Early Britain-Roman Britain Part 8

D. 2.--Thus our earliest notice of Britain in this period tells us that Hadrian (A.D. 120), our first Imperial visitor since Claudius (A.D. 44), found it needful (after a revolt which cost many lives, and involved, as it seems, the final destruction of the unlucky Ninth Legion, which had already fared so badly in Boadicea's rebellion[256]) to supplement Agricola's rampart, between Forth and Clyde, with another from sea to sea, between Tynemouth and Solway, "dividing the Romans from the barbarians."[257] This does not mean that the district thus isolated was definitely abandoned,[258] but that its inhabitants were so imperfectly Romanized that the temptation to raid the more civilized lands to the south had better be obviated. The Wall of Hadrian marked the real limit of Roman Britain: beyond it was a "march," sometimes strongly, more often feebly, garrisoned, but never effectually occupied, much less civilized. The inhabitants, indeed, seem to have rapidly lost what civilization they had. Dion Ca.s.sius describes them, in the next generation, as far below the Caledonians who opposed Agricola, a mere horde of squalid and ferocious cannibals,[259] going into battle stark-naked (like their descendants the Galwegians a thousand years later),[260] having neither chief nor law, fields nor houses. The name Attacotti, by which they came finally to be known, probably means _Tributary_, and describes their nominal status towards Rome.

D. 3.--How hopeless the task of effectually incorporating these barbarians within the Empire appeared to Hadrian is shown by the extraordinary ma.s.siveness of the Wall which he built[261] to keep them out from the civilized Provinces[262] to the southwards. "Uniting the estuaries of Tyne and Solway it chose the strongest line of defence available. Availing itself of a series of bold heights, which slope steadily to the south, but are craggy precipices to the north, as if designed by Nature for this very purpose, it pursued its mighty course across the isthmus with a pertinacious, undeviating determination which makes its remains unique in Europe, and one of the most inspiriting scenes in Britain."[263] Its outer fosse (where the nature of the ground permits) is from 30 to 40 feet wide and some 20 deep, so sloped that the whole was exposed to direct fire from the Wall, from which it is separated by a small glacis [_linea_] 10 or 12 feet across. Beyond it the upcast earth is so disposed as to form the glacis proper, for about 50 feet before dipping to the general ground level. The Wall itself is usually 8 feet thick, the outer and inner faces formed of large blocks of freestone, with an interior core of carefully-filled-in rubble. The whole thus formed a defence of the most formidable character, testifying strongly to the respect in which the valour of the Borderers against whom it was constructed was held by Hadrian and his soldiers.[264]

D. 4.--This expedition of Hadrian is cited by his biographer, Aelius Spartia.n.u.s, as the most noteworthy example of that invincible activity which led him to take personal cognizance of every region in his Empire: "_Ante omnes enitebatur ne quid otiosum vel emeret aliquando vel pasceret."_ His contempt for slothful self-indulgence finds vent in his reply to the doggerel verses of Florus, who had written:

_Ego nolo Caesar esse, ["To be Caesar I'd not care, Ambulare per Britannos, Through the Britons far to fare, Scythicas pati pruinas_. Scythian frost and cold to bear."]

Hadrian made answer:

_Ego nolo Florus esse, ["To be Florus I'd not care, Ambulare per tabernas, Through the tavern-bars to fare, Cimices pati rotundas_. Noxious insect-bites to bear."]

To us its special interest (besides the Wall) is found in the bronze coins commemorating the occasion, the first struck with special reference to Britain since those of Claudius. These are of various types, but all of the year 120 (the third Consulate of Hadrian); and the reverse mostly represents the figure so familiar on our present bronze coinage, Britannia, spear in hand, on her island rock, with her shield beside her.[265] This type was constantly repeated with slight variations in the coinage of the next hundred years; and thus, when, after an interval of twelve centuries, the British mint began once more, in the reign of Charles the Second, to issue copper, this device was again adopted, and still abides with us. The very large number of types (approaching a hundred) of the Romano-British coinage, from this reign to that of Caracalla, shows that Hadrian inaugurated the system of minting coins not only with reference to Britain, but for special local use. They were doubtless struck within the island; but we can only conjecture where the earliest mints were situated.

