[narrator] the roman empire,
The ancient world's most unstoppable force.
Now, a new discovery reveals the secret weapon
Unleashed in rome's merciless pursuit of power.
When you have an emperor who needs a big victory,
You want to make sure that the result is assured.
If you think you're safe, you're wrong.
[narrator] vicious, unrelenting assaults
Waged with cutting edge lethal technology.
Look at the power of that. Skewed it right through.
Yeah, a skull splitter!
[narrator] carefully calculated terror.
[hannah-marie] sound creates a panic, anxiety.
It signals that something terrible is about to happen.
[narrator] and led by the empire's
Most ruthless commanders.
I don't think we can conceive of the terror
That the people here felt as this was unfolding.
[narrator] now, ground-breaking forensic archeology
And experimental engineering
Are revealing the vicious killing machine
And brutal tactics on which the roman empire was built.
They want to show their power,
Their strategy, their technology.
It's a way of the romans sending a message.
This was a massacre. This was mass slaughter.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] the relics of the past hold secrets.
Written in gold, stone, and blood.
We can unlock them.
These are the secrets of history's greatest treasures.
Hadrian's wall, northern britain.
Stretching from coast to coast, dividing the country in two.
This was the hard border that separated roman britain
From the rebellious iron age tribes
Who roamed the lands to the north.
[hannah-marie] hadrian's wall was exceptional.
It is the only extensive fixed boundary in the empire.
And it still stands today as an icon of roman power.
[narrator] commissioned by emperor hadrian in 122 ad,
The vast, heavily fortified wall
Was completed in just six years.
Once operational, 8,000 roman soldiers manned its defenses,
Armed and ready to protect
The empire's most northerly frontier at whatever cost.
It's a message to both his citizens of rome and his army,
But also everybody else outside looking in.
That's the wall. That's the boundary. That's the edge.
If you want to cross this,
You have to have my permission to do so.
[narrator] but now, a remarkable discovery
In a battlefield in northern britain
Is revealing the brutal lengths rome was prepared to go to.
A weapon more accurate and more deadly
Than any other in the ancient world.
A terrifying killing machine designed
To stamp out resistance
And pave the way for rome's total domination.
Burnswark, a remote outcrop in southern scotland.
In 2015, an archeological investigation
Reveals evidence of a 2,000-year-old battle
Between the iron age britons and the roman army.
Hidden beneath the soil, a vast array of ballistic weaponry.
Lethal lead sling bullets.
[andrew] these things will break limbs, they will shatter ribs.
But the actual shockwave
That's passed by one of these hitting you
Could well simply stop your heart.
[narrator] deadly sandstone missiles.
These are the quintessential anti-personnel weapon.
They're for damaging limbs, heads.
Very, very dangerous weapon.
[narrator] and terror-inducing projectiles.
[john] the big ones will kill you
Without you even knowing that they're even coming.
But the little ones will force you to keep your head down.
[narrator] the new discovery shows
A very different type of roman warfare,
Forgotten by history.
Rather than swords and spears, these ballistic artifacts
Were key to rome's success on the battlefield.
The ancient equivalent of modern bullet casings
And high-powered ammo.
But what's puzzling is why they've been discovered here,
Because burnswark was outside the roman empire,
10 miles north of hadrian's wall.
And, at the time of the attack,
The wall had been in place for over 10 years.
Romanist john reid believes the archeological evidence
From an ancient structure on the summit of burnswark hill
Could provide a clue.
Hillforts were frequently built on the highest point around
Giving the widest view of the area.
They're usually heavily defended,
They've got ditches and ramparts all the way around.
This one had triple ditches on the south side.
That is the side that is easiest to assault.
So they were quite clearly making sure
The defenses were strongest there.
[narrator] rising up to 300 meters
Above the surrounding terrain,
Burnswark hill offered the greatest natural defense
North of hadrian's wall.
But the archeological evidence reveals
It was more than just a fort.
[john] people were living here,
There would have been places for the children to play.
So you're looking at a population up
Here of two thousand
Maybe two and a half thousand people.
And at a time of great crisis
That number would swell to maybe three times that.
[narrator] for the local tribes,
Burnswark would have seemed impregnable.
