Quintus Veranius, consul AD 49

Over the years (if not decades), I have occasionally seen reference made to A.E. Gordon’s 1952 book, Quintus Veranius Consul AD 49. A Study Based upon His Recently Identified Sepulchral Inscription (issued as fascicule no. 5 of University of California Publications in Classical Archaeology Vol. 2); this is usually (perhaps naturally) whenever the career of Quintus Veranius is mentioned, but also whenever triumphal decorations are discussed (most recently, I think, in Mary Beard’s The Roman Triumph in 2007), since Gordon appended a lengthy catalogue of “Triumphal Honors and Statues, and Other Official Honorary Statues Set Up in Rome, during the Empire”, which runs to 98 entries. It was chiefly this last item that I (periodically, and purely out of curiosity) wanted to see. My curiosity has now been satisfied, thanks to the bibliotechnical skills of my friend Dr Alan Leslie, and I have seen Gordon’s book with my own eyes.

The inscription

As the subtitle indicates, Professor Gordon’s book is based on his discovery of a hitherto unpublished inscription (AE 1953, 251 = CIL VI, 41075, pictured here), mounted on an external wall of the Terme di Diocleziano in Rome.

Only a portion (roughly 1m high by 2m wide) survives from the lower right of a larger commemorative slab, listing part of the career of a successful senator, whose name was lost in the missing portion. (Gordon assumed that we have roughly a quarter of the original slab.)

The lettering is very clear and consistent, with no ligatures (where two or more letters are combined into one symbol) and little or no variation in letter size, so that Professor Gordon felt able to reconstruct not only the missing left-hand ends of the thirteen extant lines, but also the preceding (entirely missing) text, with a fair degree of confidence. Whether or not his attempt was successful, we shall presently see.

A promising career

First, it should be pointed out that Professor Gordon astutely discerned the senator in question from various clues: first, the emperor Claudius is twice mentioned (lines 2 and 4), so we are in the mid-first century AD; second, the province of Britannia is mentioned (line 12); and third, the second deceased person (line 13) was evidently the son or daughter of the senator, whose name ends in -ranius.

The only senator who could fit the bill was Quintus Veranius, known from the pages of Tacitus’ Agricola and Annals as the governor of Britain in AD 57 who intra annum extinctus est (“died within a year”). His last will and testament, besides flattering the emperor Nero, claimed that subiecturum ei provinciam fuisse, si biennio proximo vixisset (“he would have annexed the province for him, if he had lived for the next two years”).

Quintus Veranius was previously known as a governor of Lycia, on the south-west coast of present-day Turkey. (Uniquely, I think, his likeness appears on the coins of Lycia, such as the one pictured here, RPC 1, 2889.) A fragmentary inscription from Cyaneae (near the village of Yavu) records his early career, and shows that he began in the auspicious role of triumvir monetalis (one of the three young men who were annually in charge of the mint at Rome), which he followed with a tribunate in the Fourth Scythica Legion, before being selected as quaestor Augusti (the emperor’s own quaestor), in which role he evidently served both Tiberius and Caligula, which lands us firmly in AD 37. As quaestors were normally aged 24, Veranius must have been born around AD 13. The historian Josephus records that Veranius was tribunus plebis (“tribune of the plebs”) in January AD 41, when he and others begged Claudius to become emperor after the murder of Caligula. As we know, the year AD 43 opened with campaigning in Britain (under Aulus Plautius) and in Lycia (under Veranius), and this is where the surviving part of our inscription begins.

Governing Lycia

Line 1 revealed the surprising fact (surprising, at least, in 1952) that Veranius governed Lycia (and presumably neighbouring Pamphylia, which Claudius is known to have joined onto Lycia) for five years, which must be AD 43-47 inclusive. There follow (lines 2-5) details of the campaigning, during which Veranius [castellum ... Tr]acheotarum expugnatum delevit (“stormed and destroyed a fort of the Tracheotae”). This can only be a reference to Cilicia Tracheia, the neighbouring region to the east, which was later incorporated into Lycia-Pamphylia, so Professor Gordon preferred to fill the void — having counted the letters carefully — with [atque castellum Cilicum Tr]acheotarum, though it goes without saying that it need not have been a castellum at all, since towns can equally well be stormed and destroyed.

