The Ancients - Septimius Severus in Scotland

Episode Date: October 8, 2020

Dan Snow talks to Simon Elliott about Septimius Severus, the first Hammer of the Scots, about his Northern Campaigns, and the true story of this savage 3rd century invasion of Scotland.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. Today we are going back into the History Hit archive once more. And for me, this one is a real treat because in my opinion, this is one of the most extraordinary campaigns in Roman military history. At the start of the third century AD, a Roman emperor came to Britain at the head of a

huge army and navy. The emperor's name was Septimius Severus, the African emperor, and he came to Britain to launch a couple of campaigns north of Hadrian's Wall against some troublesome tribes situated in what is now central Scotland. And in today's podcast, Dan Snow is joined by the one and only Simon Elliot, the author of a book all about Septimius Severus in Scotland, to talk through these campaigns. Simon, thanks for coming back on the podcast. Now, you have got a forgotten, towering figure of British, but also world history to talk about this time. Tell me about him.

Well, this is a Septimius Severus so let me give a bit of perspective first Dan Septimius Severus was one of the great warrior emperors who hacked his way to power in AD 193 and in so doing this is the year of the five emperors he fought off all challengers and then embarked on successful wars of conquest in the east where he fought the Parthians and other easterns he actually sacked the Parthian capital which very few Roman emperors did and he campaigned in Africa where he fought the Parthians and other Easterns, he actually sacked the Parthian capital, which very few Roman emperors did. And he campaigned in Africa, where he was a native, because he was born in the blistering heat of a North African summer

to one of the richest families in the empire. Punic origin, so his forebears were Phoenicians, and he died in the freezing cold of a Yorkshire winter in 8211, which, as I always say, was the wild west of the Roman Empire, if you're in the north of Britain. This never-conqu wild west of the Roman Empire if you're in the north of Britain this never conquered part of the Roman Empire where they always struggled but what the reason he was there was to actually try and do the last major attempt to conquer Scotland when he took 57,000 men in AD 209 and AD 210 in two campaigns to try and achieve what no emperor had done before and he failed that's the

key thing he failed even though he took this enormous army which must have been one of the if not the largest campaigning army on british soil he still failed but in the second campaign in 8210 he gave a really really significant order when he got so fed up with the fact he couldn't conquer the north that he gave this a genidal order, which basically said kill everybody. And after the campaigns had finished, even though he'd failed to conquer Scotland, because he died actually in York in 1811, even though he failed to conquer Scotland, there's now coming to light archaeological data to show there was a major depopulation event in Scotland for about 80 years. So this is one of the great, great, great untold stories of British history, which I tackle now in my new book, Septimius Severus in Scotland, the Northern Campaigns of the First Hammer of the Scots. Glad you got the

pitch in there, buddy. So this is absolutely remarkable. So he fought from the very eastern end of the Roman Empire right to the west yeah and he died in Yorkshire I mean it's also easy to forget isn't it it's remarkable so tell me what was the status when he came to the throne what was the status of the Roman border uh at the north of Britannia with uh you know Scotland today or Caledonia beyond um well the two the two tribes are talking about now for a start it's very interesting because when you talk about the Gritland campaigns to try and conquer Scotland in the um late first centuryd there's a broad term the caledonians describing a variety of tribes but by the time of 100 years later these are coalesced into two broad

tribal confederations one would call the mighty a um who were based in the middle midland valley so that's around the antonine war probably and then you have the caledonians to the north who were in the northern midland valley so that's the northern lowlands and then in the middle, Midland Valley. So that's around the Antonine War probably. And then you had the Caledonians to the north who were in the northern Midland Valley. So that's the northern lowlands and then in the highlands as well. And you had campaigning in the second century AD, for example, around the time of Hadrian. So you have Hadrian's Wall,

for example, around the time of Antoninus Pius, et cetera. So you have the Antonine War where Rome still had an interest and carried out punitive expeditions, but it doesn't look like they tried to conquer Scotland after the Agritoline Campaign in the late 1st century AD. So there was interest, and it probably is this interaction with the Romans in the north which caused these confederations

to come into being, the Mitaeans and the Caledonians. And so towards the end of the 2nd century AD, they got to such a level of organisation which they hadn't had before that they were actually beginning to really, really trouble the northern border. And around the time that Severus came to the throne, the governor was a chap called Clodius Albinus. And he more or less had the border secure. But in the next decade, after Severus came to the throne, that's when you started seeing trouble occurring, which ultimately led to Severus coming to Britain. And what's the main sources for this is it uh text or is it archaeological it's a mix of everything actually

i mean one of the reasons why the the severing campaigns have been covered in in detail to date apart from in maybe a few academic texts and things like britannia is because i'm very well by the way but only only in short form it's because you only have two main and then a number of minor primary sources uh the main ones are cassius dio and herodian both of who um have problems as historical sources uh they're near contemporary so they're writing about it in a near contemporary way and dio actually knew severus um and then you have a number of later sort of late roman sources 100 200 years later so therefore there wasn't that much of a spotlight apart from a few key facts.