But the roman army managed to bombard it
With thousands of deadly projectiles.
Now, nearly two thousand years on,
Archeology is revealing the firepower
Rome had at its disposal,
And the tactics used to assault the native stronghold.
These marks on the landscape below the hillfort
Are the hallmarks of a vast roman military camp.
Its size reveals that up to 4,000 soldiers
Took up position beneath the southern slopes.
While another 2,000 men were positioned
Directly behind the fort in a second camp,
Surrounding the ancient settlement.
There is some sense of foreboding about this hilltop.
So what was going on?
Why is this hillfort held in the vice-like grip
Of these two massive roman camps?
[narrator] now the remains
Of one heavily corroded projectile
Unearthed at burnswark may provide an answer.
This piece came from the excavation trench
Up against the rampart.
It was in at an angle wedged between two stones.
[narrator] originally thought to be the remains
Of an iron arrowhead,
An x-ray scan reveals it was something far more deadly.
[andrew] we can see the point,
And we can see the socket at the other end
Where the shaft would have been affixed to it.
And inside you can actually see the square section
Of the tapering point that will be designed
To be able to penetrate armor as well as flesh.
[narrator] this precision bolt could only have been fired
From a very special piece of tactical artillery.
It reveals the roman army was using
The ancient equivalent of an assault rifle.
And experts suspect the secret weapon
That launched it was the manuballista.
But until now, very few fragments
Of rome's ultimate killing machine have ever been found.
The presence of the lethal bolt tip suggests
The manuballista played a key role
In the attack on burnswark.
And, if historical accounts of other roman campaigns
Are to be believed, the local britons
Wouldn't have stood a chance.
[darius] procopius records in the gothic wars,
At one point, the goths, outside the solaria gates,
Are attacking the city,
And one of these ballista is so powerful
That a bolt shot from the gates of rome at the enemy,
Literally pierces through the armor
Of a goth and transfix him right to a pine tree.
So this graphic detail is giving us an idea
Of how powerful these weapons of war actually were.
[narrator] evidence of rome's most feared weapon,
Along with thousands of soldiers
And hundreds of other deadly ballistics,
Suggests the attack on burnswark
Was both carefully planned and executed.
The only outcome: A merciless annihilation
Of thousands of men, women and children.
So what does this strange site in scotland reveal
About ancient rome's determination to rule the world?
And how did their secret weapon help?
[john] this was a massacre, this was mass slaughter.
[narrator] new archeological discoveries have revealed
That the roman army had developed a secret weapon.
The manuballista, ancient rome's equivalent
Of an assault rifle.
Now a 1,900-year-old battlefield in southern scotland
Is revealing the roman army's military tactics.
And the role their secret weapon played
In their merciless quest for global domination.
You would have had absolute mayhem here
With men, women and children,
Animals all packed into a very tight space.
It would have been absolute butchery
And nobody would have stood a chance.
[narrator] historical records from the time
Suggest the manuballista was the most accurate
And deadly weapon in the roman army's arsenal.
But the archeological evidence of how it worked,
And why it was so feared, is scarce.
Fortunately, 1,500 miles from scotland,
In the very heart of the roman empire,
There's a clue as to how the manuballista
May have been used.
[darius] this is trajan's column.
This is one of the most magnificent
And well-preserved monuments from ancient roman times.
It dates to the second century ad
And narrates the battles fought
And won by trajan from 102 to 106 against the datians.
That's modern-day romania.
[tense music]
It literally is a textbook example
Of how romans fought their war, waged their war,
Built their military encampments,
Foraged for food, destroyed the enemy.
[narrator] as well as gruesome depictions
Of death and butchery,
The 38-meter-high column also reveals the weaponry
Used by the roman army in major campaigns.
In five separate scenes, roman soldiers can clearly be seen
Manning a highly distinctive catapult.
How it's depicted on the frieze indicates
That it's rather small, even mobile it seems.
In one instance it's actually located inside a wagon.
It has this aura about it,
Some kind of sophisticated mechanism that's involved
In hurling projectiles at the enemy.
[narrator] experts now agree
The portable weapon in the carvings
Is the elusive manuballista.
