In the year 120 Hadrian visited Britain in person, when he appears to have put down any attempt at insurrection; and, having adopted, or rather originated, the policy of defending the frontiers of the Roman empire by great ramparts, he fixed the limits of the province in Britain at a line drawn from the Solway Firth on the west to the mouth of the river Tyne on the east, and constructed a great barrier designed to protect it equally against the incursions of the Barbarians or independent tribes to the north of it, and the revolt of those included within the province. It consists of ‘three parts—a stone wall strengthened by a ditch on its northern side; an earthen wall or vallum to the south of the stone wall; and stations, castles, watch-towers, and roads, for the accommodation of the soldiery who manned the wall, and for the transmission of military stores. These lie, for the most part, between the stone wall and earthen rampart.’ The stone wall extends from Wallsend on the Tyne to Bowness on the Solway, a distance of seventy-three and a half English miles. The earth wall falls short of this distance by about three miles at each end, not extending beyond Newcastle on the east, and terminating at Dykesfield on the west. The result of the most recent examination of the wall is that the whole is undoubtedly the work of Hadrian.[54] Hadrian thus made no attempt to retain any part of the country conquered by Agricola in his last campaigns, but withdrew the frontier in one part even from where it had extended prior to Agricola’s government, in order to obtain a more advantageous line for his favourite mode of defence. ----- Footnote 19: Orphei _Argonaut._ v. 1171, ἢν νήσοισιν Ἰέρνισιν ἆσσον ἵκωμαι. Footnote 20: Herodot. iii. 115. Footnote 21: Aristot. _De Mundo_, iii. Footnote 22: Polyb. iii. 87. Footnote 23: Ast hinc duobus in Sacram, sic insulam Dixere prisci, solibus cursus rati est. Haec inter undas multa cespitem jacet, Eamque late gens Hibernorum colit. Propinqua rursus insula Albionum patet. FESTUS AVIEN. _Ora Maritima_, 86. Footnote 24: Strabo, _Geog._ Lib. ii. Footnote 25: Cæs. _De Bello Gall._ v. 12-14. Footnote 26: Strab. _Geog._ Lib. iv. Footnote 27: Diod. Sic. v. 21. Footnote 28: Consularium primus Aulus Plautius præpositus ac subinde Ostorius Scapula uterque bello egregius: redactaque paulatim in formam provinciæ proxima pars Britanniæ.—TACIT. _in Vit. Ag._ 14. Footnote 29: