It includes an early depiction of that great national stereotype,

'the long-haired Caledonian warrior.'

And here he is.

The giveaway is the checked leggings...

..the first ever depiction of tartan.

And the shields too.

They're Celtic in style, this guy's a Caledonian.

You can see his head, cloak over the shoulders.

But look at the arms.

They're bound behind the back. This guy's a captive.

He's a prisoner from the vicious campaigns of Severus and Caracalla.

'And some of these men would have been force-marched

'for months on end to all parts of the empire.

'Living trophies of the Emperor's success.

'Some might have been traded as slaves in the great markets.

'Others were even less fortunate.

'This mosaic from Tunisia

'shows how one unfortunate Caledonian met his end.'

Captured...

marched for months to this desert province...

sent to the amphitheatre.

Killed by wild animals as exotic entertainment for the locals.

We've long had a curious,

rather cuddly relationship with the Romans.

Hot baths, straight roads - all very Monty Python.

In the western world we often see ourselves as

the inheritors of Roman values and Roman culture.

But this evidence from North Africa reminds us,

the Romans were invaders -

colonisers.

Their strategies encompassed everything up to

and including genocide.

For the local tribes, the Roman arrival in what we call Scotland

must have been absolutely terrifying.

'That arrival came around the year 78AD.

'35 years after landing in England,

'the Roman armies turned their attentions to

'conquering the north, and marched into modern-day Scotland.

'Here, at Pennymuir, they built a temporary camp -

' massive enclosure to protect 20,000 men on the move.'

To the locals,

this must have seemed like an army from a different planet.

More people than they had ever seen in the one place together.

An army with weapons that could kill you, at a great distance.

This was first century shock and awe.

'The Caledonians would have been amazed.

'An army of some 20,000 men, all of them armed to the teeth.

'An advancing column of soldiers, five miles long.

'Thousands of horses and pack animals.

'The creak and crash of wagons full of supplies.

'The colourful flags, the gleaming helmets,

'the bright brassy harness, the sound of an alien tongue.

'The Roman Empire had arrived.

'The Emperor Vespasian had ordered the invasion.

'To be led by the Governor of Britain - Agricola.

'And Agricola's life story survives.

'Written by his son-in-law, Tacitus.'

So not the most unbiased of sources, nor always the most reliable.

Tacitus records that over the next few years,

the forces of Agricola drove deeper and deeper into Scotland.

LATIN QUOTATION IN TRANSLATION:

"Repeated and successful battles

"had conquered tribes up to that time unknown."

Agricola's invasion of Scotland was an uneven battle,

between a highly disciplined army with every technological advantage,

and local tribes unused to this scale of threat.

'In modern military jargon, it's called asymmetric warfare.

'Powerful, regimented armies,

'against unpredictable, small militias.

'Major General Andrew Mackay led British forces in Afghanistan.

'He knows, from experience, the challenges

'Agricola would have faced.'

He's got to start gaining a bit of intelligence.

He's got to figure out, who are the ruling elites?

Who can I do the deals with?

Who's going to be opposing me?

Who are going to be the more difficult customers?

Who am I going to have to squash?

Who am I going to have to deal with in a more amicable way?

The Romans would be looking to use

all the kind of equipment and training

and doctrine that had got them so far

in creating such an enormous empire.

'Tacitus continued his account of Agricola's invasion.'

LATIN QUOTATION IN TRANSLATION:

"The natives were harried as far north as the estuary of the Tay.

"Overawed by terror the enemy did not venture to annoy our army...

"though it suffered from shocking weather.

"Time was found also for the planting of forts."

'Forts were built as permanent bases for holding down the country.

'This is Ardoch, just outside the village of Braco, in Perthshire.'

Ardoch is remarkable because so much survives.

This is the best preserved earthwork fort in the whole Roman Empire.

And even after almost 2,000 years,

we still get a fantastic picture of how the Roman army protected itself.

At the bottom of these ditches,

would have been the Roman equivalent of barbed wire -

sharp, thorny bushes, nettles and other unpleasant things.

An extra line of defence was the rampart of turf and timber.

And you'd only enter the fort, through narrow causeways like this.

'Forts, were just one part of a massive logistical operation

'to conquer Scotland.

'The fort at Ardoch was surrounded by enormous temporary camps.

'These provided overnight accommodation

'and a safeguard against attack.

'Dr Rebecca Jones is an authority on

'these formidable Roman constructions.'

We've got a fort here, and that would have been occupied by

about 500 men in timber buildings,

who are garrisoning the territory -

newly conquered territory - and actually placing themselves,

occupying it, staying here for 10, 15, perhaps 20 years.