It's hard evidence that the roman army
Was using the killing machine
20 years before their attack on burnswark.
But even earlier images of the manuballista
Have now been found.
These drawings could help reveal how it works.
But they weren't produced by the romans.
They were found in a manuscript dated to the first century
Written by the ancient greek inventor, hero.
[darius] it's like getting the instructions to a model.
This is a great resource.
I mean, you have a written description
And you have some of the imagery.
We are seeing the same basic components.
We have that arch in the front.
We had these two kind of silos or towers.
And those components match what we see on trajan's column.
[narrator] the ancient drawings
Clearly show the manuballista.
And reveal vital components not visible
In the stone carvings.
But they don't show how they fit together.
You turn the page and there's no conclusion.
So ultimately you could say it falls short,
But it's still giving us
A lot of information about this device.
[narrator] originally, the manuballista
Was a greek invention.
Decades later the designs found their way into roman hands,
And were put to lethal effect.
Can discovering exactly how the manuballista worked,
And putting it to the test,
Explain why it was so prized as a weapon by the roman army,
And feared by their enemies?
Now roman artillery expert, alan wilkins,
And engineer, len morgan, have teamed up to do just that.
Using all the available historical sources,
Including pieces like the burnswark bolt,
They've painstakingly pieced together all the evidence
To reproduce a 21st century version
Of the roman killing machine.
It's a bit of a jigsaw to get it all together.
But there's only one way to find out
How any of these machines work,
And that is to build them and then to test them.
[narrator] the individual, precision-engineered parts
Allow the weapon to be easily transported.
But when slotted together they create a strong metal frame.
The curved arch acts as a sight, giving pinpoint accuracy.
While the weapon's firepower comes
From two spring-loaded arms which ratchet back,
Creating enough stored tension
To fire a heavy iron bolt with lightning speed.
What we've achieved with this, what we've produced,
Would be instantly recognizable to a roman artilleryman.
He might say, "well, nice try lads
But you've got this little bit wrong,"
Or something like that, but generally speaking
Working to the dimensions that we have,
The information that we have, the archeological finds,
We've produced a machine that a roman artilleryman
Would recognize and be able to use.
[narrator] this is the closest in 1,600 years
Anyone has come to creating an authentic manuballista.
Voila! The manuballista es parata...
The manuballista is ready.
[narrator] but will testing it reveal
Why it took on such a mythical status?
And the key role it played in the annihilation of burnswark?
The army was bringing with them equipment
That the natives would not have seen before.
This was a site of a major military exercise.
This had imperial backing.
[narrator] 1,900 years ago,
The roman army descended in force
On a remote hillfort in what is now southern scotland.
[dramatic music]
They brought with them
Their most advanced tactical artillery.
A high-powered, precision catapult
Called the manuballista.
So what was going on at burnswark for the roman empire
To bring out their most sophisticated weapon?
At the time of the attack
The furthest edge of the roman empire
Stopped 10 miles south, at hadrian's wall.
Hadrian's wall is over 70 miles long.
It would have been towering, impressive.
We can tell by the fact
That hadrian constructed this frontier line, his wall,
Which the romans did not do anywhere else in their empire,
So they considered this
To be a particularly problematic region.
[narrator] the impressive structure
Was built as a reminder
To the troublesome tribes of britain
That rome was in control and here to stay.
The roman army originally come into this landscape
To police and protect their friends and allies,
The brigantes, who they formed a relationship with.
But very quickly, they decide to outstay their welcome
And to purposely conquer this part of the country.
So it's an army that's on a war footing immediately.
So the roman army are not a welcome presence
For the majority of the people of britain.
Particularly this part of britain.
[narrator] today, the sheer scale
Of hadrian's wall is impressive.
But, when it was first built, it was formidable.
The wall was about 20 feet high, almost 10 feet wide,
And protected by a 26-foot-wide ditch.
Dozens of forts, lookout towers and garrisons
Ensured a constant presence of heavily armed soldiers
Were patrolling the entire length of the wall at all times.
Despite there being nothing like it before or since,
Hadrian's wall didn't quite have the impact on the locals
The emperor was hoping for.
So once hadrian's wall goes up, you know,
There's a general impression, well, that's it.
