The Roman Wall: A historical, topographical, and descriptive account of the barrier of the lower isthmus, extending from the Tyne to the Solway, deduced from numerous personal surveysBruce, J. Collingwood (John Collingwood)
History
The Roman Wall: A historical, topographical, and descriptive account of the barrier of the lower isthmus, extending from the Tyne to the Solway, deduced from numerous personal surveys
Bruce, J. Collingwood (John Collingwood)
Great Britain -- Antiquities, Roman; Walls, Roman -- Great Britain
It is not necessary to pursue the operations of Agricola further. In the
seventh summer he defeated Galgacus on the flanks of the Grampians. The
Roman power was now at its height. Agricola, probably from motives of
jealousy, was recalled by the emperor Domitian, and as his successors
were not men of the same vigour as himself, the barbarians were in a
condition, at least to dispute the pretensions of their conquerors.
[Sidenote: HADRIAN ARRIVES IN BRITAIN.]
In the year 120—thirty-five years after the recall of Agricola—affairs
in Britain had fallen into such confusion, as to require the presence of
the emperor HADRIAN, who had assumed the imperial purple three years
before. He did not attempt to regain the conquests which Agricola had
made in Scotland, but prudently sought to make the line of forts, which
that general had constructed in his second campaign, the limit of his
empire. With this object in view, he drew a wall across the island—the
BARRIER of the LOWER ISTHMUS. The testimony of Spartian, the historian
of his reign, though brief, is decisive. Hadrian, says he, visited
Britain, when he corrected many things, and first drew a wall (_murus_)
eighty miles in length, to divide the barbarians from the Romans.
The arrival in Britain, of Hadrian, one of Rome’s greatest generals, was
thought an event of sufficient importance to be commemorated in the
currency of the empire. The large brass coin, here represented, was
struck by decree of the Senate in the year 121.[3]
[Illustration]
[Sidenote: THE BARRIER OF THE UPPER ISTHMUS.]
The plans and the prowess of the emperor were thought to have
effectually secured those portions of the island, which it was prudent
to retain in the grasp of Rome. This circumstance was announced to the
world in another coin, bearing, on the reverse, a name destined to sound
through regions Hadrian never knew—BRITANNIA—and representing a female
figure seated on a rock, having a spear in her left hand, and a shield
by her side.[4]
[Illustration]
About twenty years after Hadrian’s expedition, Lollius Urbicus took the
command in Britain. He was not satisfied with the limits which Hadrian
had prudently assigned to the empire in Britain. Forcing back the
Britons, he raised an earthen rampart across the isthmus between the
Forth and the Clyde. Graham’s Dike, in Scotland, is the wall which was
built by Lollius Urbicus. This is proved by the numerous sculptures
which have, at different times, been discovered among its ruins.
[Sidenote: DECLINE OF THE ROMAN POWER.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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