To the north of the fort,

there's a whole series of camps

occupied at different times by soldiers who were coming through

this area, when they were in various conquest phases.

The camps are vast in size.

One of them holds, potentially, up to 30,000 men.

And what's the role of these camps?

Soldiers needed an overnight halting place obviously,

but also it's a mark in the landscape.

This is the Romans, they've arrived.

This is where we're conquering,

this is where we're travelling through.

And while they were here, they would have terrorised the locals,

got the supplies that they needed,

they would have carried some supplies with them,

but 30,000 men, would have required

an awful lot of additional supplies

that they'd have got from the locals.

When they're campaigning from one site to another,

they would have departed one site,

and the head of the column, as they marched along,

would potentially arrive at the next site, some 20 miles away,

whilst the tail was actually leaving the camp.

Which must have been quite a tremendous sight in the landscape.

'From Ardoch, the Romans headed along the Gask Ridge,

'skirting the southern Highlands.

'Then, they marched northeast -

'along Strathmore,

'in the good land south of the Grampians.'

A lot of people think the Roman Empire

began and ended at Hadrian's Wall.

In fact the Roman army drove deep into northeast Scotland.

'This is Stonehaven. A town just south of Aberdeen.

'The Romans were here.

'And Agricola's advancing army was relentless.'

LATIN QUOTATION IN TRANSLATION:

"Caledonia must be penetrated.

"The furthest shores of Britain

"must, once for all, be discovered in one continuous campaign."

Just, there is a gap here.

That looks believable as well.

'Professor Bill Hanson of Glasgow University

'has been studying Roman Scotland for almost 40 years.

'He's come to meet me, in the misty hills above Stonehaven.

'The site of a Roman marching camp, Raedykes -

'one of a series of camps on Rome's northern frontier.

'This bank and ditch, are part of a massive Roman marching camp.'

This unremarkable grassy field, was once the temporary home,

for some 20,000 Roman soldiers.

It was a huge, logistical operation.

Food and other supplies,

a baggage train pulling all kinds of things,

advanced weaponry, catapults, a field hospital.

It begs the question. Why did they come here?

It really boils down to,

trying to finish off the conquest of the island.

Whether they were after economic gain, is much debated.

Certainly it's clear that, the area that they did consolidate

after the, after this, firs-century campaigning,

was the area of Scotland that has the richest agricultural land.

But there may also have been an interest in acquiring resources,

particularly minerals, particularly metals.

There was gold in Scotland.

Lead, in particular, and silver because the two often go together.

So they well may have been looking for that,

but there's some considerable debate about the extent to which

those sort of economic drivers were behind the process.

At the end of the day, it really is about conquering the world.

They believed that they had a divine right to rule.

'To rule Scotland, Agricola would have to deal conclusively with

'the Caledonian tribes.

'Six years into the Roman invasion,

'the two sides met at Mons Graupius -

'the first recorded battle on Scottish soil.'

Tacitus brings to life a great war leader of the Caledonians -

Calgacus, Scotland's first Braveheart.

"We stand now as one, the last of the free.

"There is no other race beyond us.

"Nothing but the crash of sea upon the rocks

"and more deadly still, the Romans. They have pillaged the earth.

"To plunder, butchery and rape they give the false name of empire.

"They make a desert and call it peace."

The speech is pure Hollywood. It's also pure fiction.

It tells us more about Roman propaganda needs

than it does about facts on the frontier.

Supposedly 10,000 Caledonians killed,

but only 360 of our plucky Roman heroes.

And they were playing the B team.

The legionaries, the crack heavy infantry,

supposedly weren't even involved.

'The Caledonians didn't have a written culture.

'We can't read their account of the battle.

'But their history, their culture

'and the things that were important to them, can all be uncovered.

'I've come to Birnie, just south of Elgin.'

I don't get to work in places like

the Parthenon or the Valley Of The Kings.

I work in places like pig farms.

We've spent 14 summers digging here.

2,000 years ago, this was a thriving community - farmer folk.

Not Scottish or Caledonian, they'd no notion of nationality.

Essentially these were small-scale societies.

A land of big farms controlling their local area.

'Modern techniques are giving us a much clearer picture

'of how these Iron Age people lived.

'Dr Matthew Nicholls from Reading University

'has translated volumes of archaeological evidence

'into a digital version of how this site may have looked.'

That's fantastic. That gives us a great sense of some of the buildings

as we look down onto them - these roundhouses.

These are really large structures as well, aren't they?

Yeah, I think this is the important thing.

People call them huts but these are huge big houses.

