If the whole island could not be conquered in the wake of Agricola’s campaign, then the question facing imperial planners was simple: where to draw the line. When the Emperor Titus took the decision to limit conquest to southern Scotland, it seems that he took the advice of Agricola and fortified a frontier on the Forth–Clyde line. Not only was this the shortest border possible at thirty-seven miles, but it also marked a cultural and linguistic divide between the P-Celtic tribes to the south and the Picts, who probably spoke a cousin language, to the north. There is strong archaeological evidence that Agricola built forts a little further north of what later became the Antonine Wall in order to protect a redoubt at the east end of the frontier. The line from Drumquhassle at the southern tip of Loch Lomond up to Mentieth and across to Doune protected a small but strategically vital kingdom based on the valley and estuary of the River Forth.³⁵
Tacitus certainly believed that the Forth-Clyde line was a real border, describing the country north of it as if it were a different island ‘summotis velut in aliam insulam hostibus’. And he went on to describe the Caledonii as ‘these new and unknown peoples’ having red hair and large limbs. They reminded him of the Germans on the Rhine frontier.
While there are more than hints of exaggeration and flattery in what Tacitus writes of his father-in-law, there is a ring of truth in his claim that Agricola personally reconnoitred and selected sites for forts in Scotland and routes for roads. If he did, he had a brilliant eye. His ability to judge the lie of the land was unerring and many of Agricola’s sites and roads remained in use for centuries, even up to the present day.
On the Ordnance Survey, however, the Trimontium fort seems undistinguished. The site is close to the foot of Eildon Hill North but it does not seem particularly elevated or defensible. Disappointing to walk around, a collection of hedges and fields, it is a deceptive place. What Agricola recognized were three things. Knowing that danger lay to the west in the hill country of the Selgovae, the site commands a long view up the Tweed valley to Melrose and Galashiels. The Romans had not only the technology to build roads, they also knew how to construct bridges. Trimontium fort had to be near a place where Agricola’s engineers could get his army across the Tweed. Hard by the site there are three relatively modern bridges, two road and one rail, which confirm the Romans’ decision. And finally with a garrison of more than 1,000 soldiers Agricola needed to be able to supply them easily. Carts and herds and services could readily reach Trimontium compared with, for example, the inaccessibility of Eildon Hill North which towered above the fort. And on the flat pasture around the walls the horses of his cavalrymen could graze without having to be moved out of sight.
The fort was built in 80 and, with a break between 105 and 140, it was occupied until 211. A recent find of an intaglio bearing the image of the Emperor Caracalla has advanced the end date of Roman occupation to the early years of his reign. During the whole of this period Trimontium’s role was a complex one. It certainly operated as a military base with its troops acting as colonial policemen, and, in the British imperial phrase, showing the flag. Close to the great hill fort, it was a powerful symbol of the Roman presence among the tribes of southern Scotland, particularly for the Selgovae to the west who remained hostile. Trimontium was also a road depot astride the north–south artery of Dere Street but also at the centre of a radius of other routes. There are 500 miles of Roman roads in Scotland and, according to milestone finds, distances were reckoned to and from Trimontium. The Romans also used Eildon Hill North as a signal station. With mirror and fire they could send messages south to Ruberslaw eighteen miles away and thence down to army command at York. It is also very likely that the Romans used the River Tweed to bring materials to Trimontium. For example, wine was bulky and heavy and desirable. Brought by ship to Berwick-upon-Tweed and then up the Tweed by barge to the fort, it was much the easiest way to supply the thirsty legionaries and their officers.
Trimontium
Trimontium also had a clear economic function. It was expensive to maintain a large garrison and as far as possible the tribes around the fort were compelled to pay for this. The ‘Exactor’ or tax collector would ensure a supply of corn, hides, meat and other commodities. There is some evidence, too, of an early trade in furs and wool.
But the most important role for the commander at Trimontium was political. Having come to an arrangement with the chiefs of the Votadini before the invasion, the Romans needed to cultivate a support role for these tribesmen, both in keeping the Selgovae in check and also in creating southern Scotland as a buffer zone between the valuable province of Britannia in the south and the unconquered, probably unconquerable, Caledonians to the north. This role for the Votadini was to prove determinant. The Romans strove to twin their imperial policy aims with the more localized interests of the tribesmen. They taught them a great deal: from statecraft to cavalry tactics and much else that endured. Two hundred and fifty years after the Romans left Trimontium, Arthur and his cavalrymen fought and thought like them.
The centre of the fort was enclosed by a twenty-foot-high turf and stone rampart which itself was protected by a series of ditches dug in front of it. Inside were twelve barracks buildings which suggest a garrison of a thousand soldiers, the principia or headquarters building in the centre, flanked by two granaries, and the commander’s house in the southern section.
To the west of the main rampart stood a huge half-timbered building known as the mansio. It was a trading station in the style of the factories of the East India Company or the merchants of the Hudson’s Bay, and it also acted as a residence for important travellers. Local tribal chiefs no doubt visited the mansio to agree their tax arrangements with the Imperial Revenue Department. Beside this building stood the bathhouse; almost as large as its neighbour, its location is confirmed in dry summers by a dark patch in the grass where charcoal was dumped.
Trimontium went through at least seven phases of rebuilding, often as a result of political events elsewhere. When the Antonine Wall was occupied between 142 and 163, it acted as a supply base and when it was abandoned it became an outpost forward of Hadrian’s Wall. This involved both increasing and shrinking the size of the garrison as well as changes in the fortification.
The archaeological record of building and rebuilding is very complicated and for clarity and direction I want to concentrate on only one aspect of Trimontium: its primary function as a cavalry fort.
During the occupation of the Antonine Wall, a crack mounted regiment was based at the fort. They were the Ala Augusta Vocontiorum Civium Romanum, a specialized cavalry unit recruited from northern Spain and the south of France. The Voconti were a Celtic tribe and their prowess was not unusual. The Romans had a long tradition of creating cavalry regiments from the Celtic peoples they conquered. The design of Roman harness is of Celtic origin and the army quickly adopted the kinder snaffle bit used by these warriors.³⁶ The author of a Roman military handbook, Vegetius, tells us that the imperial army preferred to recruit rural peoples, believing them to be tougher and stronger than townsmen. In his Epitoma Rei Militaris compiled in the fourth century, he wrote that for cavalry regiments huntsmen were particularly preferred, having some native skill with their horses and boldness in riding them. It was a Roman habit to levy forces from local tribes and there is no doubt that Votadinian huntsmen would have been brought into the Roman cavalry and instructed in their methods.
Roman cavalry helmet found at Trimontium
A visor-mask from Trimontium worn by a cavalry trooper
At Trimontium a great deal of harness has been found, some of it magnificent. Thrown into wells as votive offerings by Celtic soldiers, several beautifully worked cavalry helmets and face masks have been retrieved. And in the town that developed around Trimontium, there is clear archaeological evidence of the manufacture of horse leather and metalwork on a large scale.
At the same time as the Ala Augusta Vocontiorum were at Trimontium, a huge force of cavalry arrived in Britain. I
n 175 the Emperor Marcus Aurelius was fighting on the Danube attempting to subdue the Iazyges tribe but he was forced to cut short his campaign, make hurried terms and depart to deal with trouble flaring in Syria. As part of the treaty the Iazyges had to provide 8,000 Sarmatian cavalrymen for the imperial army. These were oriental horsemen who had moved westwards from the steppes in a folk migration. A fascinating group, they were famous for mounting tamgas or pictorial charges where they had attached flags to their long lances which bore strange, pre-Christian devices. Many of these have found their way into the unique heraldic system of Poland, which in turn has fuelled the tradition that with its long history of cavalry warfare, the Polish aristocracy are descended from the Sarmatians.
At all events these cavalrymen were quickly deployed and 5,500 were sent to Britannia where their skills were urgently needed. They must have been a remarkable sight to the garrison of Hadrian’s Wall. Probably stationed in Britain for twenty years, their stallions and mares would have changed the cavalry horse stock of the north dramatically, since they arrived in such numbers. And their skills as horsemen would have added to the fighting repertoire of both the Roman regiments in Britain and their P-Celtic allies in southern Scotland.
But they brought something else which became part of the British tradition in two ways. The Celtic slashing sword or spatha had until then been the main weapon of a horsed warrior. The Sarmatians fought with long lances, perhaps six feet, held in both hands, such was their horsemanship. The Romans called this a contus and adopted it immediately. Another innovation was equally striking. As part of their tamgas the Sarmatians had developed what the Romans called the draconarius. This was a hollow, open-mouthed dragon’s head attached to a lance with a long tube of red or white material attached to it so that when a horseman galloped, the whole thing would fill with air. For extra effect, reeds were inserted into the dragon’s mouth so that when air passed through them, they seemed to hiss.
When the Emperor Constantius I entered Rome in triumph in AD 294 after regaining control over Britannia, which had been prey to a number of usurpers, his procession was described by the historian Ammianus. ‘And behind the manifold others that preceded him, he was surrounded by dragons, woven out of purple thread and bound to mouths open to the breeze and hence hissing as if raised by anger, and leaving their tails winding in the wind.’
The draconarius was adopted by all the cavalry regiments in the Roman army in the fourth century. A charge of Romano-Celtic cavalry must have raised terror in those who stood against it. First a horn, or carnyx, would sound and the troopers would form a line, trot, and then at another horn move up to canter. The dragons would billow behind them and when the horses began to gallop, they would hiss above the thunder of hoofbeats. These were sights and sounds enough to make the strongest infantryman turn and flee for his life: the worst possible thing to do in the face of charging cavalry, as Arthur’s enemies were to discover.
Roman cavalry trooper wielding a spatha
The Sarmatians’ introduction of the draconarius and its colours to Britain have a curious resonance in the Red Dragon of Wales. The P-Celtic word draig is a straight borrowing from the Roman word, but I cannot make any secure connection here. In later Welsh poetry Arthur’s father was Uther Pendragon or Uther Head-Dragon, and in early myths of Merlin he is shown revealing to Vortigern two dragons fighting. One is red and represents Wales and the other white for the Saxons. The white defeats the red. There are no dragons in Britain before the Sarmatians, and plenty around Arthur whose cavalry force would have carried them into battle.
