two of which are still traceable at Camelon near Falkirk, and at Bar Hill. He then advanced into Caledonia and won a “famous victory” at Mons Graupius (sometimes, but incorrectly, spelt Grampius), probably near the confluence of the Tay and the Isla, where a Roman encampment of his date, Inchtuthill, has been partly examined (see Galgacus). He dreamt even of invading Ireland, and thought it an easy task. The home government judged otherwise. Jealous possibly of a too brilliant general, certainly averse from costly and fruitless campaigns and needing the Legio II. Adiutrix for work elsewhere, it recalled both governor and legion, and gave up the more northerly of his nominal conquests. The most solid result of his campaigns is that his battlefield, misspelt Grampius, has provided to antiquaries, and through them to the world, the modern name of the Grampian Hills.
What frontier was adopted after Agricola’s departure, whether Tweed or Cheviot or other, is unknown. For thirty years (A.D. 85–115) the military history of Britain is a blank. When we recover knowledge we are in an altered world. About 115 or 120 the northern Britons rose in revolt and destroyed the Ninth Legion, posted at York, which would bear the brunt of any northern trouble. In 122 the second reigning emperor who crossed the ocean, Hadrian, came himself to Britain, brought the Sixth Legion to replace the Ninth, and introduced the frontier policy of his age. For over 70 m. from Tyne to Solway, more exactly from Wallsend to Bowness, he built a continuous rampart, more probably of turf than of stone, with a ditch in front of it, a number of small forts along it, one or two outposts a few miles to the north of it, and some detached forts (the best-known is on the hill above Maryport) guarding the Cumberland coast beyond its western end. The details of his work are imperfectly known, for though many remains survive, it is hard to separate those of Hadrian’s date from others that are later. But that Hadrian built a wall here is proved alike by literature and by inscriptions. The meaning of the scheme is equally certain. It was to be, as it were, a Chinese wall, marking the definite limit of the Roman world. It was now declared, not by the secret resolutions of cabinets, but by the work of the spade marking the solid earth for ever, that the era of conquest was ended.
But empires move, though rulers bid them stand still. Whether the land beyond Hadrian’s wall became temptingly peaceful or remained in vexing disorder, our authorities do not say. We know only that about 142 Hadrian’s successor, Antoninus Pius, acting through his general Lollius Urbicus, advanced from the Tyne and Solway frontier to the narrower isthmus between Forth and Clyde, 36 m. across, which Agricola had fortified before him. Here he reared a continuous rampart with a ditch in front of it, fair-sized forts, probably a dozen in number, built either close behind it or actually abutting on it, and a connecting road running from end to end. An ancient writer states that the rampart was built of regularly laid sods (the same method which had probably been employed by Hadrian), and excavations in 1891–1893 have verified the statement. The work still survives visibly, though in varying preservation, except in the agricultural districts near its two ends. Occasionally, as on Croyhill (near Kilsyth), at Westerwood, and in the covers of Bonnyside (3 m. west of Falkirk), wall and ditch and even road can be distinctly traced, and the sites of many of the forts are plain to practised eyes. Three of these forts have been excavated. All three show the ordinary features of Roman castella, though they differ more than one would expect in forts built at one time by one general. Bar Hill, the most completely explored, covers three acres—nearly five times as much as the earlier fort of Agricola on the same site. It had ramparts of turf, barrack-rooms of wood, and a headquarters building, storehouse and bath in stone: it stands a few yards back from the wall. Castle Cary covers nearly four acres: its ramparts contain massive and well-dressed masonry; its interior buildings, though they agree in material, do not altogether agree in plan with those of Bar Hill, and its north face falls in line with the frontier wall. Rough Castle, near Falkirk, is very much smaller; it is remarkable for the astonishing strength of its turf-built and earthen ramparts and ravelins, and for a remarkable series of defensive pits, reminiscent of Caesar’s lilia at Alesia, plainly intended to break an enemy’s charge, and either provided with stakes to impale the assailant or covered over with hurdles or the like to deceive him. Besides the dozen forts on the wall, one or two outposts may have been held at Ardoch and Abernethy along the natural route which runs by Stirling and Perth to the lowlands of the east coast. This frontier was reached from the south by two roads. One, known in medieval times as Dere Street and misnamed Watling Street by modern antiquaries, ran from Corbridge on the Tyne past Otterburn, crossed Cheviot near Makendon Camps, and passed by an important fort at Newstead near Melrose, and another at Inveresk (outside of Edinburgh), to the eastern end of the wall. The other, starting from Carlisle, ran to Birrens, a Roman fort near Ecclefechan, and thence, by a line not yet explored and indeed not at all certain, to Carstairs and the west end of the wall. This wall was in addition to, and not instead of, the wall of Hadrian. Both barriers were held together, and the district between them was regarded as a military area, outside the range of civilization.
The work of Pius brought no long peace. Sixteen years later disorder broke out in north Britain, apparently in the district between the Cheviots and the Derbyshire hills, and was repressed with difficulty after four or five years’ fighting. Eighteen or twenty years later (180–185) a new war broke out with a different issue. The Romans lost everything beyond Cheviot, and perhaps even more. The government of Commodus, feeble in itself and vexed by many troubles, could not repair the loss, and the civil wars which soon raged in Europe (193–197) gave the Caledonians further chance. It was not till 208 that Septimius Severus, the ablest emperor of his age, could turn his attention to the island. He came thither in person, invaded Caledonia, commenced the reconstruction of the wall of Hadrian, rebuilding it from end to end in stone, and then in the fourth year of his operations died at York. Amid much that is uncertain and even legendary about his work in Britain, this is plain, that he fixed on the line of Hadrian’s wall as his substantive frontier. His successors, Caracalla and Severus Alexander (211–235), accepted the position, and many inscriptions refer to building or rebuilding executed by them for the greater efficiency of the frontier defences. The conquest of Britain was at last over. The wall of Hadrian remained for nearly two hundred years more the northern limit of Roman power in the extreme west.
II. The Province of Britain and its Military System.—Geographically, Britain consists of two parts: (1) the comparatively flat lowlands of the south, east and midlands, suitable to agriculture and open to easy intercourse with the continent, i.e. with the rest of the Roman empire; (2) the district consisting of the hills of Devon and Cornwall, of Wales and of northern England, regions lying more, and often very much more, than 600 ft. above the sea, scarred with gorges and deep valleys, mountainous in character, difficult for armies to traverse, ill fitted to the peaceful pursuits in agriculture. These two parts of the province differ also in their history. The lowlands, as we have seen, were conquered easily and quickly. The uplands were hardly subdued completely till the end of the 2nd century. They differ, thirdly, in the character of their Roman occupation. The lowlands were the scene of civil life. Towns, villages and country houses were their prominent features; troops were hardly seen in them save in some fortresses on the edge of the hills and in a chain of forts built in the 4th century to defend the south-east coast, the so-called Saxon Shore. The uplands of Wales and the north presented another spectacle. Here civil life was almost wholly absent. No country town or country house has been found more than 20 m. north of York or west of Monmouthshire. The hills were one extensive military frontier, covered with forts and strategic roads connecting them, and devoid of town life, country houses, farms or peaceful civilized industry. This geographical division was not reproduced by Rome in any administrative partitions of the province. At first the whole was governed by one legatus Augusti of consular standing.