I mean these are 16 to 20 metres in diameter -

absolutely massive and many of them with more than one storey in them.

You know, you'd have an upper floor.

I've put a couple of shadowy people into the centre

of the area there to try and give a sense of that scale,

and buildings like this one particularly are really huge.

I think that this is the problem,

we lose so much in this kind of organic architecture

that just doesn't survive,

whereas on a Roman site in stone it does survive.

But of course you can do all kinds of things

with organic architecture with,

you know, fancy rope work or fancy turf work.

It would have made these buildings look big and grand and impressive.

I tried to put in some evidence, or some reconstructive imagery,

of what led to the prosperity of the site.

So a suggestion of agriculture.

Yes, the agriculture's all important.

But the craft activities are key as well, and the iron smelting

taking place over there, the blacksmithing, bronze casting,

pot making, leather working, a whole range of crafts are going on here.

Both for them to use and to show off with,

but also to exchange with other folk and, you know,

as a result, build their connections, build their power.

'The people who lived here were labelled "barbarians"

'by Roman propaganda.

'The archaeology disproves that completely.'

'And when I'm not in a muddy ditch, this is my office.

'The National Museum of Scotland.

'For me the great joy of working here,

'is that when everyone's left for the night,

'I can enjoy the exhibits on my own.

'The archaeology we've unearthed all across Scotland gives you

'a real sense of what mattered to the people living in

'these Iron Age communities.'

Well this is one of the nicest finds from Birnie.

Tiny wee glass gaming piece.

Just like a wee marble.

And it shows us these folk not only had spare time on their hands,

but this is a little masterpiece of technology

with these swirls of blue and white glass set into it.

These are skilled craft workers, not just savages or simple farmers.

This hoard from Blair Drummond shows the craft skills,

the power and the connections of some people in Iron Age Scotland.

Locally made, gold neck ornaments - torcs -

along with one that's inspired by both Mediterranean

and local craft styles,

with its wonderful Mediterranean style decoration in the terminals.

The finds can tell us what was important to these people.

And this is part of a group of horse harness fittings.

And horses and chariots are one of the ways

you'd show off in Iron Age society.

This is a strap junction.

You'd fasten two leather straps from the horse harness together.

And, rather than just a plain, boring old junction,

they decorate these things.

So on this one you've got all these, wonderful curving lines and...

trumpet shapes and enamelled decoration on it.

These folk decorated the things that were important to them -

horse equipment, jewellery and also weaponry.

A few folk were warriors

and for them the sword was a symbol of status

and the sword scabbard showed that off, with its wonderful decoration.

'Scotland's warriors had been soundly beaten at Mons Graupius.

'Their collected armies had been massacred.

'Large areas of Caledonia had been conquered.

'And now, they were to be colonised.

'For the Romans, a new phase of the operation began -

'to mop up resistance, to police the native population

'and to push on into the Highlands.

'The very centre of that new strategy was located here

'at Inchtuthil, near Blairgowrie.'

Here, on the banks of the River Tay, was a massive Roman barracks.

Big enough to take an entire legion - over 5,000 thousand men.

You can maybe just see on the far side of the field

where the Land Rover's parked.

That's the other side of the fortress.

That's the scale we're talking about here.

'The fortress was 50 acres in size.

'Roughly the area of 25 football pitches.

'Ten times the size of the London Olympic Stadium.'

-It would have been a very dramatic thing in the landscape.

-Yeah, yeah.

Very forbidding, I would have thought.

Can we have a look at the fortress?

This gives us a more close-in view of the fort.

64 different barrack blocks there for the legionaries

to live in, about 5,500 men.

And then the tiled roofs - headquarters building, hospital,

houses for the officers built in a grand Roman courtyard style.

The workshop for blacksmithing and wagon making activities.

In the middle of it all, that's the headquarters building -

the principia - but slightly smaller than we'd expect

for a fort of this importance.

And perhaps that's a sign that they were going to rebuild it

on a grander scale, when they got round to finishing the place.

Had they been here longer, we'd be looking at a very magnificent

praetorium there - the house of the commanding officer,

who'd be a very high ranking general indeed.

Very important man, friend of the Emperor.

When they dug here in the '50s and '60s,

they found a pit containing over a million nails.

Ten tonnes of nails.

And the effort involved in making those, and then in shipping them

here, gives you some idea of the scale of the Roman endeavour.

'The Romans thought they were in Caledonia to stay.

'Their newly-built infrastructure of roads,

'forts and signal towers helped to keep the peace

'and connected Caledonia

'to the rest of the Roman world.'

This northern outpost was on track to become a fully-fledged

province of the Roman Empire.

