Mons Graupius Contender: Pass of Grange
Introduction
The Pass of Grange site overtook Kempstone Hill in the post war years as the commonly held favourite location for the battle following its identification by Burn in 1953. Burn was not alone; Henderson Stewart (1960), Ogilvie and Richmond (1967) and Wellesley (1969) all concurred with this site.
The Pass of Grange, near Keith in Moray is one of the most northerly candidate sites, and is of strategic importance as it is a choke point on the communications route next to the River Isla running north-west through Huntly aiming for the northern coastal lowlands and Moray.
Like Roy at Mondboddo, Burns theory was simple. A Roman army marching this way would be forced to navigate the constricted Pass of Grange between the Sillyearn Ridge and the River Isla.
A Caledonian host emplaced along the Sillyearn Ridge would Burns reasoned, block Roman passage north into the rich agricultural lowlands beyond before further havoc could be wrought by the invaders.
Clearly Burns was heavily influenced by the strategies employed by Wellington in a later era; first at Bussaco then at Waterloo.
Burns was among the first to question what size of battlefield the forces there would require. However, in the face of his findings he later extended the Caledonian employment impractically further in order to include the very conspicuous Knock Hill.
(He employed the space between the Sillyearn Ridge and Knock Hill as the area from which the Caledonians launched their chariot attack upon the Romans).
Knock Hill was probably included to add weight to the theory as at the time attempts (not altogether successful) were being made to philologically link Knock to the "bump" derived from Welsh Crwb.
A: Campaigning
Is the site located in an area of known Flavian campaigning?
Yes
Is the Flavian activity in the area likely to be Agricolan?
No, the circa 30 acre string of marching camps arcing through Aberdeenshire towards Moray do not hold sufficient capacity and post date Mons Graupius.
B: Marching Camps
Is there a marching camp in the vicinity of the site?
Yes; Auchinhove, Burnfield and Muiryfold.
Is the marching camp located close to the site?
No; both Auchinhove (4 km) and Muiryfold (2km) are located behind the hill.
Burnfield is located -before the hill- some 4.5 km away.
Does the marching camps position and orientation "address" the site?
No. Auchinhove and Burnfield respectively address the Rivers Isla and Deveron near to which they are located. Muiryfold eccentrically addresses the rear of the Sillyearn Ridge near the Isla.
Does the marching camp display Flavian characteristics?
Auchinhove; yes,
Burnfield; probably,
Muiryfold; no it displays late Roman marching camp morphology.
Is the size of the marching camp reasonably close to the 117 acre criteria required to accommodate 26,000 men?
No,
Auchinhove; at around 30 acres it can accommodate only some 6,000 men.
Burnfield; the maximum available space on site approaches 40 acres. The site is likely to belong to the same circa 30 acre series as Auchinhove and will probably accommodate a similar number of men.
Muiryfold; at 101.5 acres it can accommodate a force of only 22,500 men.
C: Site topography
Is the site of an appropriate size to accommodate the forces engaged?
No. The Sillyearn Ridge itself extends well over 3.5 km. When including Knock Hill this further increases this frontage to over 6 km. This is excessively long.
Does the critical area of the engagement include terrain or features which are specifically inconsistent with Tacitus account?
Yes, the noteworthy gap between the Sillyearn Ridge and Knock Hill though attempts have been made to press it into service for the Caledonian chariots.
Does the site have a "plain" at the foot of the hill suitable for the recorded chariot action?
Yes, except it is currently cut by drainage channels suggesting the ground was probably boggy in antiquity.
Is the hill of an appropriate gradient for:
- The Caledonians to be marshalled and advance down and around? Yes, except for Knock Hill which has very steep gradients.
- A realistic Roman assault up? As above.
Does the countryside behind the Caledonian position have terrain consistent with the actions recorded in the immediate aftermath of the battle?
No. Fairly broken upland is evident only in Pass of Granges immediate vicinity, this rapidly gives way to coastal lowlands.
Can reasonably ready access to the fleet (approx a day or twos march) be achieved from the sites location?
Yes. Contact could be made at Cullen, Banff or Portsoy.
Is the likely point of contact with the fleet consistent with the broad strategy and location of the Roman fleet on the east coast?
Yes
Can the "Boresti" be identified locally?
No, Forres would constitute a further considerable advance.
Are there known marching camps which hint at Agricola’s movements after leaving the site of battle?
No
Is the sites location consistent with the position chosen the following year for the siting of the legionary fortress of Inchtuthil?
No, siting Inchtuthil so far to the south of the scene of victory on the field does not sit convincingly.
D: The Sites Name
Is there evidence in the locality for names from which Mons "Graupius" could be derived?
No, Knock is a common later Gaelic appellation to many hills in Scotland.
Summary
The Pass of Grange’s subsequent great acclaim among academics stemmed in the main from the many marching camps discovered through aerial reconnaissance at that time, which proved, if nothing else that Roman arms had penetrated further north than the earlier recognised furthest penetration at Glenmailen had suggested.
Not all these discoveries were necessarily happy findings though for Burns, but he persevered and wrestled them into his hypothesis in order to keep it alive.
No large Flavian camp is known this far north. Both the Flavian and late Roman camps here seem to indicate forces on the march peacefully settling down for the night after navigating the pass. The camp preceding this, at Burnfield is fairly far removed and sits behind the Deveron and is possibly the camp used by the same force that used Auchinhove, perhaps even on its return journey south.
Again, a site so far north, justified on the basis of a Caledonian strategic emplacement designed to block the Roman advance before they reached the territory beyond makes little sense.
Quite apart from the fact that such a northerly position will have left most of the northern lowland tribe’s extensive lands open to Roman ravaging – a situation hardly conducive to morale in a polyglot force – it also appears that the Pass of Grange sits squarely within Taexali tribal territory.
By this late stage of a Roman advance north what would the tribes believe they would be defending? The entire lands of the Venicones and Vacomagi, and much of the Taexali`s lands will have been over-run leaving most of the glens leading into the Caledonii highland zone exposed for Roman penetration at leisure.
This northern site therefore would have engendered nothing but dismay in the vast bulk of the assembled tribal host, and it is extremely improbable under such circumstances that it could have been held together as a unified body.
On the ground itself, the Sillyearn Ridge, notwithstanding Burns calculations on numbers involved, feels almost slightly too long to be convincing, a concern magnified when the Caledonian dispositions are extended to include Knock Hill at which point the suggested battlefield becomes vast.
The Pass of Grange site achieves only 7 appropriate answers out of a possible 19, rating this previously favoured site as "highly unlikely".
NEXT PAGE: The Contenders: Peterculter
©2009 Roman Scotland. All Rights Reserved
First Published February 2009
