An Alternative account.

Using the details provided by Tacitus, a moderate and perhaps more accurate account of the battle of Mons Graupius would be: -

The Picts had superior numbers and held the high ground. Both sides began the battle by launching a missile attack. When the battle was joined the Pictish chariots were having success, but the Roman cavalry sent in to engage them were very successful in dealing with the charioteers, killing some and dismounting others, scattering the chariots. The Roman cavalry then attacked the Pictish infantry; the cavalry met with some initial success but were brought to a standstill by the Picts, who began to cut down the stationary cavalry. 'Their [ Roman cavalry ] first onslaught was terrifying, but the solid ranks of the enemy and the roughness of the ground soon brought them to a standstill'. The Romans were fighting on a slope that they were trying to ascend and both the Roman cavalry and infantry were pressed together; it began to look as if the Picts were about to get the upper hand, 'the battle now looked anything but favourable to us, with our infantry precariously perched on the slope and jostled by the flanks of the horses'. The bucking, jostling and kicking of the panicking horses broke the tight formation of the legions, the gaps exposing the soldiers to both front and side attacks. Horses that had been felled kicked and struggled to get on their feet knocking over legionnaires and breaking up the Roman ranks. Seizing the moment, the Picts called in some of their reserve forces to surprise and attack the flanks of the legions, but the Roman commander seeing the manoeuvre, sent his reserve forces of four squadrons of cavalry to out manoeuvre the Picts. The four squadrons of Roman cavalry got behind a wing of the Picts battle line forcing that wing to fight on two fronts. It is possible that Tacitus describes what happened on that wing as if it was a description of the whole battle field.

The battle of Mons Graupius began to turn in favour of the Romans as the Picts' casualties grew. Before they lost too many men, the order was given by the leaders of the Picts, through the strident sound of the | Carnyx | to disengage and retreat in order to employ their final strategy. Suddenly tens of thousands of Pict warriors 'fled in whole battalions with arms in their hands'. As already noted, the fact that the Picts held on to their heavy arms indicates that this was not a rout where the Picts fled in panic, if not terror, but that it was a dangerous, risky - but highly courageous tactical withdrawal. As usually happened during the process of disengagement the Picts suffered their highest loses. The retreat was a tactical manoeuvre meant to give the Legions an 'excess of confidence', cause them to break rank in a chase and draw them forward into an ambush in the nearby woods. The Roman legions could make a lightning advance as the Picts withdrew, capture and kill prisoners as bodies of men on the wing surrounded by the cavalry became entrapped, or left their retreat too late. This gave the Legions a false sense of victory and they surged recklessly forward, but the vast bulk of the army of Picts retreated safely to a nearby forest where they regrouped, joined their waiting comrades and killed the first hot pursuers of cavalry and infantry.

Knowing that only a moderate amount of the enemy had been killed and Mons Graupius only partially won, Agricola feared an ambush in the forest and kept his troops vigilant on the forest edge. Tacitus said that the Roman troops stood 'like hunters' but a hunter seeing his prey run into the forest would not act like a hunter, unless he hunted the prey by going in after them - not by standing looking into the trees. The Pict' commanders seeing that their ruse in feigning retreat did not work and that the bulk of the Roman army were restrained from the pursuit they had hoped for, conferred and then took the painful decision to order their army to abandon the battle of Mons Graupius, evacuate all families in the immediate area, burn all that might be useful to the Romans and take to the hills.

Agricola having taken counsel from the other Roman leaders all of whom agreed that their victory at Mons Graupius was moderate, decided that unless they were very cautious they could meet with 'no inconsiderable disaster', which means a very BIG disaster. He ordered a few units of cavalry to search the forest - on horseback where the forest was more open and on foot where it was denser. Tacitus gives the impression that they did not go very deeply into the forest, just enough to make sure that the Picts were not waiting out of sight and had in fact withdrawn from the immediate area of Mons Graupius. The Romans spent a nervous night keeping vigilant all night waiting for another attack from the Picts. The cavalry were sent out early next morning to locate the Pictish army, but found 'an awful silence reigned on every hand; the hills were deserted, houses smoking in the distance, and our scouts did not meet a soul'. This sentence is always quoted by historians as a sad proof of the utter defeat of the Picts, but I contend it is an undeniable proof of the continued brave determination of the Picts to fight to the bitter end. All the Romans won was burnt fields and homes - was that worth ( if Tacitus figures are to be believed ) the life of 360 human beings.