However, in the last 10 to 15 years, a lot of data has come through to us from the archaeological record due to some fantastic excavations and investigations in Scotland, which has enabled us to look at what probably really happened and what's enabled me to actually interpret

the campaigns in my own way principally you're looking at marching camps and there are a lot of sequence of roman marching camps in scotland marching camps are built at the end of a marching day by the roman military when they're in enemy territory to defend themselves and in scotland given the size of the force severus had it's become apparent to match the larger marching camps to the Severan campaigns so you can actually track his routes and then on top of that there's been major investigations on some of the campaigning sites across Scotland which has enabled us to use analogy to show how the war would have been fought as well so for example there's a there's a there's a hill fort which was assaulted by the Romans in the Antonine period,

where that's now been properly investigated north of the border. And it shows that what the Romans were doing was an absolute blitzkrieg taking these settlements out. So let's just go back a little bit. So why do we think Severus decided to launch these huge, expensive campaigns in the most unfashionable part of the British Empire. Very well put, Dan. It's worthwhile stepping back ever so slightly to answer your question. So it's worthwhile looking at where Severus came from. It gives you real insight into what he was doing. So he was born in 8145 in Lipsis Magna, one of the richest parts of the Roman Empire, in the heat of a blistering summer. A family who was Punic, as I mentioned.

As an aristocrat, he was one of the first in his family, not the first, but one of the first to become a senator. He made steady progress on the cursus honorum and always had an eye for the main chance, although it's only later in life that he developed this military streak, militaristic streak. His first major command was the commander of the Legio for Scythica in Syria, where he was the legate in charge of it in the AD 180s.

His first province, though, he was very important to us. His first province as a governor was Gallia Lugdunensis, which is northwestern Gaul, whose capital was modern Leon. Now, that obviously is northwestern Gaul. That looks out towards Britannia to the north. And actually, you recall our previous conversation about looks out towards Britannia to the north and actually you recall our previous conversation about the Classis Britannica that was in charge of controlling the continental coast as well so therefore you have this guy for the first time from North Africa

looking north towards Britain this would be in the late AD 180s and he became good friends with the British governor called Pertinax who had a big falling out with the roman military one legion apparently rebelled against pertinax as the governor in britain and tried to kill him so from the off the context that severus had with britain was a negative context um and then he ended up in the uh late ad 180s very importantly being the um governor of pannonia superior which is the crucial crucial province on the Danube which guards the northern approaches northeastern approaches to Italy and that's where he's sitting in AD192 at New Year's Eve when Commodus is assassinated the

emperor and there's a scramble for power so for this is the year of the five emperors AD193 Pertinax becomes the emperor falls out with the Praetorian guard gets killed so Severus's friend Pertinax is killed by the Praetorian guard severus therefore gets declared the emperor by his legion in his headquarters on the danube and he launches a blitzkrieg assault on northern italy gets into rome stages a coup and ultimately in the year of the five empress he's the winner and you can tell the contempt he had for the political classes in the realm, because if you look at his arch, the Arch of Septimius Severus and the Forum, it's built effectively almost on the foundations of the Curia Senate House. So it's one of these key seven things that he always says, you remember who's in charge, it's me. And then Britain comes back into the picture yet again, because in AD 196, the British governor, Clodius Albina, who I mentioned earlier, rebels and usurps

because he feels threatened by Severus. He takes his three legions, the Legio XX, Valerius Victrix from Chester, the Legio II, Augustus from Caerleon, the Legio VI, Victrix from York. It takes him to the continent and they fight this apocalyptic battle at Lugdunum and early on in AD197 which severus only wins by the skin of his teeth so again his context for britain is a negative one and he sends military inspectors to britain at the end of the campaign to rebuild the military in britain but in his own way so the law

to severus and the you can see very physically in london the evidence of this because the several land wars in london that great section I've spoken about to you before outside Tower Hill tube station, that was built by Severus to tell the people of London whose governor had rebelled against him, you remember who's the boss. It's the same as the Arch of Severus in the Forum in Rome. So we go forward to AD 207.

And the province, I think, is still really struggling to rebuild itself after the Albion, Clodis-Albinus revolt. I don't think Severus actually wanted to put the full military presence back as it had been and he may have left the northern frontier unmanned. So you have the late AD 90s, the governor lupus having to buy off the caledonian and mito to keep them quiet however in ad 207 severus gets this letter according to herodian who's not a very good source by the way but we'll go with him gets his letter from herodian which says the province then this very important says the whole province is in danger of being overrun so it's not the north he says the whole province has been in danger of being overrun so it's not the north he says the whole province is really in danger of being overrun so this is a really powerful

letter to Severus and the governor's called Senecio this time and he finishes the letter by saying I need help from you or reinforcements this is AD 207 and what Severus does he says you can have both so that's what the historical sources say the reason he came over for was however the context is that he may have left the northern border in demand and there's one final point to remember this is the Maité and the Caledonians themselves these are confederations which had only just come into being sort of in the last 20 or 30 years they're mentioned first in the 80s 180s and clearly there's a degree of political organization which was better than

was there before so the population was growing um they'd also got used the elites had got used to these vast sums of money from the Romans that had bought them off in the 8190s um but also our sources tell us that the weather at the time this is the the late 80s 8200s was very very very poor really really poor so there may have been some kind of harvest problem so from a native's perspective they are a growing population they are used to Roman wealth and might want more but also they may have decided that actually we're suffering here we may have a harvest problem so we need to go south to get food all these things coalesce into Severus arriving in Britain in AD 208 with his 50,000 men. So he's got 50,000

men with him. There were always, well, usually three legions stationed in Britain, weren't there? Yeah, absolutely. So how many men would that be? Well, three legions is about 15,000 men. And you can add to that about 15,000 auxiliaries who were still full-fat auxiliaries that we know and recognise from the Roman principate uh and then other ancillary troops as well so there's going to be a garrison in britain a bit of up to let's say up to 30 000 men but when severus arrives it brings with him uh the praetorian guard which he by the way reformed completely after becoming the emperor in 8193 he brings with him his imperial guard cavalry he brings with him his pet new roman legion the legio 2 parth, one of three Parthica legions which he formed to do his eastern campaigns.

Again, crucially for Severus, gives us great insight into him. Most legions at this time are still based near the frontiers. Severus bases Legio II Parthica 30 kilometres from Rome. Why? To tell the people in Rome, you behave or else. It's exactly the same as the Arch, exactly the same as the Wars of London. But he brings them all to Britain. And also the sources tell us that he brings the exhalations of troops from the right and the danube as well so if you put all that together it looks like around 50 000 men i would argue in the

book and i go into detail plus you have the 7 000 men of the classic britannica who played a crucial role um in the campaign as well and this all arrives in in the great estuary in east anglia and brough on humber and in south shields and walls end south shields actually becomes one of the crucial ports where the granaries were increased in size by a factor of 10 to support his campaigns so you so you think so you're telling me that one of the most powerful men in the world at the time spent a long time in the north of england and in scotland with the largest army ever assembled in that part of the world it's just a fascinating story well it's astonishing and and it's also the last three years of his life i mean the primary sources talk

about the fact that he didn't expect to go home either this is a this is an interesting take on the psychology of the man okay if you look at the roman poet horace who wrote in the um um sort of like a very early principate period around the time of his emperor was augustus he he had a poem where he said augustus would not be a god unless he conquered the parthians the persians and conquered the britons okay well severus to his mind had conquered the parthians he'd actually sacked their capital so he chose the last three years of his life to actually come to Britain to try and also finish off the conquest of the province of Britannia and remember he probably initiated the separation of the province of Britannia into two so it's the first time it's under his son eventually it takes place Caracalla

it's the first time that you end up with In inferior in the north with york as its capital and um london in superior in the south so so he chose deliberately chose to spend the last three years of his life in britain and he actually turned york into the imperial capital we know this because the primary sources say that he didn't just bring the military he bought his wife julie domner who's a very very um famous um lady in the context of um roman leaders uh played a major role in influencing the policy decisions of her husband he bought his sons caracalla and gita that continually squabbling uh he bought the imperial fiscus treasury he bought the treasury with him dan um and he bought some of the key senators and he bought his entire court with him he turned the principia the headquarters building in the legionary fortress in york which is now believed york minster into

