Britain's worst military disasters 3 - Mons Graupius AD 83 or 84

We tend to think of the Roman conquest of Britain as extending only as far as Hadrian’s Wall, but, in fact, in AD 83 or 84 (historians cannot agree on the date), a Roman army won a stunning victory perhaps as far north as Aberdeenshire.

Having subdued Wales and the north of England, the Roman governor Agricola had advanced up through Scotland, but found it difficult to bring the Caledonian tribes to battle, Eventually, though, about 30,000 of them confronted him at ‘Mons Graupius’ which many modern-day historians believe to be in the Bennachie range, north-west of Aberdeen.

The Caledonian vanguard was on the plain, with the rear stretching up Mons Graupius.    Agricola held his legionaries in reserve, and sent in his ‘barbarian’ auxiliaries to close with the enemy.    Roman armies were at their most effective in this close, hand-to-hand combat, and they broke through the Caledonians and started to advance up the hill.

The tribesmen fought bravely, but when Agricola sent in his cavalry, they were routed, and the Roman historian Tacitus put their losses at 10,000 against just 360 for the Romans.  It was too late in the campaigning season, though, for Agricola to advance any further, and his troops withdrew to forts further south.  Never again would the Romans penetrate this far north.  

*Article about Britain’s 20 Worst Military Disasters in the Bath Chronicle.   http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/6th-century-battle-near-Bath-new-book-Britain-s/story-13843963-detail/story.html

The Great Fire of Rome

On this day….1,945 years ago, one of the worst fires in history devastated Rome. Flames first appeared in a row of shops at the Circus Maximus, the main stadium for chariot races. Fanned by the wind, they quickly swept through the closely packed wooden buildings that made up most of the city. Some people managed to escape into the countryside, but many were overtaken by the flames.

When I was at school, I was told the famous story that the emperor Nero fiddled while Rome burned. It could not have been true, because the violin was not invented until the sixteenth century, but stories swept Rome that he had sung or played the lyre while his capital burned.

The story gained credence from two things. First, it was known that Nero hated the slums and haphazard layout of the city and would have loved the chance to rebuild it. The second was that mysterious gangs of thugs roamed the streets preventing fire fighters from tackling the blaze, and using torches to keep it going, though, of course they may just have been looters who wanted to profit from the disorder.

It was nine days before the flames were extinguished. Of Rome’s 14 districts, three were levelled to the ground, and another seven were, in the words of the great historian Tacitus “reduced to a few scorched and mangled ruins.” Thousands of people had lost their lives.

Nero had actually played an energetic part in fighting the fire, and provided generously for the tens of thousands made homeless, but suspicion still clung to him. His excesses grew more and more extreme, and four years after the Great Fire, he slit his own throat. For the full story, see A Disastrous History of the World.