Cumberland, commencing at Wallsend, on the Tyne, running through Newcastle and Carlisle, and terminating at Bowness, in Cumberland. A most interesting and fully illustrated account of this wall has been given to the world by the Rev. J. Collingwood Bruce, from which work we have (by the kind permission of the author) copied the preceding illustrations.
The conquests of the Romans in Britain had been carried by Agricola as far as the Friths of Forth and Clyde; but after his recall, the natives had recovered possession of their own soil, and matters fell again into confusion. "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. A large brass coin was struck by decree of the Senate in the year 121.
Ancient Roman Coins struck during the Roman period in Britain.
"The plans and prowess of the emperor were thought to have effectually secured that portion 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." It is curious to observe how closely this figure resembles that on the modern coins, the chief alterations being that the spear is changed into a trident, and the right hand extended, offering the olive-branch of peace to all the world.
Arguments have been brought forward by some antiquaries to show that the wall and the vallum by which it is accompanied belong to two different periods; but Mr. Bruce contends that they are both to be considered as forming part of the great engineering work of Hadrian. It consists of a stone wall, or murus, and a wall of earth, or vallum. These two run always near together, but not always parallel. The vallum is likewise rather the shortest, terminating at Newcastle on the east, and at Drumburgh, about three miles from Bowness, the western extremity of the wall.
"The most striking feature in the plan, both of the murus and the vallum, is the determinate manner in which they pursue their straightforward course. The vallum makes fewer deviations from a right line than the stone wall; but as the wall traverses higher ground, this remarkable tendency is more easily detected in it than in the other. Shooting over the country, in its onward course, it only swerves from a straight line to take in its route the boldest elevations. So far from declining a hill, it uniformly selects one.
"For nineteen miles out of Newcastle the road to Carlisle runs upon the foundations of the wall, and during the summer months its dusty surface contrasts well with