What is certain is that a large detachment of Sarmatians was back in Britannia around 250. They were based at Ribchester on the Ribble in northern Lancashire where they were later granted a block of land where as veterans they could settle – with their horses. There is evidence that the Roman army expected to recruit from these settlements and given the skills of the Sarmatians and the quality of their horses, it is likely that they did so.
Not only did these men add to the sum of native horse and cavalry knowledge, their terrifying standard also gave us a peculiarly British name for a cavalry trooper, a dragoon.
In the Epitoma Vegetius repeats to the point of distraction that the essence of Roman military success is not necessarily superior bravery but superior training. Nowhere is this more important than in cavalry regiments where both horse and rider must be kept in a constant state of fitness. Archaeologists have shown at Trimontium that there was a parade ground designated for equestrian training. This is certain because an altar has been found dedicated to goddesses specifically revered by Celtic cavalry regiments in the Roman army. These were the Matres Campestres and the only altars found for them lie in southern Scotland between or on the Roman walls.
A division of the Vocontians erected the Trimontium altar in a place that has now disappeared. The equestrian parade ground lay on a flat piece of ground about 200 yards east of the fort. In the late nineteenth century, railway engineers drove a deep cutting through it and simply removed thereby the possibility of any more archaeological investigation.
A clearer connection can be read in an inscription at the fort of Benwell on Hadrian’s Wall: ‘To the Mother Goddesses of the Parade Ground and to the Spirit of the First Cavalry Regiment of Asturian Spaniards styled … Gordian’s Own Terentius Agrippa, prefect, restored this temple from ground level.’
The Matres were goddesses of Celtic origin; the inscription speaks of their association with the ‘spirit’ of a cavalry regiment and it thanks a ‘praefectus’, a cavalry commander, for the restoration of the altars. This sounds like an exclusive cult which may be the ancestor of the Horsemen’s secret societies which flourished in the Borders and elsewhere until the early part of this century. When horsepower was what actually drove the agriculture of Britain, secret initiation ceremonies were held for young men who were about to learn to work with horses. Much of this was concerned with recipes for certain feeds which would produce particular equine behaviour. But there was also the remnant of a deity to whom respect and allegiance was sworn. When that happened, the young men became party to something they called the Horsemen’s Word. This was eno or one said backwards, and it represented the oneness of man and horse and the oneness with the cult of horsemanship. Perhaps a faint echo of the Matres Campestres, and the spirit of the Asturian cavalry.
Aside from the outdoor parade ground, Vegetius advised strongly that cavalry regiments should also have an indoor riding school. Archaeologists have found that around 180 the headquarters building inside Trimontium’s walls was demolished and replaced by a large hall, certainly big enough for a group of riders to use to maintain fitness in bad weather. Incidentally, one of the exercises in Roman equestrian training was horse vaulting. Riders were expected to be able to mount quickly by running up behind their pony, placing their hands on its hind quarters and vaulting into the saddle, which at that time had no stirrups to get in the way. This is the origin of the use of the gymnastic vaulting horse.
Roman cavalry trooper two-handed with a contus
All cavalry regiments, particularly on forward postings, needed to organize a horse-supply programme. They could not wait for fresh mounts to become available in the course of nature. Therefore the Romans created military stud farms to breed what replacement horses were needed. A cavalry regiment of 480 men probably had 550 horses active to allow for lameness, quick replacement and death. At Trimontium skeletons of both small native ponies and larger slender-limbed horses have been found. While there is some evidence of cross-breeding it is generally true that cavalry horses were much smaller than the great black beasts we see now carrying the Household Cavalry down the Mall. The largest were about fourteen hands and the smallest eleven. Riders’ legs would dangle lower than the bellies of all of these animals but in an age before stirrups that would have mattered less. In any case there is evidence that these ponies were very tough: a 14.2 hands animal was reported carrying a trooper and his kit, weighing twen
ty-two and a half stones, over 800 miles with no loss of condition.³⁷
The P-Celts were already a society that used the horse widely for warfare. The Romans trained them and in southern Scotland showed how policing and warfare could be carried on successfully on the back of a horse. This began a very long tradition which embraced the Border reivers and which persists in the present day. But more sharply, as we shall see, it also embraced Arthur and his troop of cavalry warriors.
Trimontium was a focus for interaction of all sorts between the Votadini and the Roman occupation, but what lay directly in both their interests was the continued containment of the Selgovae to the west. This tribe and their allies to the north and south were a constant source of serious trouble. At the accession of the Emperor Hadrian in AD 117, there was war in north Britain. The Selgovae and their neighbours, the Novantae, had formed an alliance with the Brigantes and as the imperial biographer remarked: ‘The Britons could no longer be held under Roman control.’ An inscription at Jarrow confirms that the rebellion of the hill tribes was put down with routine efficiency. But what happened next was remarkable.
Arthur and the Lost Kingdoms Page 9
