Mons Graupius Identified
The Sources Available To Us
Much of ancient history is lost to us and at best we are forced to rely on and interpret a few short, terse and often fragmentary references.
The challenge is to correlate these primary sources against the often meagre findings of archaeology.
As for the actual event - the battle itself - even though it was a terrible, traumatic and bloody affair it lasted only a few hours. Archaeology’s ability to pick up on the fleeting traces of these calamitous hours is notoriously limited.
It is further hindered in Scotland where a damp climate and acidic soil often contrive to destroy much of the buried evidence.
That much of this long-decomposed evidence is now lost to us however does not mean that the events did not take place, simply that we must bring four important factors to bear when trying to understand any given battle.
The first and most important of these factors are the written primary sources. These are what the ancients themselves recorded of the events. Secondary sources are modern interpretations. The best secondary sources are those that work from information in the primary sources. The less reliable are those that look merely to other secondary sources for inspiration.
The second factor is the understanding of these events that archaeology can provide us with. Concerning Roman campaigns archaeology illuminates the fossilised footprints of Roman armies on the march - the remains of the overnight marching camps Roman soldiers bivouacked in when on campaign. Archaeology has enabled us to better understand the structure, form and sequence of use of these fleeting remains.
The third factor is the critical ability to read the ground at any of the many proposed locations and to understand how this would be used (or indeed be useless) at a tactical level as well as reviewing how suitable the ground would be for the recorded events we are told took place.
On the grander strategic level we must further test each site against our understanding of known - and proven - Flavian activity at strategic level, set against the backdrop of probable tribal areas and the tensions these would have created.
The fourth factor is an ability to demonstrate a link between a sites modern name with the historic name of Mons Graupius.
Clearly this is no easy task as language and names evolve over time, and in many cases old names are lost under the names imposed on a location by later conquering elites. Therefore a site not having any meaningful link does not necessarily stand heavily against it. However any sites that can demonstrate such lineage are of exceptional interest.
Summary
It can be seen therefore that grandly proposing a site for the honour of having been the site of the battlefield of Mons Graupius is not simply a matter of pulling a metaphorical historic rabbit out of a magician’s hat.
On the contrary any contender must necessarily fully exercise its credentials against the four factors noted above.
To do so this we must test each site against a series of common benchmarks based on these four factors which then allows analysis to be made on the strengths and weaknesses of all the contending sites.
Only then can we compare these findings with the aim of identifying the site which based on the evidence we currently have best merits the accolade of being recognised as the location of the battle of Mons Graupius.
NEXT PAGE: Factor 1. The Primary Source: Tacitus’s The Agricola
©2009 Roman Scotland. All Rights Reserved
First Published February 2009
