Free The Faded Map: The Lost Kingdoms of Scotland by Alistair Moffat Page A

seen by Tacitus’ withering eye would be confined to the south.
    Once Petilius Cerialis had established secure fortresses at Carlisle and Corbridge and either he or Agricola had begun to advance beyond the Cheviots, logistics demanded at least some good relationships with native kings. Having executed an isolating pincer movement around the hill country of the Selgovae, Roman commanders could lead their long columns further north – but not without first securing sufficient supplies for their troops. The routes of march around Selgovan territory lay far from the sea and the fleet and foraging for such a large force was bound to be chancy. The solution was to find allies and in the kindreds known to Ptolemy as the Votadini and the Venicones, and it appears that Roman diplomacy succeeded. The territory of the Votadini included the lower Tweed Valley and the Lothians and seems to have been governed from a series of centres – Edinburgh’s Castle Rock, the impressive acropolis of Traprain Law in East Lothian, Eildon Hill North near Melrose and Yeavering in north Northumberland. The power bases of the kings of the Venicones are much less well understood but in their kingdom of Fife there is no lack of impressive potential sites. It looks as though they were close allies of the Votadini, no doubt communicating by sea across the Firth of Forth, for Venicones means ‘the Kindred Hounds’.
    Both kingdoms have scant Roman remains, probably becausediplomacy had avoided the need for forts and roads. Roman military planners did not waste resources and a peace treaty was seen as almost as glorious as victory in war. At Newstead, at the foot of Eildon Hill North, a large depot fort was built by Agricola’s legions. It acted not only as a centre for ingathering supplies (it lay on an ancient route-network and was next to the Tweed and a reliable ford) but also as a sentinel guarding the mouths of the Selgovan valleys of the Ettrick, the upper Tweed and the Gala Water. Around the walls of Newstead (which was rebuilt many times), archaeologists have found the remains of extensive corrals and ancillary fortifications and these appear to have been used to overnight animals – sheep, cattle and horses.
    In Fife, the Roman invaders built no equivalent depot fort but sharp-eyed toponymists have detected the shadow of where one might have been. Near two small and temporary camps in the valley of the River Eden lies the village of Blebo. In an earlier version, it was Bladeboig. An unusual place-name, it is thought to relate to what the Romans called Birrens fort in corn-producing Annandale. Blatobulgium means ‘the Meal-sack Place’ and, in Fife, it seems to have been rubbed smooth by time into a contracted version. Supplying corroboration, Ptolemy places Horrea in approximately the same place and in English it means ‘granary’.
    Once the legions had reached the Firth of Forth and re-established contact with the captains of their supply ships, Agricola and his commanders will have pondered their next move. Reconnaissance will have given them two determinant pieces of intelligence. Beyond the Venicones lay trouble. Like the Selgovae, the Highland kings were likely to be hostile and if they made a secure alliance, they could muster a large army. However much the Romans longed to confront a native army in a set-piece battle where their superior discipline and equipment had delivered victory after victory, there was a difficulty – a lack of room to manoeuvre. Geography stood in Agricola’s way – an enormously important feature of Scotland’s geography which has now completely disappeared.
    Stretching east from the foothills of the Lomond mountains, south of the Lake of Menteith and almost up to the cliffs ofStirling Castle rock, Flanders Moss was a huge – and dangerous – barrier. The residue of a prehistoric sea which reached as far inland as the rising ground at Aberfoyle, it followed the meandering course of the River Forth and