Problem sorted, you know, end of issues,
The wall is there, everything's fine.
But the roman army in britain is still enormous.
There are more soldiers in roman britain
Than in any other single province in the whole empire.
And they're there for a reason.
They're here in britain because things aren't well.
Things haven't been pacified.
[narrator] for 15 years, the roman army held firm
Behind their giant fortification,
Stamping out local rebellion.
But the evidence from burnswark reveals that in 139 ad
They left the security of hadrian's wall to push north.
So what changed?
Experts believe the events that unfolded
In southern scotland had their roots 1,500 miles away,
In the political power games of rome.
The relationship between hadrian and the senate
Had not been an easy one.
So when hadrian died in 138 ad,
The senate welcomed what they perceived
To be a more amicable and a more recognizably roman leader.
[narrator] hadrian's successor was antoninus pius.
A career politician who, unlike previous emperors,
Had no first-hand experience of warfare.
To prove his worth,
The new emperor urgently needed a conquest.
So antoninus was looking for a victory,
So that he could claim the title of imperator,
Or conqueror, and add that to his name,
As his predecessors had done before him.
[narrator] with most of britain under roman rule,
And thousands of troops already in place,
Antoninus saw taking the rest of britain as an easy win.
And to make sure his plan succeeded,
He brought in his best man.
A roman soldier who was fiercely loyal to the emperor,
With a reputation for getting the job done
In the most merciless way possible.
Quintus lollius urbicus.
[darius] the man in charge of the operations
Is a very successful general.
He comes from modern day algeria,
A little town called tiddis.
And it seems like he is a romanized berber.
[narrator] historical records reveal lollius urbicus
Had a reputation for extreme brutality on the battlefield.
In the 130s ad, insurgents led a rebellion
Against roman control in the province of judea.
Lollius was one of those men hand-picked
By hadrian to put down the revolt.
[darius] this was a brutal revolt, violently put down.
That's how the roman army functioned.
So when you do read about lollius urbicus
And you read about the strongholds that are squashed,
Thousands of villages that are razed to the ground,
Maybe half a million people that are enslaved,
Its generals like lollius that are behind that.
[narrator] after spearheading the massacre in judea,
Antoninus promoted lollius to governor of britannia,
And then set him to work.
He ordered his men to leave the safety of hadrian's wall,
And 6,000 soldiers surged northwards
Into the wildlands beyond.
[john] when you have an emperor who needs a big victory,
You want to make sure that the result is assured,
So you can imagine that lollius urbicus
Was bringing in the maximum number of troops here
To get the greatest effect.
Lollius would have had at his disposal
The three legions who were already stationed in britain.
That's thousands of men that he could deploy.
[narrator] failure was not an option.
So lollius made very sure he was equipped for success.
A vast, highly trained army.
A ferocious arsenal of weapons.
And the legendary manuballista.
But why was this weapon so feared?
And what was its role in the attack on burnswark hill?
[john] the spread of missiles tells us that the romans
Were throwing everything at the hilltop at the one time.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] 1,900 years ago,
The ruthless roman general, lollius urbicus,
Launched the conquest of northern britain.
-[soldiers shouting] -[weapon thwacks]
Experts now suggest the first sign of resistance
To roman rule came 10 miles north of hadrian's wall,
At burnswark hill in southern scotland.
This was the most heavily defended hillfort in the region,
And home to thousands of native britons.
But the remains of two vast roman camps
On either side of the hillfort suggests
That within hours of arriving,
Lollius had employed classic battle tactics
And had the settlement surrounded.
The army was coming in as a major battering ram,
And bringing with them equipment
That the natives would not have seen before.
This was a site of a major military engineering exercise.
The size of it, the magnitude of it,
To me means only one thing.
This had imperial backing.
[narrator] john reid's archeological investigation
Has revealed that,
Once the romans had dug in around the fort,
The next stage was a terrifying aerial bombardment.
The spread of missiles, the number of missiles,
And the mix of missiles tell us that the romans
Were throwing everything at the hilltop at the one time.
We know it's at the one time
Because they're all in the same archeological strata.
We know that there are stone balls,
Lead bullets and iron bolt heads
All coming in simultaneously.
