Into the mouth of the god Jupiter, the poet Virgil put the following words.  "I set upon the Romans bounds neither of space nor of time; I have bestowed on them empire without limit."

Jupiter obviously had little knowledge or experience of the tribes of Caledonia, for it was here that the Romans 'met their match.'

The subject of the Romans in Scotland is very much a 'hot' news item at the moment.

Earlier this year (1999) the discovery of a statue in the muddy waters of the River Almond at Cramond caused great excitement.  The statue was of a lioness, devouring the head of a screaming bearded man.

The statue could prove to be one of the finest Roman relics in Britain and is all the more important when you compare it to what few Roman remains can still be seen around Scotland.  There are no monuments on the scale of Hadrian's Wall or the forts south of the border.  Of the Antonine Wall (142-143 AD) mainly ditches and ramparts remain.

At Watling Lodge, near Falkirk, you can see the ditch that once ran to the north of the Wall.  At Rough Castle, Bonnybridge, you can walk amongst the earthworks of the fort.  There is a fortlet at Kinneil.  At Cramond, a plan of part of the 2nd century fort has been laid out and the Eagle Rock, across the River Almond, probably once housed the statue of a Roman god.  Of the few stone foundations that can still be seen, the bath-house at Bearsden is well worth a visit.

And of course there are a number of museums with important collections, including the new Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. and the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, not to mention Kinneil.

Within the present borders of West Lothian, one of the few physical remains of occupation lies on a lonely stretch of moorland, three miles south of the village of West Calder, just off the B7008.

On the Ordnance Survey map it is called Castle Greg, but you could easily be forgiven for driving past and not realising the importance of the site.  From the road you can just make out a few mounds of earth, hemmed in by forestry plantation.

If you park close to the sign marked Camilty Plantation and walk across to the remains (a strong pair of shoes is recommended), you will find it easy to understand why the Romans chose this spot and what life must have been like here all those centuries ago.

Led by their commander Agricola, a Roman army of 20,000 men swept through the Lowlands in AD 79 as far as the Forth and then on to the Tay.  It would be good to report that the natives, in true Braveheart fashion, put up staunch resistance but in the Lothians at least, this was not the case.  The Votadini tribes here lived in peaceful coexistence with their conquerors (unlike the tribes to the west, who would take any opportunity to 'pick a fight').

Castle Greg
may have looked
something like
this

It is easy to imagine a group of tanned Italians, huddling in the fort against the bitter winds of winter and the short, wet summers, longing for a return to the sunnier climes of their homeland.  Easy to imagine, but not very accurate.

The soldiers at Castle Greg had homes in Germany and Holland and some may well have been recruited from other parts of Britain.  They had signed up for 25 years service, at the end of which they would have received Roman citizenship and settled in the area.  That is not to say that life was not hard for them.  Lines of communication and supply were poor and whatever treaties existed with the local tribes, it had to be remembered that this was still enemy territory.  Above all however, the greatest danger that had to be contended with was that of boredom.

So if you ever pass by this spot, have a thought for those who manned what was nearly the last outpost of empire and reflect on just how fleeting even that which seems durable can be.

Who would have thought that the 'world's greatest empire' would have been reduced to a few mounds of earth on a bleak Scottish moorland ?