The Romans and the failed conquest of Scotland

Rome conquered almost all of Britain, but never managed to subdue permanently the far north of the island, the land the Romans called Caledonia and which would become Scotland. For over a century the legions advanced and withdrew several times, building forts, roads and two great frontier walls, whose remains are now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Agricola and the battle of Mons Graupius

The first great expedition was led by the governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola, father-in-law of the historian Tacitus, who recorded his exploits. Between AD 79 and 84 Agricola pushed north, building forts along the road and a line of watchtowers, the Gask Ridge, and sending the fleet as far as Orkney. In 83 or 84 he defeated the Caledonian tribes at the battle of Mons Graupius, at a site never identified with certainty, perhaps in the hills of Aberdeenshire. Tacitus attributes to the Caledonian leader Calgacus a famous speech against Roman imperialism, with the line "they make a desert and call it peace". But the victory was not followed up: soon afterwards Rome recalled troops for the Danube wars and the great legionary fortress of Inchtuthil on the river Tay was abandoned before it was even finished.

Hadrian's Wall

In 122 the Emperor Hadrian, visiting Britain, decided to fix a stable frontier and had a stone wall built about 117 kilometres long, from Wallsend, near today's Newcastle, to Bowness-on-Solway on the Irish Sea. Hadrian's Wall, with forts, milecastles, turrets, a ditch and a military road, was not just a defensive barrier but a way of controlling the movement of people and goods. It lies entirely in England, not on today's border with Scotland, as many believe. The forts of Housesteads and Vindolanda, where the famous wooden tablets written by soldiers and their families were found, are among the most fascinating Roman sites in Europe (see Newcastle).

The Antonine Wall

Barely twenty years later, around 142, Hadrian's successor Antoninus Pius moved the frontier north again and had a second wall built between the Forth and Clyde estuaries, at Scotland's narrowest point: the Antonine Wall, about 63 kilometres long, was made of turf on a stone base, with a ditch and a series of forts. It was abandoned as early as the 160s, and the Romans returned to Hadrian's Wall. Today stretches of the rampart and ditch survive, as do the forts of Rough Castle and Bar Hill and the Bearsden bath house; the carved distance slabs recording the sections built by each legion can be admired at the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow. Since 2008 the Antonine Wall has been part, with Hadrian's Wall, of the UNESCO site "Frontiers of the Roman Empire".

Septimius Severus and the end

The last great campaign was that of the Emperor Septimius Severus, who between 208 and 211 personally led a huge army into Caledonia with his sons Caracalla and Geta, but died at York before completing the conquest. From then on Rome confined itself to controlling the north through treaties, subsidies and punitive expeditions. At the end of the 3rd century the name of the Picts, the "painted ones", perhaps from their tattoos, appears for the first time, the people who would dominate northern Scotland in the following centuries. In the early 5th century the Roman army left Britain.

What remains

Rome's mark on Scotland is lighter than on England: there were no Roman towns or villas, but mainly camps, forts and roads. Among the most interesting sites are the fort of Trimontium near Melrose, with a small museum, the remains at Cramond near Edinburgh, the marching camps visible from the air and the finds in the National Museum of Scotland. The failure of the conquest helped create, already in antiquity, the idea of a Scotland distinct from the rest of the island, a theme running through its whole history (see the history of Scotland).

See also Scotland, the history of the United Kingdom and York.