The Size of the Roman Army at Mons Graupius 83 AD

[Monad]

https://www.academia.edu/166041503/The_Size_of_the_Roman_Army_at_Mons_Graupius_83_AD

[stevenneate]

Nice work. One minor correction - on page 1 the legion present was the XXth Valeria Victrix, not the XIIth.

Otherwise, the paper strengths of Agricola's forces are all we have to go on, and ancient historians would have gone on these as well. Daily reports from the front would not have been part of their narrative! Given the usual numbers unfit for duty, camp garrison and general laggards, I don't believe these numbers would have been drastically reduced. Agricola was well supplied with a base at Monifieth at the mouth of the River Tay. Whilst he fought his way through Maetae territory, it was relatively trouble free from there in comparison. The Caledonians had gathered for a fight, rather than their usual hit and run, so the position they chose must have seemed like the strongest army-sized defensive position or Agricola was close to hitting something important to the prestige of Calgacus that had to be defended.

Inchtuthil, as a "legionary" fortress, was 53 acres in size and if the camp at Logie Durno is indeed Agricola's camp, it is 3 times the size of this at 145 acres. This is enough space to accommodate Agricola's force. A very worthwhile study is Dr Rebecca H. Jones's "Roman Camps in Scotland" (Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, ISBN: 978-0-903903-50-9, 2011).

My pipe dream would be that someone, one day, discovers the battlefield and it might fill in some gaps in our knowledge. This may give us a better guide to the potential size of the Caledonian force but until then, anything from 10,000 to 30,000 is feasible if the tribes were gathered to make a stand under an influential leader.

There is also a paper on the derivation of the name Calgacus by Adrian Grant at: https://independent.academia.edu/s/4b4fa366c8.

[Monad]

One minor correction - on page 1 the legion present was the XXth Valeria Victrix, not the XIIth

Yes, that was pointed out to me in the discussion group. Next, after Mons Graupius in my research was Arrian's Expedition, which involves the 12th legion. I did a cut and paste of the legion numbers from Arrian because I had already upper superscripted the legion numbers and after pasting forgot to change the 12th legion to the 20th legion. Also spelt Calgacus with a G instead of a C.

Otherwise, the paper strengths of Agricola's forces are all we have to go on, and ancient historians would have gone on these as well.

Exactly, and I cannot see why others on the discussion cannot realise that. Tacitus' numbers are rounded as are most numbers in the primary sources. I believe they do historically represent Agricola's force, so Tacitus had a good source, as did Plutarch's 88,000 Romans and allies at Cannae, which includes officers and supernumeraries, and are rare. Tacitus' numbers when unrounded, align with the rest of the unit and army numbers for the principate. Arrian's expedition is interesting as he has left all those troops with the minimum campaigns behind to protect the camp before setting out to engage the Alani, so from my research, this means the numerus organisation comes into play. Many believe the numerus represents any number of troops, but I disagree.

This may give us a better guide to the potential size of the Caledonian force but until then, anything from 10,000 to 30,000 is feasible if the tribes were gathered to make a stand under an influential leader.

Unfortunately, I have found, which is backed with four volumes of evidence, is enemy numbers have been concocted from the Roman army or fleet that faced them. Mons Graupius is no different. The red flag for me with Mons Graupius is when Tacitus provides the numbers for the auxiliary and cavalry, and yet omits the number of legionaries. The reason behind this is to cover up how the size of the Caledonian army was constructed. For example, during the First Punic War, a consular fleet would leave Italy and arrive at Messena and leave 32 ships as its revictual fleet. The consular fleet would then sail on to wherever it was going with the rest of the fleet. So, two consular fleets would leave 64 ships at Messena. Now look at the Carthaginian ships captured at Ecnomus in 256 BC:

Polybius 64 ships
Eutropius 64 ships
Orosius 64 ships
AVI 63 ships

As the Carthaginian commander is reported to have escaped, the author of the AVI has deducted this from the 64 Carthaginian ships captured. However, if no one knew that the Romans left a revictual fleet somewhere, those 64 captured Carthaginian ships would have no relevance. Oh, nearly forgot, for 251 BC, Polybius (1 39 9) reports that consuls Lucius Caecilius Metellus and Gaius Furius Pacilus were despatched to Sicily with "some legions" and 60 ships to revictual the legions, which has been rounded from 64 ships.

There is also a paper on the derivation of the name Calgacus by Adrian Grant

Grant is also part of the discussion and I have his paper. It is quite interesting.

[Ian61]

I can't access the pdf I just get 'something went wrong' but this is one of those battles that 'might have been' whilst Agricola probably had a fight up there it may well have been bigged-up by Tacitus. (I am a huge fan of the Agricola as a brilliant and we'll crafted narrative but this doesn't mean I believe it.)

[Imperial Dave]

The Calgacus discussion is a nice side note btw.

[Monad]

Grant has a paper and discussion underway on his position of the location of the battlefield of Mons Graupius:

https://independent.academia.edu/s/249535ad87?source=link

[Imperial Dave]

Thanks. Grant is quite prodigious in terms of writing stuff