But only four years after the battle of Mons Graupius,

the unstoppable forward momentum of the mighty Roman Empire stopped.

'The armies that controlled Scotland were needed elsewhere.

'And urgently.

'A rebellion that began in modern-day Romania

'was becoming a genuine threat to the stability of the empire.

'With fewer men, the Romans could control less of Caledonia.

'Inchtuthil and the whole northern frontier was abandoned.'

'Elsewhere in the empire,

'these great fortresses gave life to settlements.

'And over time those grew into towns and cities.'

York, Vienna and Strasbourg were all legionary fortresses.

These Perthshire fields could have been a great Scottish city.

Inchtuthil might have been Scotland's capital.

'Instead, the Romans headed south.

'The Highlands, the Central Lowlands, were left behind.

'Left for another day.

'A new frontier, a buffer zone was created

'across the North of England.

'An area that's been studied for decades by Professor David Breeze.'

'They added more forts, smaller forts which are

'more to do with frontier control, looking out...

'looking out for people, moving in the landscape.

'And they added towers.

'Towers are to do with observation,'

keeping your eye

on what's happening in the frontier zone.

So we can see, that this is a frontier.

Although it lasted a whole generation,

it clearly wasn't sufficient for the Romans because

then Hadrian came along and decided he would add something new to it.

This is the best way of, actually,

creating a system of frontier control,

otherwise your system of forts and towers

have gaps in them, obviously, but a wall is a very definitive statement.

Is this the first time that's been done?

Hadrian came to Britain from Germany and in Germany, we are told,

he ordered the construction of a palisade or a fence,

which is not like a garden fence,

these are socking great timbers a foot across.

So why does Hadrian build a wall rather than expand?

It's probably, in part, Hadrian's attitude of mind.

He very much favoured Greek culture

and the Greeks, at the time,

were not expansionists, unlike the Romans.

Also I think, he's realising at the time

that there's a problem in manpower.

The Roman army's a voluntary army, you see. So against that background,

he's building Hadrian's Wall in part to say, "Right, OK,

"we're stopping here. This is the end."

'Even today, almost 2,000 years on,

'Hadrian's Wall is mind-blowing.

'The local tribes-folk must have been amazed.

'Thousands of men, building a stone wall 80 miles long,

'15 feet high.

'Today, we think of it as a defensive installation.

'But is that all it was?'

The Roman army didn't fight from walls,

it preferred to go out into the open to defeat an enemy

and there its superior training, its high discipline,

its well-armed troops was more likely to defeat an enemy.

Even a more substantial enemy.

So I think we should be careful about the defence argument alone.

What's going to be really more troublesome is raiding.

One of the interesting aspects about the Roman Empire

and its frontiers, along every frontier

we've got evidence for raiding.

And we have a really interesting inscription from modern Hungary,

which says, the frontier was built against

the actions of petty raiders.

But once it's here, I think we then move onto another aspect of it,

which is perhaps more bureaucratic.

You could only come into the Roman Empire

at specified places.

And you could only proceed under military supervision.

If I'm a tribesman,

for generations my family have grazed their cattle over there.

We've raided cattle from over there.

We've got family on that side of the wall,

the sacred places are over there, this wall stops all that.

Now, if I want to go and meet the family, if I want to go to

one of the gatherings, I have to ask permission.

I have to come to one of these gateways through the wall.

I have to knock and in daylight they might let me through.

If they like me. And they'll search me.

And they'll take my weapons.

And I need to get permission to do anything.

And as soon as I enter the Roman Empire, I need permissions,

I get taxed on things, they're keeping an eye on me at every point.

And a squaddie's word is law. I've got no comeback here.

This wall is a huge interruption for us.

It would cause enormous resentment.

This bureaucratic element, of controlling access to

Roman space, just as we are so interested in controlling access

to our space.

Countries build great walls to protect their frontier zone

from, as they see, troublesome people from the other side.

Generations of Scots have taken a mistaken pride in this wall.

Thinking that it justifies their warlike reputation.

That they were too tough for the Roman Empire.

But you could take an opposite view.

That the Romans chose not to stay in Caledonia.

Decided it wasn't worth having.

That there weren't the resources there to keep them.

That this was a planned withdrawal, not a retreat.

The truth, I think, was a mixture of both.

From the Roman point of view, the northern tribes were troublesome.

This was a restless frontier. The wall is testament to that.

But in the end, this was a pragmatic decision.

Caledonia was more bother than it was worth.

'But Hadrian's successor had other ideas.

'16 years after construction of the wall began,

'Antoninus Pius came to power.

