The Provinces of the Roman Empire (Illustrated Edition). Theodor Mommsen
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the frontier of the empire, and amidst all change of persons adhered to this course, we are taught by the whole later history of the island, and taught especially by the laborious and costly wall–structures to be mentioned immediately. Whether the completion of the conquest was renounced by them in the true interest of the state, is another question. That the imperial finances would only suffer loss by this extension of the bounds was even now urged, quite as much as it formerly was against the occupation of the island itself; but could not be decisive of the matter.108 In a military point of view the occupation was capable of being carried out, as Agricola had conceived it, beyond doubt without material difficulty. But the consideration might turn the scale, that the Romanising of the regions still free would have to encounter great difficulty on account of the diversity of race. The Celts in England proper belonged throughout to those of the continent; national name, faith, language, were common to both. As the Celtic nationality of the continent had found a support in the island, on the other hand the Romanising of Gaul necessarily carried its influence over to England, and to this especially Rome owed the fact that Britain became Romanised with so surprising rapidity. But the natives of Ireland and Scotland belonged to another stock and spoke another language; the Briton understood their Gaelic probably as little as the German understood the language of the Scandinavians. The Caledonians—with the Iverni the Romans hardly came into contact—are described throughout as barbarians of the wildest type. On the other hand, the priest of the oak (Derwydd, Druida) exercised his office on the Rhone as in Anglesey, but not in the island of the west nor in the mountains of the north. If the Romans had waged the war chiefly to bring the domain of the Druids entirely into their power, this aim was in some measure attained. Beyond doubt at another time all these considerations would not have induced the Romans to renounce the sea–frontier on the north when brought so near to them, and at least Caledonia would have been occupied. But the Rome of that time was no longer able to leaven further regions with Roman habits; the productive power and the progressive spirit of the people had disappeared from it. At least that sort of conquest, which cannot be enforced by decrees and marches, would have hardly succeeded, had they attempted it.
Fortifying of the northern frontier.
Their aim therefore was to arrange the northern frontier appropriately for defence, and to this object their military works were thenceforth directed. Eburacum remained the military centre. The wide territory occupied by Agricola was retained and furnished with forts, which served as advanced posts for the headquarters in rear; probably the greatest part of the non–legionary troops were employed for this purpose.
The wall of Hadrian.
The construction of connected lines of fortification followed later. The first of the kind proceeded from Hadrian, and is also remarkable, in so far as it still in a certain sense subsists to the present day, and is more completely known than any other of the great military structures of the Romans. It is, strictly taken, a military road protected on both sides by fortifications, leading from sea to sea for a length of about seventy miles, westward to the Solway Frith, and eastward to the mouth of the Tyne. The defence on the north is formed by a huge wall, originally at least 16 feet high and 8 feet thick, built on the two outer sides of square stones, filled up between with rubble and mortar, in front of which stretched a no less imposing fosse, 9 feet in depth and 34 feet or more in breadth at the top. Towards the south the road is protected by two parallel earthen ramparts, even now 6 to 7 feet high, between which is drawn a fosse 7 feet deep, with a margin raised to the south, so that the structure from rampart to rampart has a total breadth of 24 feet. Between the stone–wall and the earthen ramparts on the road itself lie the camp–stations and watch–houses, viz. at the distance of about four miles from one another the cohort–camps, constructed as forts, independently capable of defence, with gates opening towards all the four sides; between every two of these a smaller structure of a similar kind with sally–ports to the north and south; between every two of the latter four smaller watch–houses within call of each other. This structure of grand solidity, which must have required as garrison 10,000 to 12,000 men, formed thenceforth the basis of military operations in the north of England.
The wall of Antoninus.
It was not a frontier–wall in the proper sense; on the contrary, not merely did the posts that had already from Agricola’s time been pushed forward far beyond it continue to subsist by its side, but subsequently the line, about a half shorter, from the Frith of Forth to the Frith of Clyde, already occupied by Agricola with a chain of posts, was fortified in a similar but weaker way, first under Pius, then in a more comprehensive manner under Severus—as it were, as an advanced post for Hadrian’s wall.109 In point of construction this line was different from that of Hadrian only so far as it was limited to a considerable earthen wall, with fosse in front and road behind, and so was not adapted for defence toward the south; moreover, it too included a number of smaller camps. At this line the Roman imperial roads terminated,110 and, although there were Roman posts even beyond this—the most northerly point, at which the tombstone of a Roman soldier has been found, is Ardoch, between Stirling and Perth—the limit of the expeditions of Agricola, the Frith of Tay, may be regarded as subsequently still the limit of the Roman empire.
Wars in the 2d and 3d centuries.
We know more of these imposing defensive works than of the application that was made of them, and generally of the later events on this distant scene of warfare. Under Hadrian a severe disaster occurred here, to all appearance a sudden attack on the camp of Eburacum, and the annihilation of the legion stationed there,111 the same 9th legion which had fought so unsuccessfully in the war with Boudicca. Probably this was occasioned, not by a hostile inroad, but by the revolt of the northern tribes that passed as subjects of the empire, especially of the Brigantes. With this we shall have to connect the fact that the wall of Hadrian presents a front towards the south as well as towards the north; evidently it was destined also for the purpose of keeping in check the superficially subdued north of England. Under Hadrian’s successor Pius also conflicts took place here, in which the Brigantes again took part; yet more exact information cannot be got.112 The first serious attack upon this imperial boundary, and the first demonstrable crossing of the wall—doubtless that of Pius—took place under Marcus, and further attacks under Commodus; as indeed Commodus is the first emperor who assumed the surname of victory Britannicus, after the able general Ulpius Marcellus had routed the barbarians. But the sinking of the Roman power was henceforth just as apparent here as on the Danube and on the Euphrates. In the turbulent early years of Severus’s reign the Caledonians had broken their promise not to interfere with the Roman subjects, and, resting on their support, their southern neighbours, the Maeates, had compelled the Roman governor Lupus to ransom captive Romans with large sums. For this the heavy arm of Severus lighted on them not long before his death; he penetrated into their own territory and compelled them to cede considerable tracts,113 from which indeed, after the old emperor had died in 211 at the camp of Eburacum, his sons at once of their own accord withdrew the garrisons, to be relieved of their burdensome defence.
Caledonians and Scots.
From the third century hardly anything is told us of the fate of the island. Since none of the emperors down to Diocletian and his colleagues derived the name of conqueror from the island, there were probably no more serious conflicts in that quarter; and, although in the region lying between the walls of Pius and of Hadrian the Roman system doubtless never gained a firm footing, yet at least the wall of Hadrian seems to have rendered even then the service for which it was intended, and the foreign civilisation seems to have developed in security behind it. In the time of Diocletian we find the district between the two walls evacuated, but the Hadrianic wall occupied still as before, and the rest of the Roman army in cantonments between it and the headquarters Eburacum, to ward off the predatory expeditions, thenceforth often mentioned, of the Caledonians, or—as they are now usually called—the “tattooed” (picti), and the Scots streaming in from Ivernia.
Fleet.
The Romans possessed a standing fleet in Britain; but, as the marine always remained the weak side of Roman warlike organisation, the British fleet was temporarily of importance only under Agricola.
Garrison and administration in the 2d and 3d centuries.
If,