Lines 6 and 7 then divulge that it was propter quae (“on account of which”, namely the five years’ successful campaigning) that consul designatus (“he was designated as consul”), auctore [...] (“through the influence of ...”) — a void that can only be filled by the emperor Claudius’ name, for who else could influence the selection of the consuls? Professor Gordon calculated that there was space for auctore |[Ti(berio) Claudio Caesare Augusto Germanico] (“through the influence of the emperor Tiberius Claudius Caesar Germanicus”) in the void.

The consulship was normally reserved for men aged around 40, but in AD 49, Veranius would have been only 36. However, line 8 reveals that he was in numerum patriciorum adlectus (“brought into the body of the patricians”), Rome’s aristocracy, who could usually expect the consulship in their early to mid-30s, rather earlier than prescribed. He was also augur creatus (“made an augur”), a member of one of the four major colleges of priests, which was a signal honour and, along with the consulship, the pinnacle of many men’s careers. So far, so good.

Controversial restorations

Lines 9-10 then include a reference to the post of [curator ...] aedium sacrarum et operum locorumque |[publicorum] (“supervisor of temples, buildings, and public works”). Professor Gordon included a lengthy 26-page appendix cataloguing all holders of this office known to him. However, several reviewers were uncomfortable with his restoration of the wording here, which resulted in rather stilted Latin. In essence, his version had the curatorship combined with the voting of a statue by the senate and people of Rome, a rather unlikely scenario.

Joyce Reynolds (Class. Rev. 4, 1954) pointed out that Professor Gordon’s suggested [curator Ti. Claudii Caesaris Aug. Germ]anici ought to mean that the man was supervising the emperor Claudius! She suggested instead that the word curator should be repositioned in the void after aedium sacrarum et operum locorumque |[publicorum], a word order that is paralleled on another inscription (CIL VI, 814), and that the invented reference to a statue should be deleted. (Roger Tomlin has unwisely retained the statue in his 2018 book Britannia Romana.) James Oliver (Am. J. Phil. 75, 1954) also balked at Professor Gordon’s “curator of the emperor”, pointing out that all that was needed was a statement to the effect that the emperor recommended Veranius as curator, and the popular assembly elected him: something along the lines of iudicio Claudii Augusti ... curam ei dedit populus Romanus (“by decision of the emperor Claudius ... the Roman people gave him the curatorship”).

Professor Gordon subsequently (thirty years later, in his Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy of 1983!) amended his restoration to read more or less what Oliver had suggested: [iussu Ti. Claudii Caesaris Aug. Germ]anici aedium sacrarum et operum locorumque |[publicorum curam ei dedit equester o]rdo et populus Romanus consentiente senatu (“by order of the emperor Tiberius Claudius Caesar Germanicus, the equestrian order and the Roman people, with the consent of the Senate, gave him charge of temples, buildings, and public works”).

Lines 10-11 also stirred up discomfort. This section begins with ludis (“at the games”), which Professor Gordon assumed to be Nero’s ludi maximi (“Great Games”), which are undated but which (Cassius Dio says) were given in honour of his mother Agrippina, so some time between AD 54 (when Nero became emperor) and 56 (when Agrippina fell out of favour). However, Keith Bradley suggested that they may have been the games held by Claudius in AD 51 to celebrate Nero’s coming of age. Meanwhile, A.R. Birley, in his 2005 book The Government of Roman Britain, suggested ludis [in campo Martio praesidens] (“while presiding at the games on the Campus Martius”). At any rate, other “games” are possible and Professor Gordon’s restoration ludis |[maximis praesidens] (“while presiding at the Great Games”) is perhaps unsafe.