'A respected senator, and a man with his own ideas on where best

'to place Rome's northern frontier.

'The new Emperor was faced with two problems.

'Continued conflict with the Caledonians.

'And also the problem of his own credibility.

'He had no military honours.

'Antoninus Pius would not be the last leader

'to seek domestic popularity from foreign military adventures.'

Caledonia was a place where reputations could be won.

And there was little to be won on Hadrian's Wall.

So, some 60 years after Agricola's campaigns,

the legions ventured north again.

'In charge was a man called Quintus Lollius Urbicus.

'He led his men into Central Scotland.

'The lowlands between the Clyde and the Forth.

'And the shortest space between Britain's east and west coasts.

'The perfect location to build another wall.

'Nowadays we call it the Antonine Wall.

'It was made of turf and timber,

'so much less survives than at Hadrian's Wall.

'But it was once a formidable monument.

'The legions adorned the wall with inscribed slabs

'to celebrate their part in overpowering Caledonia.'

This is the most spectacular of these discs and slabs.

From the east end of the Antonine Wall,

at Bridgeness on the Firth of Forth.

And here the army marked their great victory for the new Emperor.

This is their view of that victory...

..with the locals defeated, captured and slaughtered.

It's a classic piece of Roman propaganda.

'For these poor subjugated locals, this new wall

'was every bit as daunting and disruptive as its predecessor.'

First, you'd have to get across these pits.

And these would have been hidden under branches and foliage.

If you fall through, you're falling onto sharpened wooden stakes.

Seriously nasty.

Then there's this ditch, like we saw at Ardoch earlier

but much, much bigger.

Nine metres across, originally four metres deep,

and with nasty, jaggy thorn branches in the bottom of it.

And there's the wall itself.

Four metres high, near vertical turf, palisade on top of that,

Roman soldiers on top of that.

'We call them Roman soldiers.

'But most of the men stationed in Caledonia had never been to Rome.'

When we think about the Roman army,

most people think about guys like these.

Roman legionaries.

Men from the Med with their swords and sandals,

shivering in our cold northern climate.

But they were the exception.

Most of the garrison of Roman Scotland didn't come from the Med.

They came from all around the Roman world.

'The empire recruited soldiers from the territories it conquered.

'Along the Antonine Wall, recruits came from England, France, Belgium.

'And even further afield.'

These battered fragments of pottery come from a casserole dish,

of a style we still use today.

It's called a tagine, a North African style of cooking.

And this was made and used by North African soldiers,

serving in Scotland for the Roman army.

There was also tremendous social variation.

The humble squaddie would cook his own food,

and he'd be serving a rubbish wine, in rubbish wine flagons like this.

And eating his burnt meal from a pot like this.

The officer class would have their meals cooked by slaves or servants.

And they'd be dining on food eaten from

high quality pottery like this, imported from France.

And drinking the best quality wine in bronze flagons like this

work of art from the Mediterranean.

And sometimes with this Roman material, you can get

so close to these dead soldiers you could almost feel their breath.

On the bottom of this pot, the owner carved his name -

Victorinus - so that nobody would nick it.

There was a real mix of people on the Roman frontier.

People from all around the Roman Empire coming together

in Scotland, and you see this mix of cultures as part of frontier life.

This brooch is a really nice example of that.

Cos you look at this swirling decoration, typical Celtic art,

and yet the idea of putting it on this kind of brooch

is a Roman one.

So what we're seeing here, is a mixing of Roman and local styles

creating this new culture on the frontier.

'The Antonine Wall brought cultures together,

'as much as it kept people apart.

'And for me the best example of that is here, at Inveresk,

'to the east of the wall.

'The cemetery was laid out on the site of a Roman fort.

'Matthew Nicholls has built a fascinating picture of how

'soldiers and civilians would have come together.'

Here's the fort on the higher ground in the loop of the river

but spreading beyond it is a civilian settlement

that started a Roman town, Vicus.

I think this is a really exciting thing with Inveresk,

the fact that it's not just a military stronghold.

Here we've got the evidence

for everything happening round about the fort.

Lots of agriculture, trade and industry activities,

bathhouse outside the fort possibly, and also evidence for temples,

parade ground, possible amphitheatre.

You really get the sense of life here.

This isn't just the soldiers coming in

and beating people up, there's a whole community developing.

What's happening over on the right there?

Down here, a parade ground, an area perhaps for military displays

or town events with possible religious buildings

at one end of it. Around that, agricultural buildings

and land for growing crops.

And here the vicus itself, the town with its street down the middle

and buildings spreading off on thin plots to the north and south.

