Hibernia

[Nathan Ross]

Agricola crossing the Clota (Solway Firth?) ...

Just fyi, the Clota's the River Clyde.

Is it really? That would make more sense geographically, and put Agricola some way further north, with his potential Irish-invasion-point on the Mull of Kintyre, perhaps... Is the name firmly established?

You also have a point about the ability of armies to subdue or otherwise overawe Scotland without actual physical invasion of the highland regions - I recall that Edward I's Scots campaigns mainly involved battles in the region around Fife and Perth, which effectively led to his domination of Scotland as this (perhaps? Medieval history's not my field!) was the heartland of the Scots nobility.

I notice that the long-disputed site of Mons Graupius has recently been proposed far to the south of its commonly accepted position (Bennachie), in the region south-west of Perth (Dunning) - if a battle here (decisive or otherwise) could be held to have destroyed Caledonian resistance to Rome, perhaps Agricola wouldn't have needed to push his advance much further north - then again, this doesn't seem to have worked for Severus and his successors.

Anyway, this is moving well off the topic of Hibernia :wink: - apologies!

- N Ross