Hadrian's Wall Read online

  We really do not know enough about the political and military practices of the tribes to describe the threat they posed to the Romans—or for that matter the threat the Romans posed to them. Wars were fought between the Romans and the tribes in the second, third, and fourth centuries AD, but, as we shall see, very little is known about any of them. Raiding appears to have been common—perhaps universal—in Iron Age Europe, so we would expect to find this small-scale military activity in northern Britain, but extending what we know of ‘Celtic’ society elsewhere (which in itself comes largely from the viewpoint of Greco-Roman outsiders) to the peoples of the north must only be done with caution. Linguistic links may not necessarily reflect a common political and military culture, but in the end we simply do not know. Thus, we must do our best to reconstruct the story of Hadrian’s Wall, knowing that at most we have mere glimpses of only one side of the story. Whatever military threat existed—or was perceived by the Romans—can only be conjectured by looking at the methods they used to deal with it.

  With Hadrian’s Wall there are few definite answers, many theories, and even more questions. This book cannot hope to explore them all in detail, but its aim is to give an idea of how scholars try to understand the Wall and its place in the wider history of Roman Britain. Rather than qualify every statement, sometimes the book will reflect my own judgement on the most likely interpretation, but the works cited in Suggestions for Further Reading at the end of the book will allow interested readers access to the considerable literature on each subject.

  My central premise is that Hadrian’s Wall and all the installations associated with it were intended to assist the Roman army in performing the tasks assigned to it in northern Britain. Soldiers were not there to serve the Wall, but the Wall was there to serve them. This may seem obvious, but there is always a danger that physical remains take over our thoughts at the expense of the human beings whose activities and lives leave less tangible reminders. The sheer scale and longevity of Hadrian’s Wall make it clear that it performed a practical function and that—at least most of the time—it performed it well. That much we can say with confidence, but understanding just what that function was and how it developed over time is much like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle when most of the pieces are missing and without the picture on the box to serve as a guide.

  Note on measurements:

  1 Roman mile = 1,618 yards or 0.92 imperial or US miles = 1.479 km.

  1 Roman foot = 11.64 imperial or US inches = 29.6 cm.

  WALL MILES: IN THE TWENTIETH century, a scholarly convention was created to ease the identification of sections of Hadrian’s Wall and the installations along it. This was based around numbering milecastles from 0 at Wallsend in the east to 80 at Bowness-on-Solway in the west. The stretch between each milecastle became a Wall mile, with Wall mile 1 beginning at Wallsend and extending westwards. All numbers of turrets and milecastles derive from this system.

  One

  BRITANNIA: OUTPOST OF EMPIRE

  BRITAIN WAS A LATE ADDITION to the Roman Empire, conquered at a time when expansion was becoming rare, but the actual conquest in AD 43 was not the first military contact between the empire and the Britons. Almost a century before, Julius Caesar, then proconsul (or governor) of Gaul, landed in the south-east in 55 BC and again in 54 BC. He beat down the fierce resistance of the local tribes and accepted their submission, but did not choose to stay over the winter and never returned. News of Caesar’s expeditions to the mysterious, almost mythical island that lay out in the encircling oceans surrounding the three continents known to the Greeks and Romans was greeted at Rome with euphoria—on a scale almost akin to the moon landing in 1969. The Senate suspended public business for twenty days of official thanksgiving, an unprecedented celebration far grander than any awarded to mark victories in much more important wars in the past. Practical results and profits were less impressive. The orator Cicero noted that there was no silver, nor ‘booty except for slaves; but I doubt we’ll find any scribes or musicians amongst them.’1

  Caesar was one of the gifted and ambitious commanders who conquered large swathes of territory on behalf of Rome’s Republic. Rome was founded in the eighth century BC, at first one small Latin city among many. Over time it grew, displaying from very early on a unique talent for absorbing others. By the third century BC, Rome controlled virtually all of the Italian Peninsula, and hundreds of thousands of people who were not ethnically Latin, let alone ‘Roman’, were Roman citizens. Former enemies became allies and, after a generation or so, often citizens who shared in the responsibilities and profits of expansion.