It really gives a sense of a community here.

And when you think, also in here would be all the industry,

the pottery kilns, and the metalworking,

and also the facilities the soldiers needed -

the fast food joints and where their families are staying as well.

And the whole thing,

still dominated by the fort up on the high ground at the top.

'At Inveresk, the camp followers and merchants offered services

'and goods for sale to the soldiers.

'But this was only part of the story.

'This community was at the sharp end

'of a huge imperial supply chain,

'transporting the choice cuts of empire to the front line.'

Excavations here found a massive 250 gallon wooden barrel,

once filled with German wine.

And work in the sewers of the Roman fort at Bearsden showed that

the soldiers there had exotic Mediterranean foods in their diet -

fig, celery, dill and coriander. This was a good life.

'And Caledonian communities

'could themselves get a taste of the good life.

'Here at Castle Craig, on a hilltop south of Perth,

'a team of archaeologists

'led by Heather James has discovered an Iron Age broch -

'a stone roundhouse -

'with evidence that the inhabitants

'had access to a wider, wealthier world.'

It's very exciting to find

within the material

within the broch, not just the artefacts you'd associate with

farming, like a sickle

and weaving combs and spindle whorls.

But we also have Roman goods like a brooch, Roman glass, pottery.

So all these things

give an indication that the people who live here are being given

some fantastic objects, Roman objects,

perhaps in exchange for supplying goods

and food to the troops that were up here.

This is at the top of the local social pyramid

dealing with the Roman world. The Romans are marching up and down

that area over there.

And one of the ways they keep this area quiet, is by making sure

they've got good relationships with the local population.

Essentially bribing them,

paying them off, keeping on good terms with them.

-Can I?

-Yes, please do.

That is stunning.

-It's very heavy, isn't it?

-Yeah.

Typical weight for 2nd-century Roman.

Made probably in northern Italy, somewhere like that.

It's quite a flashy example,

the fact that you've got the decoration there as well.

In local context this is a real way of showing off. You know,

very few folk would have had access to those kind of things.

'For the Romans, what happened at Castle Craig

'and sites like it

'was all about winning hearts and minds.

'A strategy that's still very much in use.'

You can give them land,

give them riches, give them money,

allow them access, allow them trading opportunities,

to ensure that the ruling elites are those who support you

and you absorb them within you.

I think the other thing is you've just got to simply make sure

that the public goods that you might...

introduce as part of your rule are favourable to citizens.

If a citizen of a country is relatively safe,

well, that's a... that's a big bonus in your favour.

And they're unlikely to want to side with someone

who's going to make life much more insecure

when they can get about with

trading and living a relatively peaceful life.

The Roman invaders provided a natty lifestyle for local bigwigs.

But the ruthless face of Roman imperialism was never far away.

Time and again, they showed they were capable of unspeakable cruelty.

'Rome had crushed local uprisings all across the empire.

'At Masada in modern-day Israel,

'they laid siege to a Jewish sect in a hilltop fort.

'A thousand men and women endured a three-month siege.

'Then committed suicide, rather than surrender to the Roman aggressors.'

And Scotland might have had her very own Masada.

I'm flying over Burnswark Hill, just outside Lockerbie.

And from the air, you can clearly see the two Roman camps

threatening the Iron Age hillfort.

'I think the two camps were siege camps.

'The locals had resisted or attacked the Romans.

'They had retreated to their hillfort.

'And the Romans came to get them.'

The three circles just outside the southern camp are the best clue.

This massive earthen mound was probably

the base for a piece of Roman heavy artillery.

Some scholars argue it was a training ground,

a practice range if you like.

But I think the evidence suggests there was a real siege here.

That the Romans took the time to bring up

their heavy technology to terrify the locals.

'The invaders had a significant technological advantage

'over the Caledonians.

'Every legion had 60 of these deadly scorpion catapults.'

-And how does it work?

-This is a 27-inch bolt,

which the machine was designed to shoot.

It has a point which makes a small hole,

and these are sharp corners which will cut its way in.

It will penetrate plate armour.

Elevate more, more. That's it. That's about right. Shoot there.

-And we're off.

-Wow.

-That is about 140 metres. Just at a guess.

So you could reach the top of the hill? You could reach the fort?

Yes, from here.

It's a deadly looking thing. If you've got a row of them

along the ramparts, a deadly looking thing.

So you've got 180 of these bolts in the air at any one time.

And they would be battery shot.

They would be shot to an order.

They would fire and they would pick out weak spots in the opposition,

they would look for the chief.

They would look for an attack, and they would then barrage,

fire, shoot at that.

