The Fifth Campaign of Agricola

Abstract

In September, 1938, Dr. J. K. St. Joseph, in retracing the ‘Roman way’ described by Roy as ‘leading from the neighbourhood of Lanark … towards the gorge of Loudon-hill, and so into Airshire’, identified the site of a reputed Roman ‘camp’ on a small plateau overlooking the ‘gorge’ on the south. It was at once arranged with the Glasgow Archaeological Society that trial trenches should be dug under his supervision. These proved that the enclosure was, in fact, a Roman fort, and produced some fragments of pottery which suggested that the site had been occupied in the Flavian as well as the Antonine period. There the matter had to rest for the duration of the war, and it was September, 1946, before Dr. St. Joseph's excavations for the Glasgow Society could be resumed. It is too soon yet for a coherent plan of the complicated remains to be laid down, but enough has been done to show that an Antonine fort with an interior area of between two and three acres had been preceded by at least two earlier enclosures ; and a substantial collection of datable pottery, produced partly by these excavations and partly by the encroachment of a gravel-quarry upon the north corner of the site, includes a considerable proportion of Flavian pieces—estimated at about one-third by Miss Anne Robertson, who is in charge of the small finds.The significance of this for the history of the early occupation of Scotland is dealt with in a report on various excavations and surveys which will be published soon by the Glasgow Society. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the guidance which the discoveries at Loudoun Hill seem to offer for the interpretation of Tacitus' account of one of the campaigns of Agricola which preceded the occupation.