D. 5.--Twenty years after Hadrian's visit we again find (A.D.

139) some little trouble in the north, owing to a feud between the Brigantes and Genuini, a clan of whom nothing is known but the name.

The former seem to have been the aggressors, and were punished by the confiscation of a section of their territory by Lollius Urbicus, the Legate of Antoninus Pius; who further "shut off the excluded barbarians by a turf wall" (_muro cespitio submotis[266] barbaris ducto_). The context connects this operation with the Brigantian troubles; but it is certain that Lollius repaired and strengthened Agricola's rampart between Forth and Clyde. His name is found in inscriptions along that line,[267] and that of Antoninus is frequent.

This work consisted of a _vallum_ some 40 miles in length, from Carriden to Dumbarton, with fortified posts at frequent intervals.

It is locally known as "Graham's d.y.k.e," and, since 1890, has been systematically explored by the Glasgow Archaeological Society. It is in the strictest sense "a turf wall"--no mere gra.s.s-grown earthwork, but regularly built of squared sods in place of stones (sometimes on a stone base). Roman engineers looked upon such a rampart as being the hardest of all to construct.

SECTION E.

Commodus Britannicus--Ulpius Marcellus--Murder of Perennis--Era of military turbulence--Pertinax--Albinus--British Army defeated at Lyons--Severus--Caledonian war--Severus overruns Highlands.

E. 1.--It may very probably be owing to the energy of Lollius that Britain, "Upper" and "Lower" together as it seems, as inscriptions tell us, was about this date ranked amongst the Senatorial Provinces of the Empire, the Pro-consul being C. Valerius Pansa. That it should have been made a Pro-consulate shows (as is pointed out on p. 142) that they were now considered amongst the more peaceful governorships.

In fact, though some slight disturbances threatened at the death of Antoninus (A.D. 161), the country remained quiet till Commodus came to the throne (A.D. 180). Then, however, we hear of a serious inroad of the northern barbarians, who burst over the Roman Wall and were not repulsed without a hard campaign. The Roman commander was Ulpius Marcellus, a harsh but devoted officer, who fared like a common soldier, and insisted on the strictest vigilance, being himself "the most sleepless of generals."[268] The British Army, accordingly, swore by him, and were minded to proclaim him Emperor,[2] a matter which all but cost him his life at the hands of Commodus; who, however, contented himself with a.s.suming, like Claudius, the t.i.tle of Britannicus, in virtue of this success.[2] The further precaution was taken of cashiering not only Ulpius but all the superior officers of this dangerous army; men of lower rank and less influence being subst.i.tuted. The soldiers, however, defeated the design by breaking out into open mutiny, and tearing to pieces the "enemy of the Army,"

Perennis, Praefect of the Praetorian Guards, who had been sent from Rome (A.D. 185) to carry out the reform.[269]

E. 2.--This episode shows us how great a solidarity the Army of Britain had by this time developed. It was always the policy of Imperial Rome to recruit the forces stationed throughout the Provinces not from the natives around them, but from those of distant regions.

Inscriptions tell that the British Legions were chiefly composed of Spaniards, Aquitanians, Gauls, Frisians, Dalmatians, and Dacians; while from the 'Not.i.tia' we know that, in the 5th century, such distant countries as Mauretania, Libya, and even a.s.syria,[270]

furnished contingents. Britons, in turn, served in Gaul, Spain, Illyria, Egypt, and Armenia, as well as in Rome itself.

