"He [Agricola] sent his fleet ahead to plunder at various points and thus spread uncertainty and terror, and, with an army marching light, which he had reinforced with the bravest of the Britons and those whose loyalty had been proved during a long peace, reached the Graupian Mountain, which he found occupied by the enemy. The Britons were, in fact, undaunted by the loss of the previous battle, and welcomed the choice between revenge and enslavement. They had realized at last that common action was needed to meet the common danger, and had sent round embassies and drawn up treaties to rally the full force of all their states. Already more than 30,000 men made a gallant show....
The troops were made for action and ready to rush into it, but Agricola marshalled them with care. The auxiliary infantry, 8,000 in number, made a strong centre, while 3,000 cavalry were thrown out on the flanks. The legions were stationed in front of the camp wall; victory would be vastly more glorious if it cost no Roman blood, whilst, in case of repulse, the legions could restore the day. The British army was stationed on higher ground in a manner calculated to impress and intimidate its enemy. Its van was on the level ground, but the other ranks rose, as it were in tiers, up the gentle slope. The space between the two armies was taken up by the charioteers, clattering on in their wild career. At this point, Agricola, fearing that the enemy with their great superiority in numbers might fall simultaneously on his front and flanks, opened out his ranks. The line now looked dangerously thin, and many urged him to bring up the legions....
The spectacle that followed over the open country was awe-inspiring and grim. Our men followed hard, took prisoners and then killed them, as new enemies appeared. On the enemy's side each man now followed his bent, Some bands, though armed, fled before inferior numbers, some men, though unarmed, insisted on charging to their deaths. Arms, bodies, severed limbs lay all around and the earth reeked of blood; and the vanquished now and then found their fury and their courage again. Indeed, when they reached the woods, they rallied and profited by their local knowledge to ambush the first rash pursuers....Only night and exhaustion ended the pursuit. Of the enemy some 10,000 fell, on our side 360....
A grim silence reigned on every hand, the hills were deserted, only here and there was smoke seen rising from chimneys in the distance, and our scouts found no one to encounter them. When they had been sent out in all directions and had made sure that everything pointed to indiscriminate flight and that the enemy was not massing at any point, Agricola led his army into the territory of the Boresti. Summer was almost over, and it was impossible for operations to be extended over a wider area."
Tacitus, Agricola
Agricola was governor of Britain from AD 77-83/84 and the father-in-law of Tacitus, who wrote his biography. To forestall a possible rising of the Caledonian tribes to the north, Agricola marched beyond the isthmus formed by the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth into the highlands of Scotland, establishing a series of marching camps along the way. Meanwhile, the fleet was sent ahead to raid along the coast and provide supplies. Probably by the late summer or early fall of AD 83, in the seventh campaign season of his governorship, he and Calgacus, leader of the Caledonii and a confederation of northern clans, confronted one another at a place named Mons Graupius.
Tacitus writes in Agricola that the Britons numbered more than thirty thousand men. Agricola had eight thousand auxiliary infantry and four or five thousand auxiliary cavalry chosen from loyal tribes. Although he does not say how many legions there were, the Romans may have numbered as many. The auxiliary were in the front, with the legions in reserve at the Roman camp, victory, writes Tacitus, being more glorious if there was no cost in Roman blood.
The Britons held the high ground of the slope, with their chariots in front of the main force. The Roman auxiliaries were arrayed opposite, Agricola, himself, leading them on foot. After an exchange of missiles, the auxiliaries closed in hand-to-hand combat, their short swords more effective than the longer weapons and small shields of the Britons. At the same time, the cavalry dispersed the British chariots and then engaged with the men on foot. As the rest of the British forces moved down the slope, Agricola threw in the reserve cavalry, which broke through the line and attacked the Britons from the rear. The native force was completely routed. Only the coming of night saved the remainder. Ten thousand Britons died; on the Roman side, says Tacitus, only 360 fell. It was as Calgacus said of the Romans before the battle: "They rob, kill and rape and this they call Roman rule. They make a desert and call it peace."
Twenty thousand men retreated that night and, in spite of Tacitus' statement that the island had been conquered, the highlands still were relatively free beyond the Forth-Clyde isthmus. Early the next year, Agricola was recalled to Rome to confront a resentful Domitian. Jealous of his success, he would be denied any further imperial appointments. In AD 85, there were barbarian attacks from Dacia in the east, and Domitian eventually was obliged to withdraw what military presence had remained behind in northern Britain. The fort at Inchtuthil, part of a series of garrisons that closed off the highlands, was dismantled not long after it had been completed and, with it, any plans to conquer the land.
