In the summer of 84 AD the Provencal gentleman Gnaeus Iulius Agricola, governor of Roman Britain, led an army of Roman legionary soldiers and barbarian auxiliaries into northern Britain, known as Caledonia to the Romans. At a place called Mons Graupius, Agricola won a decisive victory over a large Caledonian host, and it appeared at the time that, forty-one years on, the Roman military conquest of Britain had finally been completed. Agricola had already begun thinking about a new challenge - the invasion and conquest of Ireland - but was recalled from Britain by the emperor. Rome's failure to assume political control over northern Britain in the wake of Agricola's victory at Mons Graupius would become greatly significant in shaping the medieval and post-medieval political and cultural history of Britain and Ireland.
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