E. 3.--The outburst which led to the slaughter of Perennis was but the dawn of a long era of military turbulence in Britain. First came the suppression of the revolt A.D. 187 by the new Legate,[271] Pertinax, who, at the peril of his life, refused the purple offered him by the mutineers,[272] and drafted fifteen hundred of the ringleaders into the Italian service of Commodus;[273] then Commodus died (A.D. 192), and Pertinax became one of the various pretenders to the Imperial throne; then followed his murder by Julia.n.u.s, while Albinus succeeded to his pretensions as well as to his British government; then that of Julia.n.u.s by Severus; then the desperate struggle between Albinus and Severus for the Empire; the crushing defeat (A.D. 197) of the British Army at Lyons, the death of Albinus,[274] and the final recognition of Severus[275] as the acknowledged ruler of the whole Roman world.

E. 4.--Of all the Roman Emperors Severus is the most closely connected with Britain. The long-continued political and military confusion amongst the conquerors had naturally excited the independent tribes of the north. In A.D. 201 the Caledonians beyond Agricola's rampart threatened it so seriously that Vinius Lupus, the Praetor, was fain to buy off their attack; and, a few years later, they actually joined hands with the nominally subject Meatae within the Pale, who thereupon broke out into open rebellion, and, along with them, poured down upon the civilized districts to the south. So extreme was the danger that the Prefect of Britain sent urgent dispatches to Rome, invoking the Emperor's own presence with the whole force of the Empire.

E. 5.--Severus, in spite of age and infirmity,[276] responded to the call, and, in a marvellously short time, appeared in Britain, bringing with him his worthless sons, Caracalla[277] and Geta[278]--"my Antonines," as he fondly called them,[279] though his life was already embittered by their wickedness,--and Geta's yet more worthless mother, Julia Domna. Leaving her and her son in charge south of Hadrian's Wall, Severus and Caracalla undertook a punitive expedition[280]

beyond it, characterized by ferocity so exceptional[281] that the names both of Caledonians and Meatae henceforward disappear from history. The Romans on this occasion penetrated further than even Agricola had gone, and reached Cape Wrath, where Severus made careful astronomical observations.[282]

E. 6.--But the cost was fearful. Fifty thousand Roman soldiers perished through the rigour of the climate and the wiles of the desperate barbarians; and Severus felt the north so untenable that he devoted all his energies to strengthening Hadrian's Wall,[283] so as to render it an impregnable barrier beyond which the savages might be allowed to range as they pleased.[284]

E. 7.--In what, exactly, his additions consisted we do not know, but they were so extensive that his name is no less indissolubly connected with the Wall than that of Hadrian. The inscriptions of the latter found in the "Mile Castles" show that the line was his work, and that he did not merely, as some have thought, build the series of "stations" to support the "Vallum." But it is highly probable that Severus so strengthened the Wall both in height and thickness as to make it[285] far more formidable than Hadrian had left it. For now it was intended to be the actual _limes_ of the Empire.

SECTION F.

Severus completes Hadrian's Wall--Mile Castles--Stations--Garrison--Vallum--Rival theories--Evidence--Remains--Coins--Altars--Mithraism--Inscription to Julia Domna--"Written Rock" on Gelt--Cilurnum aqueduct.

F. 1.--It is to Severus, therefore, that we owe the final development of this magnificent rampart, the mere remains of which are impressive so far beyond all that description or drawing can tell. Only those who have stood upon the heights by Peel Crag and seen the long line of fortification crowning ridge after ridge in endless succession as far as the eye can reach, can realize the sense of the vastness and majesty of Roman Imperialism thus borne in upon the mind. And if this is so now that the Wall is a ruin scarcely four feet high, and, but for its greater breadth, indistinguishable from the ordinary local field-walls, what must it have been when its solid masonry rose to a height of over twenty feet; with its twenty-three strong fortresses[286] for the permanent quarters of the garrison, its great gate-towers[287] at every mile for the accommodation of the detachments on duty, and its series of watch-turrets which, at every three or four hundred yards, placed sentinels within sight and call of each other along the whole line from sea to sea?