'The Romans had a range of heavy artillery.

'Catapults, mounted on the earth mounds,

'fired murderous stone balls far into the hillfort.

'Slingers used lethal lead shot to pick people off.'

Up here on top of the hill, it must have been terrifying.

Crammed in with your extended family, your children,

probably running out of food,

with the iron grip of the Roman army all around you.

There's no record as to what happened.

But it's unlikely it ended well for the defenders.

The Roman army didn't really believe in prisoners.

Men would most likely have been killed.

Women and children sent into slavery.

'The Romans always saw themselves as the good guys.

'But they were an army of occupation.

'And of course some of the Caledonians would have resisted

'and become more warlike.

'The Romans had created a problem

'that they themselves would have to solve.

'And it was a problem they'd have to solve with less men.

'Once again, troops had been sent to countries of greater importance.

'And so, only 20 years after beginning construction,

'the Romans gave up the Antonine Wall

'and retreated back to its predecessor.

'Rome needed a new kind of solution to the problem of Caledonia.

'Not manpower. But money.

'And at Birnie in the summer of 2000,

'we uncovered amazing evidence of just that.'

It was a dreich afternoon.

We were digging around here at the base of the plough soil,

and what we found, was truly spectacular.

And here it is.

A hoard of Roman silver from the heart of a Caledonian farm.

And the following season they found another hoard.

Buried in two bags just a few metres away.

It looks to me like a series of payoffs to a powerful local leader.

Rome couldn't fight everybody.

Battles or sieges like Burnswark took a lot of resources.

And they could also use diplomacy, or bribery if you like,

as a way of dealing with the local tribes.

This policy was used across northern Scotland in the trouble spots.

And in the years after the Antonine withdrawal,

it helped to bring peace, at least for a while.

'50 years after the death of Antoninus Pius,

'a man raised in the bustling olive oil cities of North Africa,

'would be the next to attempt a conquest of Caledonia.

'The Emperor Septimius Severus.

'The Governor of Britain wrote to Severus saying that the Barbarians

'were in revolt, destroying virtually everything on the island.

'The Emperor went on the offensive.

'He and his son Caracalla would lead a massive assault.

'The third major Roman invasion into present-day Scotland.

'The final surge. The last throw of the dice.

'This was a military operation on a truly epic scale.'

ANCIENT GREEK QUOTATION IN TRANSLATION:

"Let no-one escape sheer destruction.

"Not even the babe in the womb of the mother."

'These fields, at St Leonards in the Scottish borders,

'were a key part of that campaign.'

There's nothing to see here. Absolutely nothing.

But this field hides the biggest marching camp

known in the entire empire.

The sheer scale of it is amazing.

It would take me 40 minutes to walk round the perimeter.

'This was one of the largest armies

'ever assembled for battle in the history of the British Isles.

'Rome's last chance to colonise Scotland.'

We don't know exactly how the camp was laid out,

or what units Severus had with him on campaign,

but from reading through ancient sources,

I'd put about 35,000 people into here, with the tents arranged,

as we know they did in orderly line,

separated by type of unit, type of soldier. Baggage train, hospital,

and here in the centre, the Emperor's tent,

right in the middle of the camp.

Also very near the highest point of the camp.

It does make the point that this was the Emperor himself on campaign,

you know, for a while this was

the heart of the Roman Empire, for at least a day or two.

Yes. Leading the troops in person - at that stage getting on in years

and he had gout and he had problems with his sons -

but he was nevertheless here and trying to

lead the Roman Empire forward against the enemy.

And all around him thousands of his loyal troops.

Severus gathered his forces at Carpow,

on the southern bank of the River Tay.

And what happened next, became the stuff of Roman military legend.

The heartland of the troublesome tribes lay to the north.

To get at them, Severus did what a modern army would do.

To get across the river, he built a pontoon, a bridge of boats.

'This first ever Tay Bridge, was commemorated in a Roman coin.

'The Emperor's troops were poised to flood north.

'To finally and conclusively conquer Caledonia.

'And yet it didn't happen.

'Once again,

'the legions were thwarted by the Caledonian insurgents.'

GREEK QUOTATION IN TRANSLATION:

"It was easy for them to escape.

"To disappear into the woods and marshes

"because of their knowledge of the terrain,

"but all this hampered the Romans."

Severus died in York before the campaigns were finished.

And it's said his sons "came to terms with the barbarians".

A phrase that suggests sweeteners and subsidies rather than

the crushing military victory of Roman propaganda.

Once more the Romans fell back on Hadrian's Wall.

But this conflict had created more problems than it solved.