[narrator] a continuous hail of ballistic weapons
Would have had two key outcomes.
Suppressing fire to allow roman troops
To storm the fort without being subjected to return fire.
And to cause maximum panic among the women and children
Holed up in the hillfort.
This is where experts believe rome's killing machine,
The manuballista, was at its most effective.
But could such an ancient weapon really live up to the hype?
Does reality match the legend?
Alan wilkins is about to put his recreation
Of the manuballista through its paces.
I've got a good coverage on that on both sides.
Even without standing up to do it,
I can cover from corner to corner on the background,
No problem at all.
And as they come in closer I can still go right over.
[tense music]
[narrator] with the manuballista in position,
An iron bolt, just like the one found at burnswark,
Is fitted into place.
Ready to shoot!
Look at the power of that. Skewed it right through.
[narrator] in the hands of trained roman soldiers,
The manuballista would have been a weapon
Of deadly precision.
Like a modern sniper rifle, it was easy to maneuver,
Quick to reload, and could launch
A seven-inch, armor-piercing projectile
At over 70 miles an hour with terrifying accuracy.
The manuballista far outranged and outpaced
Any weapon the enemy could throw at the romans,
Giving the invading army the edge in any assault.
At the battle of burnswark,
John reid suspects there's an obvious place
Where these ancient killing machines
Would have been positioned for maximum effect.
Behind me you see three large earth mounds.
These are known locally as the three brethren.
You can see that they're about 30 or 40 feet wide
And they have large ditches around the hillward-facing side.
These are purpose-built catapult platforms
To help bombard the hill.
And you can see how close they are to the summit.
This meant that the troops here could shoot
At the people on the summit with impunity,
Because the people up there had no distance weapons.
[soldiers shouting]
[narrator] the tribal britons on burnswark hill
Were being targeted at close range.
Alan and len are now able to test
If the best armor available at the time,
Chain mail, offered any protection
Against the power of the manuballista.
-Wow! -It's gone through the meat.
Yeah. There are two layers of chain mail
And it's gone right through, splitting the rings apart.
It's no good.
It's no good at all against this type of weapon.
[narrator] not even the most sophisticated
Armor of the day stood a chance.
And the iron age community at burnswark
Wouldn't have been anywhere near as well equipped.
Firing at a side of pork simulates
The effects of a direct hit on an unarmored native.
-[dramatic music] -[weapon thwacks]
Look at that. Phew!
Nasty.
If this was a person,
That bolt would have sunk up to the flights,
And he'd be driven down on the ground
And squirming in the agonies of death,
Right through the heart.
I mean, even if it caught him
And it was only a wound, it's gonna throw him way back,
He's gonna be thrown off his feet, hurled backwards.
He's not going to be wanting to get up again.
I'm glad I'm behind the machine instead of in front of it,
That's all I can say! [laughing]
[narrator] thousands of highly trained soldiers
And a rain of deadly missiles was already enough
To massacre the entire community at burnswark.
So, why did lollius even bother to employ the manuballista?
Roman military strategist hannah-marie chidwick
Thinks a discovery at an iron age hillfort
360 miles south of burnswark in England
Could explain the key role of the manuballista.
[hannah-marie] this is hod hill,
It's an impressive hillfort in dorset just south of shaftsbury.
And we think that like burnswark,
Hod hill was the victim of roman military might,
But almost 100 years previously.
[narrator] a century before the burnswark massacre,
During the first invasion of britain,
A similar military strategy played out at hod hill.
The romans set up two camps on either side of the hillfort.
Then, as with burnswark,
Unleashed a continuous bombardment of fire
From weapons including an earlier evolution
Of the manuballista, called the scorpio.
17 scorpio bolt heads were found.
And crucially, they were all clustered in the same position,
The hut of a tribal chief.
Because we've managed to uncover bolts concentrated
So closely around the chieftain's hut,
Suggests that these machines
Were used for very targeted use.
[narrator] hannah-marie believes the scorpios
Were being used in the same role
As a modern-day sniper rifle.
The hod hill attack was a carefully planned operation
To achieve one clear objective:
Take out the top men, the tribal leaders.