There is one last piece of evidence to be considered even although it is only circumstantial. Tacitus states that after the battle of Mons Graupius, Agricola 'led back his army into the territory of the Boresti'. The Boresti are the only tribe mentioned by Tacitus apart from the dominant Calidonii and scholars are unsure where this tribe was situated, though somewhere in the wide area around modern Aberdeenshire is often thought to be the most likely. Since the Romans took hostages from the Boresti it would imply that Mons Graupius was in their tribal area or close to it. Tacitus writes that, 'it being also impossible, as summer was now over, to extend the war' the army was led back to their northern 'winter-quarters', probably on the Tay. However, Tacitus makes a great deal of the inordinate 'slow marches' of Agricola, even writing in an almost insulting manner of the 'tardiness of his progress'. Why did Agricola move so slowly on his march ? Tacitus said it was to impress the local tribes they passed, but who would be impressed by slow moving Romans more than by energetically marching Romans ? The words of Tacitus take on a clearer meaning when we remember that Agricola was indeed a brilliant General who was probably using this slow march as a strategy. Could Agricola, frustrated by the partial victory of Mons Graupius have been hoping for a second bite at the cherry ? Trying to tempt the Pict army to meet him in battle once again, teasing them to attempt to rescue the hostages. He may have been moving slowly to give them a chance to get organised and overtake him. This would have been a useless strategy if the Pict army had been decimated, but a very clever one if the Pict army was only moderately beaten at Mons Graupius and was still an intact, imminent threat.

In fairness to Tacitus account of the battle of Mons Graupius - one fact shines through. It was due to the presence of mind and tactical genius of Agricola, that the Romans avoided a military disaster. It appears that Agricola knew that the majority of the army of Picts was still intact and would be a continued threat to the Roman conquest of Caledonia. Later events proved him right - within a couple of years the Romans were forced to abandon all their hard work and retreat almost as far south as Newcastle in modern England, spend a fortune building two massive walls the whole width of the country to stop the constant Pict invasions of Roman territory. Re-invade on two other occasions, retreat twice, abandon the conquest of Caledonia and pay the lowland Picts not to attack them. Many have suggested that the Romans retreated from Caledonia because they needed troops for the Rhine front. If that were the sole reason, then why didn't they retreat from Britain as a whole, freeing even more men ? Why only from Caledonia ? The true answer seems to be that without an inordinate number of troops ( which they couldn't spare ) - they just could not defeat the Picts. For those who find this impossible to believe let me point to a modern illustration in the war between a small country and the world's greatest superpower - Vietnam and the USA. No matter what valid or invalid reasons are given to explain it - the Vietnamese won the war. In the same way, the one and only superpower of 2,000 years ago was defeated by one of the smallest countries it invaded. No matter what valid or invalid reasons are given to explain it - the Picts won the war ! Strangely, many can admit to the defeat of America in Vietnam but are struck dumb at the thought of the military defeat of Rome in Caledonia. Never the less, the failure of Rome to subdue the small land of Caledonia marks a turning point in the Roman Empire.

Agricola was to die from poisoning within 10 years of Mons Graupius; Tacitus later wrote that he had no proof the Emperor ordered the poisoning, but mentions that it was the Emperor's doctors who administered drugs to Agricola during his last illness. One possible motive for poisoning Agricola could have been out of revenge for the rumours then circulating in Rome, perhaps because of the retreat from Caledonia about the time of Agricola's murder, ( coincidence ? ) - that Mons Graupius was not a great victory at all, that the Emperor had in fact failed to defeat the Picts. If that were so, it would give a motive for Tacitus spending so much effort on recording Mons Graupius; Agricola was being blamed for the Roman failure in Caledonia and Tacitus was trying to salvage his reputation. He was trying to convince his countrymen and history that Mons Graupius was not a moderate or indecisive victory and therefore Agricola could not be blamed for the failure of Rome to conquer Caledonia.

It seems a strange thing to write but the Pict leader Calgacus the 'man of outstanding valour' - probably outlived Agricola.

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The Picts and why the Roman conquest failed | More about the Picts |

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