Any one seen a Legion?

A tranquil scene among the fields of Aberdeenshire - but it was not always thus!

The hill on the horizon is Bennachie, claimed, by many, to be the site of the ancient battle of Mons Graupius. In AD 84, on the slopes of Bennachie, a large force of 17,000 Roman soldiers led by Agricola took on 30,000 natives under the leadership of Calagacus,

According to the only contemporary account of the battle, Tacitus' The Life of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, the Romans emerged totally victorious, slaying some 10,000 of their opponents with the loss of only 360 on their own side.

One of the Roman units fighting on that day was the IX Hispana, the ninth legion. Later the the 9th was to become famous when, in around 108 AD, 5000 battle-hardened men simply disappeared from the face of the Earth, somewhere in Northern Britain. The mysterious disappearance has recently been dramatized in the Hollywood movie The Eagle, showing now in your local cinema!

Local poet Sheena Blackhall describes the scene after the battle in her poem:
Bennachie, AD 84: Aftermath of the Battle of Mons Graupius

Our eagle sulks on its standard.
This morning will bring mist as thick as soup.
Ten thousand dead! Too sullen to surrender,
The few survivors melt into the trees,
Into this grizzled swampland they call home.
Here even a frog's green arse soon freezes up.

Agricola, our commander, dines alone.
All night he wrote dispatches in his tent
Under the sharp stars, under the sky's mad eye.

My poor horse will be maggot-feed by noon
Crows flap around his belly on the moor
Where Flavius is roasting plundered cattle.

It is like this, after a battle. Killing's my trade.
I am a legionary. I stab and murder
All in the name of Empire, at an order.
Last night I dreamt an adder left a rock
Throttled an eagle like a thin garrotte.

The purple mountain's red with tribal blood;
They made a stand, poured down the hill and lost.
The mountain bares slit flesh and twisted metal.
The natural amphitheatre of the heath
Beheld the spectacle.

Ah, how their women moan!
They watch us pick each loved one to the bone:
An ancient bird croaks on a wet black twig.

Marcus got him a torc that shone like gold
Cut from a corpse whose whiskers were beer-stained;
I robbed a boy who stared up to the clouds
Of corn and plaid.
Relieved him of his shield,
Then broke his fist to see what it might yield.

The palm held peaty earth, no precious jewels -
For this, he died. For this sour scoop of soil,
Fought like a baited tiger.
We won, although their carnyx bellowed like a bull
Led up to Mithras for the sacred slaughter.
Each night I dream of sun, of goats, of wine
Of Mother Tiber, lush and serpentine
Each morning I awake to stinging midge;
Cold eats my bones. Death, watches from the ridge.