Governor of Britain

The next secure text is the phrase ab Augusto principe, cuius liberalitatis erat minister (“by the August emperor, of whose generosity he was the dispenser”), which seems to indicate that Veranius had been appointed to some other post by the (unspecified) emperor, possibly while dispensing largesse (the emperor’s liberalitas) at the previously mentioned games. With only the verb [p]etierit (“he sought” something) surviving at the start of line 11, Professor Gordon read on to line 12, with its mention of provinciae Britanniae, in qua decessit (“of the province of Britannia, where he died”). He decided that, firstly, a verb was needed (he supplied factus est, “he was made”), and secondly, another post was needed (he supplied legatus Neronis Caesaris Germanici, “legate of Nero Caesar Germanicus”, the names by which the emperor Nero is often known), and thirdly, something needed to be “sought”. Putting it all together, he came up with the unlikely [factus est cum non p]etierit ab Augusto principe cuius liberalitatis erat minister [legatus Neronis Augusti German]ici provinciae Britanniae (“he was made the emperor Nero’s governor of Britain, though he did not seek it”).

Again, Oliver had an intriguing idea, a variation of which Professor Gordon again adopted in his 1983 book. Namely, that Veranius had distributed the largesse because the emperor Nero was himself taking part in the games. ludis [... praefectus est, ut ipse praemium p]etierit, ab Augusto principe, cuius liberalitatis erat minister (“he was placed in charge of games by the emperor, of whose generosity he was the dispenser, so that the emperor himself could seek a prize”). This neatly side-stepped Professor Gordon’s curious notion that Veranius “had not sought” the governorship of Britain (although it persists, perhaps by oversight, in Birley’s Roman Government of Britain). Instead, Oliver suggested restoring something along the lines of [praepositus est primo cantu bell]ici provinciae Britanniae (“he was placed in charge of the province of Britannia, at the first blast of war”), a curious phrase that has little to recommend it. Professor Gordon settled for [praepositus est tempore motus bell]ici provinciae Britanniae (“he was placed in charge of the province of Britannia at the time of an uprising”) in his 1983 version.

Son or daughter?

Professor Gordon restored the final line of the inscription as follows: [Verania f(ilia) Q(uinti) Ve]rani vixit annis VI et mensibus X (“Verania, daughter of Quintus Veranius, lived 6 years and 10 months”). Veranius was already known to have had a daughter named Gemina (“Twin”), who famously married L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus, the chosen heir of the emperor Galba, who was murdered with him on 15 January AD 69. Most commentators were satisfied with Professor Gordon’s conjecture of a second daughter, named Verania.

However, in 1981, A.R. Birley (following a suggestion of Werner Eck’s) postulated a six-year-old son instead, arguing that the explicit statement of age was more in keeping with a male child, in order to explain why he had held no public office; but having calculated that there wasn’t enough space for [Q(uintus) Veranius f(ilius) Q(uinti) Ve]rani, he reverted to the daughter Verania in his 2005 book. By chance, also in 1981, a second daughter of Veranius’ came to light, Octavilla by name. It has consequently been suggested that the final line should read [Octavilla f(ilia) Q(uinti) Ve]rani. However, this doesn’t seem to require any less space than a male name, and I do wonder if there might not have been a younger son, as well.

Success or not?

In the final analysis, it seems that Professor Gordon’s painstaking technique of carefully measuring the likely void at the start of each line and then proposing a suitable sequence of letters to fit hasn’t been overly successful. It would certainly have worked in a strictly formulaic inscription, but for this one, it became an exercise in free composition. Nevertheless, we owe him a massive debt for recognizing the slab in the first place and drawing it to public notice.