  Rome’s Republic was led in peace and war by elected magistrates, drawn from the wealthiest citizens and predominantly from a small group of aristocratic families. Former magistrates provided the bulk of the Senate, some six hundred senior statesmen whose role was to advise and guide the magistrates and the popular assemblies, which actually had the power to pass laws. The system was designed to prevent any individual or group from gaining permanent supreme power, which meant that many provincial governors went out to their provinces eager to win glory in the short time before they were replaced. Aggression and conquest were not constant, but over time the empire controlled by the Roman Republic grew. In the second century BC, the Republic came to dominate the Mediterranean, and soon its legions advanced far from its shores. Conquest brought vast wealth and glory to a few of the aristocracy, raising them above their peers and putting a heavy strain on the system.

  The winters in northern Britain were less harsh than in some of the frontier zones in Europe, and sometimes the sun shone. This is Milecastle 39, with the waters of Crag Lough in the background. The Wall itself snakes along the top of the crags towards Housesteads fort, just over two miles to the east beyond the horizon. Note that the milecastle is not on the higher ground, which means that it does not possess optimal views to the north. Similarly, its northern gate led to a very steep slope, utterly impractical for horses, let alone carts.

  Men like Caesar greatly increased the pace of conquest, but they were also the leaders in the succession of civil wars that tore the Republican system of government apart. Most died violently; in Caesar’s case, he was stabbed to death at a meeting of the Senate. Civil war resumed soon afterwards, ending only when Mark Antony’s suicide in 30 BC left Caesar’s great-nephew and heir as the last remaining warlord. Caesar Augustus, as he was soon to be named, became Rome’s first emperor, although he styled himself as princeps, first citizen and first servant of the state, so that scholars refer to the rule of Rome’s emperors as the principate. Ultimately, his power rested on control of the army, a permanent, professional force of around 300,000 men, divided almost equally between the citizen soldiers of the legions and the provincial and foreign auxiliaries. Every soldier swore an oath of loyalty to the princeps, and it was from the emperor that all pay and promotion came.

  Augustus cleansed himself of his bloody rise to power by giving Romans and provincials internal peace and constant victory against foreign enemies. Almost everyone was desperate for stability and prosperity after decades of civil war and massacre, so they were willing to accept the dominance of one man as better than any likely alternative. In spite of frequent severe illnesses, Augustus outlived almost all his contemporaries, and over time everyone forgot the man who had slaughtered his way to the top and instead saw only the peacemaker and ‘father of his country’. Victories over foreign enemies made Rome safe and its empire wealthy, something that all patriotic Romans could celebrate; and Augustus provided a constant stream of such successes. By his death, Rome’s empire was largely complete, bounded by the Atlantic in the west; the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates in the east; the Sahara Desert in the south; and the Channel coast in the north. Just before he died in AD 14, a little short of his seventy-seventh birthday, Augustus advised his successor to ‘keep the empire within its present boundaries.’ Whether or not he meant to bring a permanent halt to expansion or just give the
empire a period of rest and recovery, further conquest became rare. Few emperors were inclined to trust a major command to a senator who might thus win glory and popularity with the soldiers, turning him into a rival. Even fewer emperors wanted to spend years on campaign conquering new lands.2

  Although poets such as Horace had spoken with eager anticipation of the conquest of Britain—‘Augustus will be deemed a god, on earth when the Britons… have been added to our empire’—they were to be disappointed. There was a good deal of trade across the Channel, and some diplomatic activity—exiled British princes fleeing to the empire for sanctuary—but no new invasion. Augustus had counted the tribes of the south-east as allies who acknowledged Rome’s supremacy and were thus part of the empire, even though they were not ruled directly, an attitude he extended to the great Parthian Empire (modern Iran and Iraq) in the east and even the peoples of India. A little later the geographer Strabo declared that Britain was not worth conquering, for it posed no threat and the revenue to be gained from taxing the tribes was unlikely to cover the cost of the army needed to subdue the island.3

  This aerial view of Housesteads fort looking westwards gives an idea of the size of one of the bases along the Wall. In the bottom right corner are two fully uncovered barrack blocks and, beyond them, the central range of buildings, with (from left to right) praetorium, principia, and two granaries. What may be the hospital is in the centre, behind the principia. A few civilian buildings can be seen outside the southern gate, but in the third century AD the civilian settlement covered most of the area to the south and west of the fort. Milecastle 37 is visible as a small square almost in line with the west gate. Crag Lough is hidden in the dead ground behind the first major crest.

