The Great Raid

As we have already seen Ammianus Marcellinus tells us:

… Valentinian was shocked to receive the serious news that a concerted attack by the barbarians had reduced the province of Britain to the verge of ruin. Nectaridus, the count of the coastal region, had been killed, and the general Fullofaudes surprised and cut off.

It will suffice to say that at that time the Picts (the Dicaledones and the Verturiones), together with the warlike Attacotti and the Scots, were roving at large and causing great devastation. In addition, the Franks and Saxons were losing no opportunity of raiding the parts of Gaul nearest to them by land and sea, plundering, burning, and putting to death their prisoners.

Let’s aim for clarity here. Picts and the Irish (Attacotti and Scots) had launched a joint attack on Britannia.  The Franks and Saxons attacked Gaul. Britannia and Gaul were part of the same Roman administrative unit. Normally military aid could be easily sent from one part to the other. In this case both had their hands full.  That meant that the Roman Army in Britannia fought the Irish and Picts while the Roman Army in Gaul resisted the raids of Franks and Saxons.

In Britannia things went badly.  One Roman commander (Comes Nectaridus) was killed (presumably in battle) and another (Fullofaudes) seemingly ambushed and unable to intervene further.  This speaks to major fighting and two Roman defeats.  It seems the Roman military had proved unequal to the task of defending Britannia.  Where these events took place is unknown to us.  That said I would expect that the aim of the Roman commanders was to protect the wealth of Britannia and that forces were positioned accordingly.  Attempting to block roads comes to mind as a possibility.

Victorious, the Irish and Picts then reduced Britannia "to the verge of ruin". That is to say, where opportunity presented they massacred or enslaved the population. Everything of value was looted.  What they couldn’t take they likely burned or otherwise spoiled. Raids into the Empire were the same everywhere.  Roman forays against their neighbours took the same course.  Those who could found refuge behind walls or fled to natural hiding places.

We can safely assume that the raiders had at least a rudimentary knowledge of their target.  Let us consider where the best and easiest pickings lay.

This splendid map above is from Smith 2015. The red triangles show the villas of Britannia.  The real wealth of the Province was concentrated in them.  While some were quite modest others were palatial grand estates.  As you can see the heaviest concentration is to the west of London.  The white dots are other settlements.  We should remember that Britannia was mainly still a landscape of traditional roundhouses.  These below are from Butser Ancient Farm.

 

The Picts on the face of it had the harder task being further away from the good stuff .  That said, they may have come by sea.  If so they could land near to where the wealth was.  I suspect they would have landed on the east coast.

Once the raiders where actually in Britannia the Roman road system speedily took them to where they wanted to be. By looking again at the Antoine Itinerary and comparing it with the map above we clearly see this. 

For the Irish access was easy.  They could sail up the Severn Estuary straight into the Villa zone.  It was likely an existing trade route.  Historians take the view that unrecovered Roman coin deposits in the area suggest that this is what happened.

We have previously noted the popularity of "door knob" spear butts with Irish and Pict warriors.  I had hoped to provide you with a map of those found in what is now England and Wales.  Alas, I cannot.  However, I did consult the Portable Antiquities Scheme  (PAS).  

The PAS records door knob spear butt finds in Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, York, East Riding of Yorkshire, Cumbria, East Sussex, North Yorkshire, Telford and Wrekin, Lancashire, Oxfordshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk, and Norfolk County Council have another one that seems to have slipped the net.

These are characteristic of Irish and Pict spears. They would indicate the presence of Irish or Pict warriors in Romano British employ or they are a relic of the Great Raid. As you might expect the finds were uncovered at various times and many contexts have been lost and all might not have been securely dated.  Nevertheless they are deserving of further academic attention.

The raid was of more than local significance.  Without British corn it was unlikely that the Roman army in Gaul could be easily fed. News of it crossed the Empire.  In far-away Cyprus Epiphanius Bishop of Salamis noted the event.  It is at this juncture that we find the Romans using new names,including those of the Picts and Scotti, for more powerful confederations of old neighbours.

 The raid continued for about a year and during that time some of the scattered remnants of the Roman soldiery turned to brigandage. Those who did not stayed behind ramparts.  It left a lasting impression. Some 42 years later Claudian presented the Roman view:

When I (Britannia personified) too was about to succumb to the attack of neighbouring peoples - for the Scots had raised all Ireland against me, and the sea foamed under hostile oars.

Later still Gildas wrote recalling the raid:

She (Britannia personified) is, for the first time, open to be trampled upon by two foreign tribes of extreme cruelty, the Scots from the north-west, the Picts from the north

It remains to us to consider the forces involved on all sides. There is, frustratingly, little to say.  The invaders were in their thousands but probably well short of double figures.  The Roman defenders likewise.  The duration of the raid likely meant that small bands of opportunist raiders appeared after the power of the Roman Army to resist was decisively broken.  As we have seen marauding former soldiers added to the misery.

We might speculate that the eventual Roman relief force of two thousand or so crack troops provides us with a clue.  On reflection I’m inclined to think not.  By that time those who led the raid and accordingly commanded the most warriors, had long departed with their loot.  As Ammianus Marcellinus tells us:

Dividing his men into several detachments, he attacked the roving parties of freebooters, who were hampered by the weight of their spoils and driving before them prisoners and cattle…and then entered the town [London] in triumph.

This success encouraged Theodosius to undertake operations on a larger scale, but he waited for a time in some doubt about his safest course….Finally, he issued a proclamation promising immunity to deserters who returned to the colours and summoning many others who were dispersed in various places on furlough. This secured the return of the majority.

It sounds like a policing operation rather than a military campaign.  Significantly one of the officers involved was Flavius Magnus Maximus.  He would later become Roman Emperor and be known to the British as Maxim Wledig.  That is to say Maxim the Overlord.  Many dynasties were to claim him as founder.