As a postscript, it is worth mentioning that the inscription was allegedly discovered near Settecamini, north-east of Rome on the Tivoli road. Yet Quintus Veranius’ own mausoleum stood (at least until 1904, when Thomas Ashby saw it) on the Via Appia. Pietro Santi Bartoli’s eighteenth-century engraving (pictured here, from Gli Antichi Sepolcri ovvero Mausolei Romani of 1704) shows that no inscription survived in situ. Professor Gordon thought that the inscription had come from a villa on the Via Tiburtina, belonging to Veranius’ family, but it was perhaps a Renaissance villa, whose owner had acquired the inscription from Veranius’ tomb. Probably we shall never know.

Not recommended

I have been reading Birgitta Hoffmann’s The Roman Invasion of Britain. Archaeology Versus History (2013), which was reissued as an eBook in 2019. It isn’t an easy read. For one thing, English doesn’t appear to be the author’s first language; and for another, the Pen & Sword Books editor has turned a blind eye to grammar and punctuation, so that some sentences must be re-read before the meaning becomes apparent.

The English is often stilted (e.g. translations “for” ancient sources, costs “born” by individuals), obvious mistakes have not been corrected (e.g. a reference to “the capture of Claudius” is clearly meant to be Caratacus; a reference to action by “the Roman Empire” clearly means the Roman army; Suetonius is credited with biographies of “the Emperors from Caesar to Trajan”), and infelicities abound (most noticeably chopping and changing between past and present tenses). But, copy-editing apart, is Dr Hoffmann’s argument sound?

When is a solution a ‘valid’ one?

Dr Hoffmann’s purpose seems to be to cast doubt on everything recorded by the ancient literary sources. “Most of the so-called facts of the history of Roman Britain cannot be independently confirmed and are thus open to source criticism as well as general doubts as to their veracity.” Archaeology doesn’t get let off lightly either. “The best any researcher can hope for in reconstructing the past is a ‘valid’ interpretation.” But what constitutes validity?

Here is an example. In the context of the Claudian invasion, Dr Hoffmann refers to “a number of troops that can swim in armour through rivers” and complains that everyone assumes that they were Batavians although “Cassius Dio does not mention them: the troops that do the swimming are called Keltoi (Celts), a cultural attribution that is rather doubtful for the Germanic Batavians, but also a name that is not used in the official naming of these units”.

In the process, she claims that “E. Cary’s Loeb translation actually calls them Germans (which is not in the original Latin)” — except that, firstly, Cassius Dio was writing in Greek, and secondly, he customarily uses the word Κελτοί (Keltoi) to indicate the peoples around and beyond the Rhine; in other words, the Germans. (The passage is Dio’s Roman History 60.20.2, if you wish to look it up, and I would recommend Mark Hassall’s 1970 paper on “Batavians and the Roman Conquest of Britain” for a much clearer discussion of this episode: Britannia Vol. 1, pp. 131-6.)

Having recommended that we strive for validity (defined as “any statement that takes account of all pieces of evidence as they are known at the time”), she suggests that the swimming troops “may actually have been British troops fighting on the Roman side. There is little to refute the argument” — what about the fact that Dio calls them Germans, and emphatically calls the Britons Βρεττανοί (Brettanoi) — “but equally little to support it. Our sources are just not good enough to come to a decision, but it remains a valid solution”. No, I’m afraid it simply doesn’t.

An ancient Baedeker?

A recurring theme is Dr Hoffmann’s criticism of geographical vagueness in the ancient sources (a vagueness that’s surely quite understandable, in the absence of major towns or landmarks for a Roman audience to latch on to). Again in the context of the Claudian invasion, she is affronted that “of all these achievements [attributed to Vespasian by the biographer Suetonius], only the Isle of Wight can be identified on a map. (...) Other desirable topographical information is lacking or abbreviated.” Then, regarding Tacitus: “he certainly has the tendency of focusing on people rather than events or places, and his geographical details, in keeping with historical traditions in Rome, are sketchy, as they were deemed of little interest to the readership.”