  Such concerns weighed less with the Emperor Claudius than his need for military glory. In the chaos after the assassination of his nephew Caligula in AD 41, praetorian guardsmen discovered Claudius hiding behind a curtain in the imperial palace. As the well-paid and pampered household troops of the emperor, they needed an emperor—any emperor—and so proclaimed him because he was the only adult male member of Augustus’s family available. There were few other grounds for his selection, but the Senate was forced to accept him because its members could not defy the armed strength of the praetorians. Claudius was fifty-one, stammered, drooled, and limped, and could boast of little public service and no military achievements.

  In AD 43, Claudius decided to make up for this utter lack of military experience and gathered four legions out of the twenty-eight then in service, reinforcing them with auxiliaries, sailors, and other troops, and invaded Britain. The first target was the great tribal confederation dominating the south-east. Claudius arrived in person to oversee the capture of their capital at Camulodunum (Colchester), although he stayed in Britain for less than two weeks. His victory was celebrated in lavish style, not least because he had completed a task begun by his ancestor, the great Julius Caesar.

  The island the Romans called Britannia was home to many separate peoples divided into tribes. Conflict between tribes was common, and internal power struggles almost as frequent, and there was no sense that they all belonged to a common nation. When the Romans arrived, many leaders chose to ally with the invaders, seeing them as less of a threat than their neighbours and traditional enemies. In AD 60, the province was devastated by a rebellion provoked by the mistreatment of just such an ally, Queen Boudica of the Iceni, who sacked the veteran colony established at Camulodunum, the flourishing commercial town of Londinium (London), and the tribal centre at Verulamium (St. Albans). Some tribes joined the revolt, while others stayed loyal. After those early successes, Boudica was defeated in battle and the rebellion suppressed with considerable savagery. This was followed by conciliation, and it is striking that Lowland Britain never again witnessed any revolt against Roman rule over the next three and a half centuries.

  It took longer for the Romans to secure control over what would become Wales, where there were frequent campaigns until the AD 70s and a strong military presence for some time after that. Simultaneously, northern England was overrun and garrisons established in the area where Hadrian’s Wall would later be built. Recent dendrochronological analysis of timbers used to build the first Roman fort at Carlisle (Luguvallium) show that the trees were felled in AD 72 or 73. Cnaeus Julius Agricola, governor of Britain in AD 78–84, pushed ever farther north, driving deep into Scotland, where he routed an army of Caledonian tribesmen at Mons Graupius (the location of which is unknown). Permanent occupation was planned, and a network of forts was built, most notably the fortress at Inchtuthil in Perthshire, intended to house an entire legion.

  Unexpectedly, plans changed after a series of military crises on the Rhine and Danube frontiers. These, and not Britain, became the priorities for the Emperor Domitian (AD 81–96), receiving the bulk of his attention and available resources. One of the four legions and probably many auxiliaries were posted away from the province, and this substantial reduction in troop numbers prompted withdrawal from all bases north of the line between the estuaries of the Rivers Forth and Clyde (and close to the area where the modern cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow now stand). Coin evidence suggests that this occurred around AD 86–87. At Inchtuthil, a few of the internal buildings had not even been started before the base was evacuated, the defences slighted, and the buildings demolished. The abandonment of these garrisons appears to have been ordered and not caused by hostile action, and the withdrawal may have been phased over a few years, with the line of towers and outposts along the Gask Ridge being occupied a little longer before that, too, was decommissioned.