Tacitus' description of the battle of Mons Graupius is the only literary evidence for the battle, the location of which is not certain. Wherever the site, the requisites are that there be a mount, with an expanse of open ground before it, and the presence of a Roman camp opposite. Presumably, too, since a confrontation was sought, the native Caledonians would have chosen a site on a route that Agricola would have been likely to follow. Several locations meet these requirements, although, even when there is a Roman camp, it cannot always be certain that it was contemporary with Agricola or built by his successor or, even later, during the campaigns of Septimius Severus in AD 208-211.
One of the first sites to be put forward was Raedykes, a large temporary camp situated at the Mounth, where the Grampian foothills come closest to the sea and form a narrow corridor at Stonehaven. Here, it is argued, was a strategic site where the Romans would have to be confronted if they were not to advance farther north. The camp is large enough to hold Agricola's men, but no promontory has been identified as Mons Graupius, nor is there necessarily sufficient moorland to maneuver. It also is possible that the camp is Severan.
Another site has been proposed south of the Mounth at Monboddo, where Knock Hill stands opposite the Roman camp at Kair House across from the Bervie Water. (The river runs in front of the camp and, although Tacitus does not mention it, presumably would be a necessary source of water for the army. A river also could interfere with the use of chariots, however.) The mount is the appropriate size and there is room for cavalry and infantry, as well as proximity to the coast and the fleet.
Both, however, seem too far south to be reconciled with Agricola's belief that he had reached the northern-most part of the island: "Our grip on the ends of Britain is vouched for, not by report or , but by our encampment there in force." Calgacus, too, claiming that "beyond lies no nation, nothing but waves and rocks and the Romans," suggests a northerly location for the battle.
One such site is the Pass of Grange, where the Grampian mountains again come close to the sea and there is an approach to the Moray Firth. It is an advantageous site to defend and is less than twenty kilometers from sheltered anchorage, where Agricola's fleet could have waited. But the Roman camp at Auchinhove and a larger one at Muiryfold, just a few kilometers to the east, both seem too removed from the battle site.
The discovery of Durno, the largest marching camp in northern Scotland, near the mount at Bennachie, seems a more probable setting. The terrain satisfies Tacitus' description of the battle. There is room to have extended the Roman line and still allow for the movement of cavalry, and the slope opposite the camp is steep enough to give the impression of tiered troops and provide them a defensive position. The highlands to the west also offer a refuge for the defeated Caledonians.
Still, there are objections to Bennachie, one of which is that it actually may be too broad a field for the combatants, especially if Agricola had the impression of serried ranks on its slopes. And the camp may be larger than necessary for what was, after all, an expeditionary force (here, too, a river runs in front). It also may be too removed from the coast.
Durno was discovered not long before Salway completed his book on Roman Britain, which may account for his pronouncement that "it is very likely indeed that the mountain now known as Bennachie is rightly to be identified as Mons Graupius." Although Maxwell tends to agree, he concludes his extended study of Mons Graupius with an argument for Kair House. Salway also reconsidered the matter and, in a later revision of his book, is more circumspect: "Pending new evidence, we can do no more than say that it was somewhere in north-east Scotland."
Perhaps this is all that can be said with certainty.
References: A Battle Lost: Romans & Caledonians at Mons Graupius (1990) by Gordon Maxwell; The Romans in Scotland (1989) by Gordon S. Maxwell; Roman Britain (1981) by Peter Salway; The Oxford Illustrated History of Roman Britain (1993) by Peter Salway; Agricola and the Conquest of the North (1987) by W. S. Hanson; The Fasti of Roman Britain (1981) by Anthony R. Birley; Tacitus on Britain and Germany (1948) translated by H. Mattingly (Penguin Classics); Tacitus: Agricola and Germany (1999) translated by Anthony R. Birley (Oxford World's Classics).
A bibliographic note: Peter Salway is one of the most authoritative authors on Roman Britain, and the Oxford University Press has published a number of his books, some of which appear in more than one edition. In 1937, the first volume in The Oxford History of England series was published, and Roman Britain and the English Settlements by R. G. Collingwood and J. N. L. Myres has remained an important reference ever since. Originally, Salway was invited to revise it but wrote an entirely new book instead: Roman Britain, which was published in 1981 and reissued in paperback in 1984. Oxford University Press also has a series of illustrated histories, one of which is The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain by Peter Salway and John Blair, which was published in 1984. Four years later, the first two chapters of that book were reprinted in paperback as Roman and Anglo Saxon Britain by Salway and Blair in The Oxford History of Britain series. In 1993, another handsome volume in the illustrated series appeared: Salway's The Oxford Illustrated History of Roman Britain. Four years later, it, too, was issued in paperback as A History of Roman Britain. As which to read: In paperback, there are two choices: Roman Britain (1981/1984) and A History of Roman Britain (1993/1997). The first is two hundred pages longer and footnoted; the second is a condensed and revised version of the earlier book that takes into account later research and, in hardback, is beautifully illustrated.