And yet, when Pliny the Elder writes about the vicinitas silvae Calidoniae (“neighbourhood of the Caledonian forest”), Dr Hoffmann feels that this is a sufficiently detailed geographical marker to indicate the edge of the Highland massif, since (she claims) the word silva (Latin for a wood or forest; see Oxford Latin Dictionary entry, pictured here) “can also mean mountain range.” No, I’m afraid it simply can’t. (The Pliny reference is Natural History 4.16/102.)

References?

Finally, regarding this book’s usefulness as a reference work, Dr Hoffmann’s approach to her sources can only be described as casual. She uses phrases like “several recent suggestions ...” or “there have been numerous proposals”, with no further clues.

The bibliography is a little random and not entirely error-free (e.g. she has listed several “Hodgson 2009”s without differentiation). And in a book intended for Anglophone readers (and presumably archaeologists, at that), it is frankly absurd to send them to an obscure German edition of Tacitus (Wilhelm Bötticher’s nineteenth-century edition, revised in 1985 by Andreas Schäfer), particulary when the point at issue (the emendation of Annals 12.31 from castris Antonam to the universally accepted cis Trisantonam) was the work of an English scholar. (I say obscure, because — although it is listed as the sole German “scholarly translation” in a German-language reference work, Der Neue Pauly’s 2007 survey of ancient authors — it did not merit inclusion in Herbert Benario’s “Recent Work on Tacitus: 1984-1993”.)

It’s difficult to know who the target readership is. Someone who knows what “Arretine Samian” or an “Alexandrinian diobol” (sic) is. But equally someone who won’t mind that Hoffmann has confused Hyginus (author of Fortifying a Roman Camp) with the surveyor of the same name. Or who won’t notice that, when she insists that Dio’s use of τριχῆ (trichê, “triply”) is “unusual (...) a term that comes from epical and poetical Greek and is certainly not a technical term”, she is wrong (the term is happily used by Herodotus and Xenophon, even Arrian — what better endorsement could there be?). Finally, it is peculiar to see Sir Ronald Syme’s classic work of 1958, the two-volume Tacitus, referenced as “Syme 1963”.

Postscript

Besides the generally poor editing, my enthusiasm for Dr Hoffmann’s book was further dampened by the fact that an unknown quantity of text was evidently missing from Chapter 1 (pictured here, along with an example of the shoddy copyediting).

When I contacted the publisher, I was offered a replacement copy at the knockdown price of £8.00. Needless to say, I did not dignify their impertinence with a response.

Slave soldiers or free men?

I have been reading what would now be classed as “an old book” — it was published in 1981 —, though it has never been superseded and appears still to be considered the last word on its subject: Die germanische Leibwache der römischen Kaiser des julisch-claudischen Hauses by the late Heinz Bellen.

The subject is the Germani corporis custodes, or “German bodyguards”, who appear to have provided close personal security for the Julio-Claudian dynasty; that is, the five emperors from Augustus to Nero, from 27 BC (though Augustus seems to have owned them already before he became emperor) until AD 68.

A quick bibliographic search revealed that few authors have revisited the subject since 1981. Besides Lawrence Keppie’s enthusiastically welcoming review (in The Journal of Roman Studies 72, 1982) and Michael P. Speidel’s generally positive assessment (in Germania 62, 1984), almost no scholars have addressed the subject in English, although Alexandra Busch includes a discussion of the bodyguard in her Militär in Rom (Wiesbaden 2011) and Maria Carmen D’Onza published a beautifully illustrated article on “Germanische Bodyguards” in Antike Welt 4 (2016).

One aspect in all of their discussions surprised me, as I have always agreed with Mommsen that the Germani were slaves owned by the emperor. All of the above-named scholars go through various contortions to try and deny this. Bellen even suggests that they had taken slave names to blend in at Rome! Others have been content to state that the Germani were free foreigners who adopted a Greek or Latin name because their own name was difficult to pronounce. On the contrary, as far as I am concerned, the proof stares at us from their gravestones.

