The Centurions (Calgacus Book 2)

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Open Preview See a Problem? Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — The Centurions by Gordon Anthony. The Centurions Calgacus 2 by Gordon Anthony. With the Roman advance stalled, Calgacus seeks to avenge his brother's death. He is soon being hunted deep inside the Roman province but hides in the last place his enemies would look for him. Kindle Edition , pages.

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To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Centurions , please sign up. Lists with This Book. Feb 15, Steven rated it it was amazing Shelves: Our hero, Calgacus who we met in the first book in this series, World's End is determined to avenge the death of his brother.

He winds up hiding out in an auxiliary unit of the Roman army, while a Centurion spy infiltrates a Celtic tribe. The characters are well drawn, the battle scenes stirring, and t A great book! The characters are well drawn, the battle scenes stirring, and the love relationships moving. Stuart rated it it was amazing Oct 29, Agricola, whose forces included a fleet, arrived at the site with light infantry bolstered with British auxiliaries. It is estimated that a total of 20, Romans faced 30, Caledonian warriors. Agricola put his auxiliaries in the front line, keeping the legions in reserve, and relied on close-quarters fighting to make the Caledonians' unpointed slashing swords useless.

Even though the Caledonians were put to rout and therefore lost this battle, two thirds of their army managed to escape and hide in the Scottish Highlands or the "trackless wilds" as Tacitus called them. Battle casualties were estimated by Tacitus to be about 10, on the Caledonian side and roughly on the Roman side.

A number of authors have reckoned the battle to have occurred in the Grampian Mounth within sight of the North Sea. In particular, Roy, [34] Surenne, Watt, Hogan and others have advanced notions that the site of the battle may have been Kempstone Hill , Megray Hill or other knolls near the Raedykes Roman camp.

These points of high ground are proximate to the Elsick Mounth , an ancient trackway used by Romans and Caledonians for military manoeuvres. The first resident of Scotland to appear in history by name was Calgacus "the Swordsman" , a leader of the Caledonians at Mons Graupius, who is referred to by Tacitus in the Agricola as "the most distinguished for birth and valour among the chieftains". Robbers of the world, having by their universal plunder exhausted the land, they rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if he be poor, they lust for dominion; neither the east nor the west has been able to satisfy them.

Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a solitude and call it peace. Calgacus' fate is unknown but, according to Tacitus, after the battle Agricola ordered the prefect of the fleet to sail around the north of Scotland to confirm that Britain was an island and to receive the surrender of the Orcadians. It was proclaimed that Agricola had finally subdued all the tribes of Britain.

This is five years before Mons Graupius is believed by most historians to have taken place. Marching camps may have been constructed along the southern shores of the Moray Firth , although their existence is questioned. The total size of the Roman garrison in Scotland during the Flavian period of occupation is thought to have been some 25, troops, requiring 16—19, tons of grain per annum.

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Soon after his announcement of victory, Agricola was recalled to Rome by Domitian and his post passed to an unknown successor, possibly Sallustius Lucullus. Agricola's successors were seemingly unable or unwilling to further subdue the far north. This inability to continue to hold the far north may be in part due to the limited military resources available to the Roman Proconsul after the recall of the Legio II Adiutrix from Britain, to support Domitian's war in Dacia.

Despite his apparent successes, Agricola himself fell out of favour and it is possible that Domitian may have been informed of the fraudulence of his claims to have won a significant victory. It is possible that the costs of a drawn-out war outweighed any economic or political benefit and it was deemed more profitable to leave the Caledonians to themselves.

Presumably as a consequence of the Roman advance, various hill forts such as Dun Mor in Perthshire, which had been abandoned by the natives long ago, were re-occupied. Some new ones may even have been constructed in the northeast, such as Hill O'Christ's Kirk in Aberdeenshire. Ptolemy 's Geography identifies 19 "towns" from intelligence gathered during the Agricolan campaigns. No archaeological evidence of any truly urban places has been found from this time and the names may have indicated hill forts or temporary market and meeting places.

Most of the names are obscure: Devana may be the modern Banchory ; Alauna "the rock" in the west is probably Dumbarton Rock and the place of the same name in the east Lowlands may be the site of Edinburgh Castle. Lindon may be Balloch on Loch Lomond side. There are the remains of various broch towers in southern Scotland that appear to date from the period immediately prior to or following Agricola's invasion. They are about fifteen in number and are found in four locations: Their existence so far from the main centres of broch-building is something of a mystery.

The destruction of the Leckie broch may have come at the hands of the Roman invaders, yet like the nearby site of Fairy Knowe at Buchlyvie a substantial amount of both Roman and native artefacts have been recovered there. Both structures were built in the late 1st century and were evidently high-status buildings. The inhabitants raised sheep, cattle and pigs, and benefited from a range of wild game including Red Deer and Wild Boar.

Edin's Hall Broch in Berwickshire is the best preserved southern broch and although the ruins are superficially similar to some of the larger Orcadian broch villages it is unlikely that the tower was ever more than a single story high. There is an absence of Roman artefacts at this site. Various theories for the existence of these structures have been proposed, including their construction by northern invaders following the withdrawal of Roman troops after the Agricolan advance, or by allies of Rome encouraged to emulate the impressive northern style in order to suppress native resistance, perhaps even the Orcadian chiefs whose positive relationship with Rome may have continued from the beginnings of Romano-British relations.

The Centurions (Calgacus, #2) by Gordon Anthony

Quintus Pompeius Falco became governor of Britannia between and and is thought to have suppressed an uprising involving the Brigantes of northern Britannia and the Selgovae. In his last year of office he hosted a visit to the province by the Emperor Hadrian that resulted in the construction of Hadrian's Wall Latin: Rigore Valli Aeli , "the line along Hadrian's frontier". This line of occupation of Britain was consolidated as one of the limites defensible frontiers of the empire by its construction. It is a stone fortification built across the width of what is now northern England.

The wall was 80 Roman miles The wall was augmented by various ditches, berms , and forts. Urbicus was the son of a Libyan landowner [54] and a native of Numidia modern Algeria. Prior to coming to Britain he served during the Jewish Rebellion —35 , and then governing Germania Inferior. Antoninus Pius soon reversed the containment policy of his predecessor Hadrian, and Urbicus was ordered to begin the reconquest of Lowland Scotland by moving north.

Between and he rebuilt a fort at Corbridge and by or , commemorative coins were issued celebrating a victory in Britain. It is therefore likely that Urbicus led the reoccupation of southern Scotland c. He evidently campaigned against several British tribes possibly including factions of the northern Brigantes , certainly against the lowland tribes of Scotland , the Votadini and Selgovae of the Scottish Borders region, and the Damnonii of Strathclyde.

His total force may have been about 16, men. It seems likely that Urbicus planned his campaign of attack from Corbridge, advancing north and leaving garrison forts at High Rochester in Northumberland and possibly also at Trimontium as he struck towards the Firth of Forth. Having secured an overland supply route for military personnel and equipment along Dere Street , Urbicus very likely set up a supply port at Carriden for the supply of grain and other foodstuffs before proceeding against the Damnonii. Success was swift and the construction of a new limes between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde commenced.

Contingents from at least one British legion are known to have assisted in the erection of the new turf barrier, as evidenced by an inscription from the fort at Old Kilpatrick , the Antonine Wall 's western terminus. It was possibly after the defences were finished that Urbicus turned his attention upon the fourth lowland Scottish tribe, the Novantae who inhabited the Dumfries and Galloway peninsula.

The main lowland tribes, sandwiched as they were between Hadrian's Wall of stone to the south and the new turf wall to the north, later formed a confederation against Roman rule, collectively known as the Maeatae. The Antonine Wall had a variety of purposes. It provided a defensive line against the Caledonians. It cut off the Maeatae from their Caledonian allies and created a buffer zone north of Hadrian's Wall. It also facilitated troop movements between east and west, but its main purpose may not have been primarily military. It enabled Rome to control and tax trade and may have prevented potentially disloyal new subjects of Roman rule from communicating with their independent brethren to the north and coordinating revolts.

The destruction of some of the southern brochs may date to the Antonine advance, the hypothesis being that whether or not they had previously been symbols of Roman patronage they had now outlived their usefulness from a Roman point of view. Initially outpost forts were occupied in the south-west and Trimontium remained in use but they too were abandoned after the mids. Roman troops, however, penetrated far into the north of modern Scotland several more times.

Indeed, there is a greater density of Roman marching camps in Scotland than anywhere else in Europe, as a result of at least four major attempts to subdue the area. Severus invaded Caledonia with an army perhaps over 40, strong. According to Dio Cassius , he inflicted genocidal depredations on the natives and incurred the loss of 50, of his own men to the attrition of guerrilla tactics, although it is likely that these figures are a significant exaggeration. A string of forts was constructed in the north-east some of which may date from the earlier Antonine campaign.

This may have been due either to Roman military aggression or the collapse of local grain markets in the wake of Roman withdrawal. By , Severus' campaigning had made significant gains, but his campaign was cut short when he fell fatally ill, dying at Eboracum in Although his son Caracalla continued campaigning the following year, he soon settled for peace.

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The Romans never campaigned deep into Caledonia again: It was during the negotiations to purchase the truce necessary to secure the Roman retreat to the wall that the first recorded utterance, attributable with any reasonable degree of confidence, to a native of Scotland was made. When Julia Domna, wife of Septimius Severus, criticised the sexual morals of the Caledonian women, the wife whose name is unknown of the Caledonian chief Argentocoxos allegedly replied: Little is known about this alliance of Iron Age tribes, which may have been augmented by fugitives from Roman rule further south.