'Three campaigns -

'first Agricola, then Antoninus Pius,

'and finally Severus - had all failed.

'And now, all across the empire,

'Roman control was under increased threat.

'From the Goths. The Saxons.

'The empire was in mortal danger.

'And in Caledonia,

'the Roman invaders were set to face a new challenge.

'The Caledonian tribes had been shaken by the Roman attacks,

'and reformed into new, more threatening groups.

'The Romans called them Picti -

'the painted people.

'Nowadays we call them the Picts.

I've come to see this Pictish symbol stone at Abdie Kirkyard

in Fife, an ideal place

to meet up with Dr Alex Woolf of St Andrews University -

a leading authority on these mysterious people.

To begin with, back in the days of Agricola

and some of his successors,

the Romans probably thought that they were gradually

going to be expanding the frontier and take over the whole island.

They saw the Picts, or the people who would become Picts,

as simply other tribes that would be subdued.

And as that frontier became permanent,

and they realised that they couldn't penetrate,

for any length of time, north of the Forth into the fringes of

the Highlands, they probably began to idealise the Picts

as an unbeatable barbarian,

more savage than anyone they'd encountered before.

We have the British Latin writer Gildas.

He describes the Picts as foul hordes,

coming out of their rocks like worms and almost subhuman.

And that's very different from the way say Tacitus presented

Caledonian leaders like Calgacus.

There they were seen as noble opponents.

But by the late Roman period,

they've become almost subhuman savages.

And that to some extent is a way of the Romans

legitimising their own failure, in being unable to pacify this area.

'Under sustained attack,

'the once mighty empire was becoming desperate.

'No price was too high to retain control.

'Rome was quite prepared to sell the family silver.

'This remarkable hoard was found at Traprain Law,

'the site of an early hillfort east of Edinburgh.'

This is barely a quarter of the Traprain treasure.

The biggest and most spectacular hoard of Roman silver known

from beyond the edge of the empire.

And it can tell us the story of the death throes of Roman Scotland.

It dates to the middle of the 5th century or so,

and consists of really flashy, elite Roman tableware -

plates and bowls and cups and spoons.

But look at the condition of it.

Bent, broken, battered.

Almost all of it was in bits, when it went into the ground.

Now, when it was first found, this was thought to be loot,

that our barbaric ancestors

had descended on the Roman world as it died,

looted and plundered the rich villas, and chopped these treasures

to pieces because, of course, they were barbarians,

who couldn't understand proper classical art.

This seems a pretty dodgy argument now.

There's plenty of good parallels from this elsewhere,

and other suggestions are possible.

So why do we have all this material here?

It might be a bribe.

It might be similar to the coin hoards we saw earlier.

But it could be payment.

Payment for services rendered.

A lot of this silver is chopped into particular weight units.

The weight unit you'd use in dealing with the Roman world.

Whoever had this silver was dealing with Rome.

And a likely scenario, is that this is payment for soldiers.

That the people in Traprain Law

are acting as warriors for the Roman army.

So this is the bounty of a late-Roman mercenary

serving to protect the last remnants of the Roman frontier

from the Picts lying to the north.

'For more than three centuries, the Roman invaders enjoyed

'a technical, financial and, above all, military superiority.

'But somehow it hadn't been enough.'

We've seen throughout counter insurgency, that the large,

well-equipped army isn't necessarily the army that wins through.

Because large armies do find it very hard to adapt,

to change the status quo and to adopt a different course

because the current course is the one that's always worked.

And I would imagine part of what made Roman life very difficult

for the Romans here, was that inability to constantly adapt

against an insurgency that was adaptable.

So the things that made them successful

-are the things that crippled them in the end?

-Inevitably.

'By the 5th century, the Roman Empire

'was little more than a memory for the people of Caledonia.

'In time, Rome would become a byword for civilisation.

'Pictish artists copied Roman styles.

'Pictish kings took Roman names.

'Rome was no longer a threat.

'But its influence lived on for centuries.'

'1,800 years ago, tartan clad Caledonians

'were marched to the deserts of North Africa -

'the spoils of a faraway war.'

To celebrate, the Romans built this great triumphal arch.

But there was no great triumph. Scotland was never conquered.

The empire always had bigger fish to fry.

But Scotland was certainly transformed by

three centuries of contact and conflict with Rome.

Like every superpower since, the empire manipulated local societies,

created tension and strife. Some people got seriously rich.

Some got seriously annoyed and fought back.

So in the end, how should we assess Rome's influence on Scotland?

For me it was both a force of aggression and a force for change.

A golden opportunity AND a mortal danger.

Two sides of exactly the same coin.

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