A ferocious bombardment of artillery of this kind,
Combined with a targeted killing,
Is a way of the romans sending a message.
They want to show their power,
Their strategy, their technology.
It's a way of them saying
Even if you manage to withstand us this time,
We will come back at you again.
[narrator] the military assault that took place at hod hill
Reveals the ruthless tactics of the roman army.
It seems, a century later, the same terrifying message
Was being sent to the tribes people north of hadrian's wall.
[tense music]
But at burnswark, the romans had a weapon
That had no rival in the ancient world
For power or accuracy.
So this is a block of ballistic gel
As used by police forces to test the path of bullets.
Now we have no idea what will happen.
Does it just make a straight hole?
Which would be bad enough.
I just wonder whether it is even worse than we expect.
[narrator] ballistic gel has the same consistency
As human flesh.
A direct hit will simulate the trauma
A bolt would have inflicted on a native briton.
[weapon thwacks]
Oh, look at that! Floating in jelly.
It's got the most lovely wave effect round the bolt itself.
It shows how it would rip through flesh,
And look at the depth it's gone in.
This is the depth of your body really.
You've got a complete rip through there.
That would have opened you up completely.
I mean, if it wasn't a killing wound
You'd bleed to death in no time at all.
[narrator] armed with the evidence
Of the power and precision
Of the roman army's most sophisticated weapons,
And their merciless tactics in warfare,
John reid believes he can reconstruct
The chain of events that unfolded on burnswark hill.
If he's right, then what happened here
Was nothing short of a mass slaughter of the innocent.
This was death dealing blizzard.
It would have been a terrifying sight.
[narrator] the horrifying similarities
Between two brutal attacks
On british hillforts have revealed the merciless tactics
Of a roman army hellbent on domination.
At hod hill in southern England,
Under the cover of a wall of offensive fire,
Tribal chiefs were targeted and picked off
By soldiers armed with an ancient version of a crossbow.
A century later and 360 miles away in scotland,
The same, tried-and-tested tactics
Were used on the burnswark hillfort.
But this time the romans had access
To an even more deadly precision weapon:
The metal framed manuballista.
Firing at a watermelon simulates the deadly effect
A manuballista bolt would have had on a human skull.
[dramatic music]
Not a very nice sight, is it? Brain split open.
A skull splitter.
[narrator] the ruthless general lollius urbicus
Used every weapon at his disposal
To launch the savage aerial assault at burnswark.
The assault was likely
To be a short, sharp lightening attack.
Would have lasted probably no more than a few hours.
This was a blizzard, this was a death dealing blizzard.
[narrator] and john reid suspects it was an attack
On a largely innocent and outgunned population.
These stone throwers, the spring guns,
Were of a technological advance
That they would not have had party to,
So they knew at that point that they were up against it,
And you can only guess at how the women and children felt.
[narrator] the archeological evidence at burnswark
Suggests general lollius' plan
Was to use every weapon in the roman arsenal
To create maximum chaos and destruction.
But john reid's investigation
Has revealed lollius was so ruthless,
He didn't just rely on physical weapons of war,
He also used psychological warfare
To terrify his victims into submission.
For a long time, it had been noticed
That there was a certain group of the bullets
Were smaller than the other ones.
But it hadn't really been picked up
That there were holes in them.
And when we measured, it was four millimeters across
And five millimeters deep.
And lo and behold, that was a standard size
For virtually all of the holes.
[narrator] intrigued, john made
A number of exact replicas and fired them at speed.
They actually whistle in flight.
And when you get up to the sort of velocities
That the expert roman slingers could get up to,
They really do whistle.
There are so many here at burnswark
That we can say pretty conclusively
That the holes were made for a very specific purpose,
And we think that purpose was to create terror.
-[soldiers shouting] -[bullets whistling]
Sound creates a panic, anxiety.
It signals that something terrible is about to happen.
In this way sound is an extremely effective way
To destabilize your enemy, to create chaos.
We know that in world war two,
The nazis fitted one of their dive bombers with a siren,
[plane siren roaring]
Which produced a terrifying screaming sound
As it was dropping bombs.
And there was no practical reason
For instilling this siren.