  Very little is known about Britain during the reign of the Emperor Trajan (AD 98–117). Sites that would be closely associated with the Wall—such as Corbridge (Coria), Vindolanda, Carvoran, and Carlisle—were garrisoned, and fascinating glimpses of life in the garrisons are supplied by the writing tablets found at Carlisle, and especially at Vindolanda. Early in the second century AD, small outposts or fortlets were constructed in this area, notably the sites at Haltwhistle Burn and Throp, and perhaps some towers for observation or signalling. Around AD 106, the most northerly base left in Scotland, the fort at Newstead (Trimontium), was abandoned, as were other outposts. A properly laid-out, stone-paved, and drained Roman road—known from its Medieval name as the Stanegate because we do not know what the Romans called any of the roads they made in Britain—was constructed, running at least from Corbridge to Carlisle, each of which lay on major north-south roads. It ran a little to the south of where the Wall would be built, following the natural and easiest route between the Tyne and Eden Valleys. At some point there was another drastic reduction in the size of the army of the province, when Legio IX (or often on inscriptions in the old-fashioned form as VIIII) Hispana was withdrawn, leaving just two legions in garrison, II Augusta and XX Valeria Victrix.

  Trajan was one of the last great conquerors, adding Dacia (modern Romania) to the empire and in the last years of his life invading Parthia. Britain does not appear to have figured highly on his list of priorities, and its governors had to do their job with substantially reduced military resources. Overstretch is the most likely reason for the withdrawal to the Tyne-Solway line in these years, and the concentration of a number of garrisons in this area effectively created a rough frontier line. In the years that followed, this was enhanced by the addition of outposts and the Stanegate Road itself. There is little evidence for activity or any extension of the road to the east of Corbridge, and the focus of the army’s attention appears to have been the central and western sectors, facing the peoples known as the Novantae and Selgovae.

  It is impossible to say how peaceful northern Britain was during Trajan’s reign, but the presence of the bases along the Stanegate suggest that there was a real or perceived threat to Roman control and dominance in these areas. The strength report of a unit based at Vindolanda in the AD 90s includes six wounded men (volnerati) unfit for duty. Although it is possible that they had been injured in a
n accident, this may hint at fighting, whether some small skirmish or a larger engagement. Another fragmentary writing tablet talks about the fighting styles of the local tribes: ‘the Britons are unprotected by armour. There are very many cavalry. The cavalry do not use swords nor do the Brittunculi mount [or halt?] to throw javelins.’ There is also a tombstone, later reused in the third-century bathhouse at Vindolanda, commemorating the centurion Titus Annius, killed in the war (interfectus in bello). This probably dates to Trajan’s reign, suggesting a reasonably large-scale conflict at some point to justify the use of the word ‘war’. One fourth-century source claims that there were problems in Britain early in Hadrian’s reign, making it possible that trouble had broken out in the last years of his predecessor, Trajan. All in all, and given Hadrian’s actions and subsequent history, it seems wise to assume that the frontier area posed an ongoing problem to the Roman administration, for all the dismissive talk of Brittunculi or ‘little Britons’.4

  At Mons Graupius in AD 83 or 84, the Caledonians had mustered an army claimed by our Roman source to number well over 30,000 warriors. The noblemen came to battle in agile, fast-moving chariots, each pulled by a pair of ponies. Julius Caesar had expressed his wonder when he encountered similar vehicles in 55 BC, for they had fallen out of use in continental Europe at least a century earlier. Used for skirmishing and as a stylish and impressive way of travelling to and from a fight, the noble warrior would spring down from his chariot to fight on foot. Caesar said that the chariots were closely supported by groups of cavalry, although the latter are not mentioned in the single account of Mons Graupius. The bulk of the Caledonians were unarmoured infantrymen wielding blunt-tipped slashing swords, their only protection a small shield. A sculpture from the Antonine Wall on the Forth-Clyde line depicts a Roman cavalryman riding down three warriors very much like these, carrying little rectangular bucklers and long swords, although it is notable that the text from Vindolanda expressly states that the local horsemen did not carry swords. No doubt there was considerable variation between different communities and over the centuries.