Let us consider the gravestone of Phoebus (CIL VI, 8808 = ILS 1728 = Bellen No. 21), illustrated above. Although it is a little more verbose than most of the other 20-odd examples, nevertheless, the first four lines conform to the standard pattern adopted by the bodyguards: Phoebus / Neronis Claud(i) / Caesaris Aug(usti) / corp(oris) cust(os) (“Phoebus, (property) of the emperor Nero Claudius Caesar, a bodyguard”).

The important points to note are (a) the man’s single name, and (b) the statement of imperial ownership. Free men typically included a statement of paternity, like the tombstone of Verzo (AE 1990, 205), an exotically-named sailor on the liburnian Triton in the Ravenna fleet, which gives his father’s name as Themus. No free man would ever be referred to by a single name only.

By contrast, slaves are always referred to by a single name, followed by a statement of imperial ownership. The tombstone of Fronto (CIL V, 2386) is typical, in this respect: Fronto / Ti(beri) Claudi Caesaris / Aug(usti) Germanici / dispe(n)sator / lintianus (“Fronto, (property) of the emperor Tiberius Claudius Caesar Germanicus, a linen-weaving superintendent” — reading lintianus as an error for lintiarius).

Whatever else they might have been (and our evidence is severely limited), the Germani corporis custodes were imperial slaves belonging to the household of the reigning emperor. As such, they served until they died or until their master chose to grant them freedom, when they could return home.

Roman spelling again

There are several Roman inscriptions that mention the Ninth Legion. I was able to include images of a few of them in my book The Fate of the Ninth. But one — a rather beautiful metre-wide marble slab — remained unavailable to me. This is the memorial set up by Gaius Julius Erucianus Crispus “to his excellent friend” Lucius Aemilius Karus.

The inscription (shown above) has long been known, and appeared in the usual epigraphic compendiums as far back as Gruter (1603). It is most conveniently consulted in Dessau’s Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae (1892) as no. 1077.

One vitriolic Amazon reviewer has written, “PS It’s Carus not Karus, the Romans didn’t use Ks — a rather unprofessional mistake”. Perhaps if he’s looking in on my “pretty nasty blog site” (another quote from his rather bitter review), he’ll see that he was wrong, because it’s perfectly clear from the above image that this particular Roman preferred to spell his cognomen Karus, not Carus (on the first line).

Nor was he alone. For example, a grave-marker from Ostia carries the name of Publius Nonius Karus, who lived for only 8 years, 9 months, and a few days (AE 1971, 70). There are other instances of the same spelling and the same distinctive letter-shape.

No Roman was ever called Caius

I have been reading Robert Harris’ Cicero trilogy with great enjoyment. However, one thing jars. Men whose praenomen (“first name”) was Gaius are routinely called “Caius”. For example, in Lustrum (the book that I’m currently reading), Cicero’s consular colleague in 63 BC is named “Caius Antonius Hybrida”.
Of course, this problem does not belong exclusively to Harris. Other authors are in the habit of rendering the praenomen Gaius as “Caius”. The reason is a simple misunderstanding.

The Latin language derived from Etruscan, which had no letter B, D, or G. For example, the word magistratus (“magistrate”) is rendered as macistratus on early Roman inscriptions (e.g. CIL IX, 782 = Dessau, ILS 4912; or CIL VI, 1300 = ILS 65, pictured below — note also “Cartacinienses” for the people of Carthage on line 9).

Consequently, the praenomen Gaius had to be represented as “Caius” and was abbreviated with the letter C. This rule persisted down through the ages, so that, even with the introduction of the Latin alphabet (with its B, D, and G), the letter C was retained as the abbreviation for Gaius. Similarly, Cn. remained the abbreviation for Gnaeus.

The problem has perhaps been exacerbated by the epigraphic convention that calls for the expansion of the abbreviation C. in Roman inscriptions as “C(aius)”, instead of pointing out that it simply stands for the praenomen Gaius.

In fact, the historian A.R. Birley once suggested that epigraphers should employ the convention “C. (Gaius)” to indicate this (L’Antiquité classique Vol. 70, 2001). He called for the banishment of “Caius” and “Cnaeus”, and pointed out, quite correctly, that the Greek writers of the Roman era employed the word Γαίος (not Καίος) for Gaius (thus indicating the correct pronunciation).

So let us have no more Caiuses and Cnaeuses! No Roman was ever called by those names.

Limits of Empire, Limits of Patience

Today, a review of Simon and Jonathan Forty’s Limits of Empire. Rome’s Borders (2021) dropped into my mailbox, and I wondered if the reviewer and I had read the same book. I certainly didn’t feel that “This book is a nice addition to the literature aimed at a general readership”. However, I must admit that I read it on my vintage black-and-white Kindle, whereas I see (from Google Books) that the 200-page hardback is lavishly illustrated with 350 photographs (many of them from the wonderful collection of Carole Raddato, misspelled “Raddoto” here).

This no doubt swayed the reviewer, who emphasizes the “numerous high-quality pictures and maps which enable the reader to engage with the analysis of evidence more closely” (what analysis of evidence?). In the end, he recommends the book to “those who have no insightful knowledge and familiarity with the history of the Roman frontiers”. On the other hand, those who have such knowledge, he concedes, “might find glitches in it”. This is surely a worrying attitude for any educator to adopt. And I’m not sure that Casemate Publishers should be let off with typographical errors, even if “some of [them] are entirely forgivable”. (I wonder what the reviewer considers to be a “forgivable” error? The “African deserts of Arabia”, perhaps? Or the absence of a warning on the “mosaic from Mogontiacum [showing] the Capricorn symbol of legio XXII Primigenia” that it’s modern?)

The book is clearly intended for the coffee table, so I really shouldn’t be surprised by such gaucheries as “We are lucky that the Romans loved building as much as they liked fighting”; or such platitudes as “the largest collection of written information we have of the Roman world is in their books and letters”; or such banalities as “watchtowers, forts small and large, legionary fortresses: these all have a military purpose as well as potentially providing a customs barrier”. (However, I did enjoy the unintended comedy of aerial photography “unearthing otherwise hidden locations”.) Virtually every statement is qualified and vague; “potentially”, “mostly”, and “usually” conceal the authors’ unfamiliarity with the subject.

Errors abound — my goodness, there are so many —, but it is probably as tiresome to read about them as it is to record them. It’s just a pity that Casemate Publishers think so little of their readers as to sell them a book that is most certainly not “an ideal introduction to the Limesforschung”.

True and false at Mons Graupius, Part One

I recently came across the “Romans vs Caledonians” podcast, recorded (in two parts) on 5 September 2021 by Dr Andrew Tibbs. He is there introduced as “an expert on the Romans in Scotland”, no doubt on the basis of his book, Beyond the Empire. A Guide to the Roman Remains in Scotland (Marlborough 2019) and his Durham University doctoral thesis on An Examination of the Location, Intervisibility, Orientation & Interconnectivity of Flavian Fortifications in Roman Scotland (submitted in 2021, but embargoed until 2024, so unavailable). We have seen (in an earlier post) that his book is somewhat unreliable, so I was intrigued to see if the podcast was any better.

It is billed as a discussion of the Battle of Mons Graupius, an event that forms the climax to the vita Iulii Agricolae (“Life of Julius Agricola”) written by the historian Tacitus in AD 98 (the year after he held the consulship), so Dr Tibbs devotes the first 30 minutes or so (Part One of his podcast) to that work. Unfortunately, his knowledge of the Agricola (as it’s known for short) is rather wobbly.

Mainly, he is unwilling to accept that the Agricola is a biography, as this would imply a degree of accuracy that he believes is absent: “I would never really, I think, personally describe it as a biography”, he says. “It is probably best described as, like a play or a film — it’s the edited highlights. You have a beginning, a middle, and an end. You have a big climax, a dénouement. You have an afterthought. So, you know, this is a film of his life, just written down without the pictures. It has elements of truth, it probably has elements of fiction, it’s a bloomin’ good read”. Colourful stuff. But is it accurate?