the imperial roman capital so you'll have gone to york you'll have seen that massive column which is out next to the statue of constantine outside the minster that's from the basilica of the principia which he built and it has been estimated that that basilica which he built as part of it being part of his imperial capital would have been almost as tall as the minster is today amazing cool um right so what about his campaigns what's he doing well it's it's a it's a very asymmetrical campaign on paper um he's got his 50 000 men he's got the classic britannica on the east coast so what he does he basically marches up deer street go through core bridge goes through the wall enters the scottish borders and then eviscerates everything eviscerates everything um in in his way completely scours the place clean we know his route

because here he built a sequence of uh marching camps up to 70 hectares in size which would take his entire 50 000 for force so one of them for example is at um newstead there's another one at st leonard's there are two more north of that and a very interestingly vinderlander at this time which is the the fortress south of adrian's wall which predates adrian's wall uh in its antonine form which is the one that we see today in the excavations he actually flattened it and he actually made a made out of it. And then what he did, he actually built hundreds of late Iron Age roundhouses on top of it, laid out to a Roman grid pattern. So it looks like that could have been something like a concentration camp

for the natives in the borders and just sent them south. Completely eviscerated the place. Gets to Inveresk, crosses over the river there and continues westward now on Deer Street, gets to the Antonine Fort at Crammond, which he rebuilds. And when he rebuilds it, he turns it into a major supply base. So now we have two links in the supply chain. We have South Shields and then we have Crammond on the 4th.

He then builds a bridge of boats across the 4th, up to 500 boats, and probably along the line of the fourth railway bridge today, actually, I would argue. And then he divides his force into two-thirds and one-third, and he sends his son, I argue, his son Caracalla, eldest son, with two-thirds of the force to go to the Highland Boundary Fault, so the Highland line, and then he marches them south, west, and north-east on the Highland Bound then he marches them south west and north east on the Highland Highland boundary fault sealing off the the Highlands and so so the lowlands are sealed

off to the south east and the Highlands are sealed off to the north west and he builds a series of Caracalla builds a series of 45 hectare marching camps which can take two-thirds of the force to seal off all the glens effectively so all the people south so the maite around the antonine wall and the maite and caledonians in the lowlands above they're now sealed in and he also locks them in on the sea as well by using the classic botanica and eventually the navy and caracalla's legionary spearheads meet somewhere near stonehaven on the coast so now the whole of the lowlands this is by the way ad209 the whole of the lowlands are now sealed off so there's no way any caledonians north in the highlands can get into there and everybody in

the south is sealed off he that severus then himself takes his one third of the force which would probably be the elite troops the praetorian god i would argue that it's the three british legions who are with caracalla because they were used campaigning in the region so severus now has his two parthica he has the praetorian Guard Imperial Guard Cavalry equal number of Auxilia he goes with his third of the force crosses the bridge himself but instead of going on the Highland Boundary Fault he just bangs straight through Fife builds 225 Hector marching camps which we know of to show the route and then he gets to the old Antonine uh harbour and fort on Tay, which is called Carpow, and again he rebuilds it, so you now have the third link in the supply chain, so you now have South Shield, Crammond,

Carpow, and then once he gets to the Tay at Carpow, he then builds his own bridge of boats across the Tay, and then he slams into the soft underbelly of the Maitre and the Caledonians in the Midland Valley, and it brutalises the placere and the caledonians in the midland valley and it brutalizes the place now the thing is there's no there's no set piece battle unlike um uh agricola with mons graupius the the historians say there was no set piece battle so you just have a a brutal campaigning season of guerrilla warfare uh absolutely brutal in terrible weather conditions all but all the primary sources say the weather conditions are bad they say that the natives were better at um better at um fighting these conditions and the romans and actually dio says the romans suffered 50 000 casualties which is a

bizarre number because that's the whole size of the fighting force but that's literally licensed to show how brutal it was but at the end of first season, the campaign is one in some shape or form, probably ceding Fife and the Scottish borders to Rome because coins are minted saying Severus and Caracalla have been successful and a peace is agreed. And the northern frontiers are garrisoned properly, maybe even the Highland Boundary fault.