It was just there to induce panic and terror.
[narrator] at burnswark, as weapons like the manuballista
Wreaked deadly havoc
And thousands of ancient missiles rained down,
The roman army moved into the final phase
Of their brutal assault on the hillfort's defenses.
The heavily armed troops disgorged
Out of these three big gateways down here
And started advancing up the hill.
It would have been a terrifying sight.
Once they got to the summit,
They would have fought their way onto level ground,
And once there,
The roman troops would have been absolutely unbeatable.
[narrator] as the survivors tried to escape,
They were picked off by the second battalion
Of roman soldiers positioned on the other side of the fort.
We know that there was an attempted break out
On the north side of the fort,
Because we found a cluster of bullets at the north gate.
And we think that that was an escape party
Getting caught by fire.
[narrator] the hillfort, and all in it,
Was obliterated by rome's version of a blitzkrieg.
The message to the ancient britons north of hadrian's wall
Couldn't have been clearer: Surrender to roman rule, or die.
The bodies almost certainly would have been left
On the ground, with no attempt to bury them.
Leaving a clear message to the rest of the people
In the south of scotland that rome was on its way.
[narrator] if spreading fear
Throughout the north of britain was the plan,
Then history suggests it worked.
[hannah-marie] after his success at burnswark,
Lollius pushed further northward.
He took on tribe after tribe.
The whole might of rome facing tribesmen
Who simply weren't equipped to be able to counter them.
[narrator] 90 miles further north of burnswark
Is the spot where lollius urbicus ended
His bloody three-year campaign to capture the north.
It was here the roman army built a new frontier
For their new emperor: The antonine wall.
For the romans, the campaign in scotland was a success.
Antoninus was able to add the title of imperator,
Meaning conqueror, to his name,
As many of his predecessors had done,
And therefore he was able
To openly display his military might.
[narrator] lollius urbicus had achieved
All that the emperor had asked of him.
And by the time the antonine wall was complete,
The feared general was gone.
It's almost as though he was kind of parachuted in
To tackle the revolt of the tribes,
And then once the job was finished, he returned to rome.
[darius] afterwards, he comes to rome
And he serves as the prefect of the city.
And this is an important, important position,
You're basically the number one of the city.
[narrator] lollius urbicus would never return to britain.
His merciless use of rome's most feared weapon
To annihilate the opposition at burnswark
Had paved the way for a victorious campaign.
But, ultimately, it was all for nothing.
Just eight years later, the romans retreated
From the antonine wall back down to hadrian's wall.
It's possible that this region was too difficult to govern,
That the local tribes' resistance
Made the roman presence there very challenging.
[andrew] in many, many ways, roman britain
Became a sort of nightmarish version
Of a sort of modern afghanistan for western armies,
Where you have the big military force
Sitting in a landscape in their forts
Trying to control a population
That are sometimes for you and sometimes definitely not.
[narrator] with the roman army back behind hadrian's wall,
Local tribes took back control of the territory
Conquered by lollius urbicus.
The land we now know today as scotland
Would never again succumb to roman rule.
[tense music]
The britons are going to give the romans a good fight.
And the romans with their technology can take it so far,
But there are going to be limitations.
[andrew] the history of the northern part of britain
Is one of the roman army attempting
To finish the job again and again and again,
And various roman emperors tried very, very hard
To impose their rule.
But in the end, not a single one of them could do it.
[narrator] after the massacre at burnswark hill,
Its blood-soaked ground would forever remain deserted.
[man shouting]
Today, it's an area of tranquility
And outstanding natural beauty.
But its slopes have revealed the terrifying force
The roman army unleashed on anyone who stood in their way.
And the secret weapon that helped rome
Become the greatest and most feared civilization on earth.
I don't think we can conceive of the terror
That the people here felt as this was unfolding.
But in the gloomy foreboding weather,
There's a sense of something bad has happened here.
[andrew] what is unique about burnswark
Is that you can still walk around those fields
And feel the ferocity of the roman army.
They've got a range of options they can bring to bear.
And if you are stuck inside a hillfort,
And you think you're safe behind your palisade,
Unfortunately, you're wrong.
-[dramatic music] -[soldiers shouting]