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The exact location of "Caledonia" is unknown, and the boundaries are unlikely to have been fixed. It is likely that the prior to the Roman invasions, political control in the region was highly decentralised and no evidence has emerged of any specific Caledonian military or political leadership. Later excursions by the Romans were generally limited to the scouting expeditions in the buffer zone that developed between the walls, trading contacts, bribes to purchase truces from the natives, and eventually the spread of Christianity.

The Ravenna Cosmography utilises a 3rd- or 4th-century Roman map and identifies four loci meeting places, possibly markets in southern Scotland. Locus Maponi is possibly the modern Lochmabenstane near Gretna which continued to be used as a muster point well into the historic period. Two of the others indicate meeting places of the Damnonii and Selgovae, and the fourth, Manavi may be Clackmannan.

The intermittent Roman presence in Scotland coincided with the emergence of the Picts , a confederation of tribes who lived to the north of the Forth and Clyde from Roman times until the 10th century. They are often assumed to have been the descendants of the Caledonians though the evidence for this connection is circumstantial and the name by which the Picts called themselves is unknown. Naturalistic depictions of Pictish nobles, hunters and warriors, male and female, without obvious tattoos, are found on their monumental stones.

The Pictish relationship with Rome appears to have been less overtly hostile than their Caledonian predecessors, at least in the beginning. There were no more pitched battles and conflict was generally limited to raiding parties from both sides of the frontier until immediately prior to and after the Roman retreat from Britannia. In part it may have been due to the difficulties encountered in subjugating a population that did not conform to the strictures of local governance that Roman power usually depended on to operate through.

The technology of everyday life is not well recorded, but archaeological evidence shows it to have been similar to that in Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England. Recently evidence has been found of watermills in Pictland and kilns were used for drying kernels of wheat or barley, not otherwise easy in the changeable, temperate climate. Elsewhere in Scotland wheelhouses were constructed, probably for ritualistic purposes, in the west and north. Their geographical locations are highly restricted, which suggests that they may have been contained within a political or cultural frontier of some kind and the co-incidence of their arrival and departure being associated with the period of Roman influence in Scotland is a matter of ongoing debate.

It is not known whether the culture that constructed them was "Pictish" as such although they would certainly have been known to the Picts. As Rome's power waned, the Picts were emboldened. War bands raided south of Hadrian's Wall in earnest in , , and and they participated with the Attacotti in the Great Conspiracy of Its location is unclear, but it is sometimes placed on or beyond Hadrian's Wall. Another campaign was mounted in , but both were short-lived successes. Rome had fully withdrawn from Britain by , never to return. From the midth century to the midth century, Charles Bertram 's forged Description of Britain Latin: The work is now known to have been one of the most successful historical forgeries in history and it is no longer believed to contain any truthful independent content.

In , a candidate for a Roman fort was identified by aerial photography at Easter Galcantray , south west of Cawdor. If confirmed, it would be one of the most northerly known Roman forts in the British Isles.

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The possibility that the legions reached further north in Scotland is suggested by discoveries in Easter Ross. The sites of temporary camps have been proposed at Portmahomack in , although this has not been confirmed, [88] [89] In an investigation of Tarradale on the Black Isle near the Beauly Firth concluded that "the site appears to conform to the morphology of a Roman camp or fort. The military presence of Rome lasted for little more than 40 years for most of Scotland and only as much as 80 years in total anywhere.

It's now generally considered that at no time was even half of Scotland's land mass under Roman control. Scotland has inherited two main features from the Roman period, although mostly indirectly: Through Christianity, the Latin language would become used by the natives of Scotland for the purposes of church and government for centuries more. Roman influence assisted the spread of Christianity throughout Europe , but there is little evidence of a direct link between the Roman Empire and Christian missions north of Hadrian's Wall.

Traditionally, Ninian is credited as the first bishop active in Scotland. He is briefly mentioned by Bede [91] who states that around he set up his base at Whithorn in the south-west of Scotland, building a stone church there, known as Candida Casa. More recently it has been suggested that Ninian was the 6th-century missionary Finnian of Moville , [92] [93] but either way Roman influence on early Christianity in Scotland does not seem to have been significant.

Although little more than a series of relatively brief interludes of military occupation, [94] Imperial Rome was ruthless and brutal in pursuit of its ends. The reality is that the Romans came to what is now Scotland, they saw, they burned, killed, stole and occasionally conquered, and then they left a tremendous mess behind them, clearing away native settlements and covering good farmland with the remains of ditches, banks, roads, and other sorts of ancient military debris. Like most imperialists they arrived to make money, to gain political advantage and to exploit the resources of their colonies at virtually any price to the conquered.

And remarkably, in Britain, in Scotland, we continue to admire them for it. All the more surprising given that the Vindolanda tablets [96] show that the Roman nickname for the north British locals was Brittunculi meaning "nasty little Britons". For many years it has been almost axiomatic in studies of the period that the Roman conquest must have had some major medium or long-term impact on Scotland. On present evidence that cannot be substantiated either in terms of environment, economy, or, indeed, society.

The impact appears to have been very limited.