Marching camps are maintained with garrisons, but the majority of the force then heads home for the winter to winter in 8209 210 in york so the season one is done peace is agreed looks like severus can say i've conquered britain but it's not over because across the winter the mighty rebel again they're clearly not not happy with the terms they've got and when they rebel severus realizes he's got to go back again now bear in mind severus like he's in his early 60s he um he uh he's riddled with chronic gout he's carried on a sedan chair for the whole of his first campaign so he's really really fed up um with uh with them rebelling again and the caledonians predictably join them so he says right we'll go again we'll reset it's like a computer game just reset it we'll do the whole thing again exactly

the same campaign again but this is where he gives this genocidal order and it's very clever the way that dio says he does it dio has him quoting the iliad where menelaus asks an agamemnon what shall i do with these prisoners and this is severusus quoting, according to Dio, Homer and the Iliad, to his army massed in front of him in York. And the quote goes something along the lines of, what shall I do with these prisoners? You shall kill everyone, even the babies in the mother's wombs, and similar. So it's very, very clear that an order has been given

to carry out some kind of hideous genocide. Now, Severus is toohilt campaign this time and Caracalla who's even more hard-bitten than Severus leads the campaign and it carries carried out in full it's even more brutal I mean it's even more brutal and this is where you have this evidence of reforestation in the lowlands you have evidence of settlements being abandoned etc you have evidence of basically some kind of genocide being carried out in the lowlands and another piece is agreed at the end of 8210 and there's no rebellion afterwards probably because there's no one in the lowlands left to rebel and then severus i think was going to try and keep at least five from possibly the whole

of the lowlands within the roman empire fully manned. So if you'd have succeeded and survived, you'd have had a completely different story about Southern Scotland, certainly, maybe with stone-built settlements and things like that, whether the Picts would have come into being the same way they did is questionable. However, Severus died in February 8211 in York. And then what happened?

Well, you'll have heard earlier me talking about Caracalla and Gita permanently squabbling, permanently fighting, etc. And Caracalla in particular is quoted by the primary sources as saying that he actually almost carried out a fratricide against his father in AD 209. So he clearly wanted the throne. So you can almost imagine him as the Joaquin Phoenix character in Gladiator, looking towards his father, Marcos Aurelius, wanting the throne.

Well, that's the kind of picture we're painted with Severus and Caracalla. Severus dies, and there's an almost unseemly scramble then from Caracalla and Gita to get back to Rome to try and take over the sole role of the emperorship. Now Severus wanted them both to rule but clearly this wasn't going to happen and ultimately by the end of the year Caracalla had actually killed Gita, apparently Gita dying bleeding with stab wounds in his mother's arms in Rome. So as soon as Severus was dead they completely lost interest in the campaign. The Roman forces went back to their bases, the vexillations went back to the Rhine and the Danube, probably couldn't wait to get back given the weather conditions,

and then the border was reset on Hadrian's Wall again. But what we do know is that there was 80 years of peace, apparently because of the archaeological record, etc., in the lowlands, certainly in the north of Britain after the campaigns. So the actual outcome of the campaigns wasn't the conquest of Scotland, it was just probably the longest period of comparative peace on the northern border in modern history. Brutal pacification. An extraordinary story, thank you for sharing that. Just quickly, what was Severus's legacy more broadly in terms of Roman history? I as a military historian look at his impact on the Roman military. And he was the first of the great reforming emperors in the Principates after Augustus of the Roman military. So you could argue that the first Roman field army was actually the field army he put together for the conquest of Scotland in his Exhibitio Felicima Britannica, which is what the contemporaries call it.

which is what the contemporaries call it and if you look at the monuments in Rome you can actually see in real time the the transition taking place from the Principates what will be the later dominate let's say the Legionaries as an example if you look at the column of Marcus Aurelius and Trajan's column the Roman Legionaries are wearing Lorica segmentata largely they've got the classic scutum they've got pilums and the gladius if you look at the Archbishop of Severus not that long afterwards there are one or two figures in Lorica segmentata, but they've got large oval body shields and they've got spears. And if you look closely, you can see a lot of the legionary figures are depicted in long thigh length Lorica hamata chainmail coats with again the oval body shield and the long spear. So it looks like there's a military transition changing from what was the Principate Legionary to later in the Dominate, all the Legionaries and all the Auxiliar

are then armed in the same way. Let's say from the time of Constantine with a large oval body shield, spear, Lorica Hamarticain mail, and the Spatha long, the long previously cavalry sword, the long sword replacing the Gladius the gladius and the reason for that is probably not to do with the british expedition it's probably severus's experiences in east

fighting the parthians where they're predominantly cavalry based and he's looking at weapons which have got longer reach and the other point to remember is shortly after severus's time you have the crisis of the third century big economic crisis and you probably find this change he began accelerated because it's cheaper to maintain and make chain mails that make the the oval body shields make the spears etc well there you go comprehensive thank you very much what's the book called one more time uh the book is called septimius everest in scotland the northern campaigns of the first hammer of the scots published by greenhill books available in all good bookshops absolutely right absolutely thank you simon elliott thank you so much coming back on the

podcast always great to have you on thank you very much for having me on dan