Kevin Macdonald's The Eagle is an enjoyable sword-and-sandals yomp – just don't go assuming it's historically accurate
Enjoyable an adventure as it is, Kevin Macdonald's The Eagle – a free adaptation of Rosemary Sutcliff's classic children's story The Eagle of the Ninth, in which Roman centurion Marcus and his British slave, Esca, go in search of the lost legionary standard of the Ninth Legion – plays fast and loose with Romano-British history. Only a pedant, of course, would expect historical veracity from a sword-and-sandals film, particularly one that is aiming pretty clearly for contemporary resonance (something I touched on in a piece I wrote last year). But – what can I say? I have a pedantic streak. Here are some canards to watch out for:
1, The big one: the Picts destroyed the Ninth Legion
This is of course the basis of Sutcliff's original story; but there is no evidence that this occurred. What is true is that the IX Legio Hispana fades from the historical and epigraphic record. The last known reference to it is a fine inscription, well worth seeing at the newly revamped Yorkshire Museum in York, commemorating the building of a gate by legionaries from the IX in 107-108 AD. The IX Hispana may have eventually been withdrawn east to another part of the empire, where it was subsequently lost; or it may simply have been disbanded. It is possible that it marched north to Scotland and was never seen again; but very unlikely.
2, Hadrian built the wall, from AD 122, in response to the loss of the Ninth Legion
Clearly not, given (1); but in any case Hadrian's wall was part of an empire wide, rather than Britain-specific, policy of imperial retrenchment after a period of over-expansion by his predecessor, Trajan. Similar linear frontiers, in Germany, Raetia and possibly Africa, were also Hadrianic innovations.
3, No Roman ever went beyond Hadrian's wall – and survived
Current thinking on Hadrian's wall suggests that it was not so much a definitive barrier – Rome to the south, barbarian territory to the north – as a means of movement control that was in fact fairly porous; the idea that no Roman could survive beyond the wall is nonsense, since there were outpost forts to the north of it.
It is true that Rome never brought the land known as Caledonia fully into the empire. However, there were plenty of military successes in what is now Scotland. The governor Agricola, whose biography was written by his son-in-law, the great historian Tacitus, penetrated as far as the Grampians, where he won a great victory at Mons Graupius (precise location unknown). However, after Agricola's recall in 83 or 84, the conquest was not followed through. According to Tacitus' account, "Perdomita Britannia et statim missa" – "Britannia was completely conquered and then let go". Hadrian's successor, Antoninus Pius, also pursued an expansionist policy, establishing his own frontier, the Antonine Wall, between the Firths of Forth and Clyde, in about 142-3 AD. However, 20 years later, after the accession of Marcus Aurelius, the Romans withdrew to the Hadrianic line. Later still, Septimius Severus mounted a major campaign in Caledonia in 209, penetrating north of the Tay. That too was didn't amount to long-term conquest: after Severus' death in 211, the army withdrew south again as his son Caracalla pursued interests in other parts of the empire. Today, there is a wealth of fascinating military remains to be seen in Scotland – including Roman forts along the Antonine Wall and, for example, impressive earthworks and a network of forts in Ardoch in Perthshire. In Sutcliff's The Eagle of the Ninth there are some atmospheric passages relating to the old abandoned forts Marcus and Esca encounter in Scotland; it's sad we have none of that in the film.
4, All Britons were united in their loathing of the Romans
Even bearing in mind that all the historical sources on Roman Britain are Roman, and none British, it is possible to infer a rather more nuanced version of imperialism than the view propounded in The Eagle. By way of example: Esca's own tribe, the Brigantes, had been in fact an ally of Rome's under Queen Cartimandua at the time of conquest. Other tribes were violently hostile to Rome. Others again were friendly, using alliance with Rome as leverage in their own regional disputes. In short, the picture was mixed; Roman rule was indeed bitterly resisted at different times and in different places, but it also continued peacefully for long periods during the 400 years that Britain was part of the empire, and clearly brought benefits to some sectors of the population, especially its ruling class. The most serious defect in The Eagle, to my mind, is the complete excision of Sutcliff's character Cottia, the young British woman, friend to Marcus, who is being brought up by ambitious, pro-Roman relations. Not only does her removal mean that the film becomes monochromatically male-dominated; but also Cottia and her family provide a really imaginative vision of British conflicts of identity under Roman rule.
5, The Caledonian tribes spoke Scots Gaelic
An easy one, this: the ancestor of the Gaelic language came over from Ireland with the Scots settlers, so no, they didn't. It seems perfectly reasonable of Macdonald to have used Scots Gaelic in the film as a convenience; but don't go thinking the language now spoken in parts of the Highlands has anything to do with that spoken in the 2nd century.