The “Ninth Legion disaster”

We can agree, of course, that the Agricola is “a good read”, but Dr Tibbs’ claim that “it probably has elements of fiction” really needs to be substantiated. Which parts are fiction?

Dr Tibbs highlights the episode of the night attack on the Ninth Legion, which occurred in the campaigning season prior to the one that saw the Battle of Mons Graupius. Tacitus records that “the enemy massed for a night attack on the Ninth Legion, as being by far the weakest in numbers” (Agr. 26.1: hosti ... universi nonam legionem ut maxime invalidam nocte adgressi). Having sprung the attack, “fighting was already going on inside the camp itself when Agricola, who had learned of the enemy’s route from his scouts and was following close on their tracks, ordered the most mobile of his cavalry and infantry to charge the combatants from the rear” (Agr. 26.2: iamque in ipsis castris pugnabatur, cum Agricola iter hostium ab exploratoribus edoctus et vestigiis insecutus, velocissimos equitum peditumque adsultare tergis pugnantium iubet). As day dawned, Tacitus writes, “finally the enemy were driven back before the rival efforts of two armies, the one wanting to show that it had come to the rescue, the other that it had not needed help” (Agr. 26.3: donec pulsi hostes, utroque exercitu certante, his, ut tulisse opem, illis, ne eguisse auxilio viderentur).

Dr Tibbs wishes to sow the seeds of doubt here. He says that we don’t even know whether the Ninth Legion were occupying a camp or a fort (but Tacitus says it’s a camp) and confusingly claims that “it’s very difficult to prove that they were at this particular site”. (Which site?) He claims that the ramparts were breached (“if defences are breached, and that’s what we’re getting from Tacitus that that’s what happens, they’re going to knock down these ramparts”), but it seems that the enemy entered by the gates. Tacitus actually writes that “they cut down the sentries and burst into the sleeping camp, creating panic” (Agr. 26.1: inter somnum ac trepidationem caesis vigilibus inrupere), and as if to confirm that they had entered by the gates, Tacitus writes that they tried to get back out that way: “they ventured on a break out and a fierce battle followed in the narrow passage of the gates” (Agr. 26.3: ultro quin etiam erupere, et fuit atrox in ipsis portarum angustiis proelium). Finally, Dr Tibbs despairs of ever finding the evidence of the breached ramparts or burned debris that might prove the story and concedes that it is, after all, a movie. The entire episode is dismissed. “So, something may have happened”, he concludes. “The Ninth Legion — the indication is from the literary evidence it was already depleted, because it had been involved in the Boudican Revolt some twenty-odd years before — 15, 20 years beforehand — so it’s difficult to know what was happening. Was this just a rubbish legion that Tacitus decided, right, I need a story, you’re the guys that are going to be, you know. We need to look at it like you would a film”.

The “pantomime villain”

Tacitus writes that, among the Caledonians, a certain Calgacus was “outstanding among their many leaders for his valour and nobility” (Agr. 29.4: inter pluris duces virtute et genere praestans nomine Calgacus), but Dr Tibbs dismisses him as “a storytelling tool”. Clearly, the Caledonian forces required a leader, and it is curious that Tacitus was able to concoct such a bafflingly Celtic name, if he was completely fictional. Nevertheless, for Dr Tibbs, he is “the big pantomime villain that comes in and says, ‘oh, I hate the Romans’.” We can all agree that Tacitus must have composed the speech that he attributes to Calgacus, but Dr Tibbs doubts the man’s very existence: “did he exist?” he asks, before concluding that “We've no evidence. There’s very little there to imply that there was that sort of figure”.

I’m not sure that this level of textual criticism, even combined with cinematographic techniques, will help us find Mons Graupius, but perhaps all will be revealed in Part Two of Dr Tibbs’ podcast.