F. 2.--Of all this swarming life no trace now remains. So entirely did it cease to be that the very names of the stations have left no shadow of memories on their sites. Luguvallum at the one end, and Pons Aelii at the other, have revived into importance as Carlisle and Newcastle,[288] but of the rest few indeed remain save as solitary ruins on the bare Northumbrian fells tenanted only by the flock and the curlew. But this very solitude in which their names have perished has preserved to us the means of recovering them. Thanks to it there is no part of Britain so rich in Roman remains and Roman inscriptions.

At no fewer than twelve of these "stations" such have been already found relating to troops whom we know from the 'Not.i.tia' to have been quartered at given spots _per lineam valli_. A Dacian cohort (for example) has thus left its mark at Birdoswald, and an Asturian at Chesters, thereby stamping these sites as respectively the _Amboglanna_ and _Cilurnum_, whose Dacian and Asturian garrisons the 'Not.i.tia' records. The old walls of Cilurnum, moreover, are still clothed with a pretty little Pyrenaean creeper, _Erinus Hispanicus_, which these Asturian exiles must have brought with them as a memorial of their far-off home.

F. 3.--Many such small but vivid touches of the past meet those who visit the Wall. At "King Arthur's Well," for example, near Thirlwall, the tiny chives growing in the crevices of the rock are presumably descendants of those acclimatized there by Roman gastronomy. At Borcovicus ("House-steads") the wheel-ruts still score the pavement; at Cilurnum the hypocaust of the bath is still blackened with smoke, and at various points the decay of Roman prestige is testified to by the walling up of one half or the other in the wide double gates which originally facilitated the sorties of the garrisons.

F. 4.--The same decay is probably the key to the problem of the "Vallum," that standing crux to all archaeological students of the Wall. Along the whole line this mysterious earthwork keeps company with the Wall on the south, sometimes in close contact, sometimes nearly a mile distant. It has been diversely explained as an earlier British work, as put up by the Romans to cover the fatigue-parties engaged in building the Wall, and as a later erection intended to defend the garrison against attacks from the rear. Each of these views has been keenly debated; the last having the support of the late Dr.

Bruce, the highest of all authorities on the mural antiquities. And excavations, even the very latest, have produced results which are claimed by each of the rival theories.[289]

F. 5.--Quite possibly all are in measure true. The "Vallum" as we now see it is obviously meant for defence against a southern foe. But the spade has given abundant evidence that the rampart has been altered, and that, in many places at least, it at one time faced northwards.

Though not an entirely satisfactory solution of the problem, the following sequence of events would seem, on the whole, best to explain the phenomena with which we are confronted. Originally a British earthwork[290] defending the Brigantes against the cattle-lifting raids of their restless northern neighbours, the "Vallum" was adapted[291] for like purposes by the Romans, and that more than once.

After being thus utilized, first, perhaps, by Agricola, and afterwards by Hadrian (for the protection of his working-parties engaged in quarrying stone for the outer fortifications), it became useless when the Wall was finally completed,[292] and remained a mere unfortified mound so long as the Roman power in Southern Britain continued undisturbed.

But when the garrison of the Wall became liable to attacks from the rear, the "Vallum" was once more repaired, very probably by Theodosius,[293] and this time with a ditch to the south, to enable the soldiers to meet, if needful, a simultaneous a.s.sault of Picts in front and Scots[294] or Saxons behind. Weak though it was as compared to the Wall, it would still take a good deal of storming, if stoutly held, and would effectually guard against any mere raid both the small parties marching along the Military Way[295] from post to post, and the cattle grazing along the rich meadows which frequently lie between the two lines of fortification.

F.6.--As we have said, the line of country thus occupied teems with relics of the occupation. Coins by the thousand, ornaments, fragments of statuary, inscriptions to the Emperors, to the old Roman G.o.ds, to the strange Pantheistic syncretisms of the later Mithraism[296], to unknown (perhaps local) deities such as Coventina, records of this, that, and the other body of troops in the garrison, personal dedications and memorials--all have been found, and are still constantly being found, in rich abundance. Of the whole number of Romano-British inscriptions known, nearly half belong to the Wall.[297]

F.7.--As an example of these inscriptions we may give one discovered at Caervoran (the Roman _Magna_), and now in the Newcastle Antiquarian Museum,[298] the interpretation of which has been a matter of considerable discussion amongst antiquaries. It is written in letters of the 3rd century and runs as follows:--

IMMINET LEONIVIRGO CAELES TI SITV SPICIFERA IVSTI IN VENTRIXVRBIVM CONDITRIX EXQVISMVNERIBVS NOSSECON

TIGITDEOS ERGOEADEMMATERDIVVM PAX VIRTVS CERES DEA SYRIA LANCEVITAMETIVRAPENSITANS IN CAELOVISVMSYRIASIDVSEDI DIT LIBYAE COLENDVMINDE CVNCTIDIDICIMVS ITAINTELLEXITNVMINEINDVCTVS TVO MARCVSCAECILIVSDO NATIANVS MILITANS TRIBVNVS INPRAEFECTODONO PRINCIPIS.

Here we have ten very rough trochaic lines:

Imminet Leoni Virgo caelesti situ Spicifera, justi inventrix, urbium conditrix; Ex quis muneribus nosse contigit Deos. Ergo eadem Mater Divum, Pax, Virtus, Ceres, Dea Syria, lance vitam et jura pensitans. In caelo visum Syria sidus edidit Libyae colendum: inde cuncti didicimus. Ita intellexit, numine inductus tuo, Marcus Caecilius Donatia.n.u.s, militans Tribunus in Praefecto, dono Principis.

This may be thus rendered:

O'er the Lion hangs the Virgin, in her place in heaven, With her corn-ear;--justice-finder, city-foundress, she: And in them that do such office G.o.ds may still be known. She, then, is the G.o.ds' own Mother, Peace, Strength, Ceres, all; Syria's G.o.ddess, in her Balance weighing life and Law. Syria sent this Constellation shining in her sky Forth for Libya's worship:--thence we all have learnt the lore. Thus hath come to understanding, by the G.o.dhead led, Marcus Caecilius Donatia.n.u.s Serving now as Tribune-Prefect, by the Prince's grace.

F. 8.--These obscure lines Dr. Hodgkin refers to Julia Domna, the wife of Severus, the one Emperor that Africa gave to the Roman world.

He was an able astrologer, and from early youth considered himself destined by his horoscope for the throne. He was thus guided by astrological considerations to take for his second wife a Syrian virgin, whose nativity he found to forecast queenship. As his Empress she shared in the aureole of divinity which rested upon all members of the Imperial family. This theory explains the references in the inscription to the constellation Virgo, with its chief star Spica, having Leo on the one hand and Libra on the other, also to the Syrian origin of Julia and her connection with Libya, the home of Severus.

It may be added that Dr. Hodgkin's view is confirmed by the fact that this Empress figures, on coins found in Britain, as the Mother of the G.o.ds, and also as Ceres. The first line may possibly have special reference to her influence in Britain during the reign of Severus and her stepson[299] Caracalla (who was also her second husband), Leo being a noted astrological sign of Britain.[300] The inscription was evidently put up in recognition of promotion gained by her favour, though the exact interpretation of _Tribunus in praefecto_ requires a greater knowledge of Roman military nomenclature than we possess.

Dr. Hodgkin's "Tribune instead of Prefect" seems scarcely admissible grammatically.

F. 9.--Another inscription which may be mentioned is that referred to by Tennyson in 'Gareth and Lynette' (l. 172), which

"the vexillary Hath left crag-carven over the streaming Gelt."[301]

This is one of the many such records in the quarries south of the Wall telling of the labours of the fatigue-parties sent out by Severus to hew stones for his mighty work, and cut on rocks overhanging the river. It sets forth how a _vexillatio_[302] of the Second Legion was here engaged, under a lieutenant [_optio_] named Agricola, in the consulship of Aper and Maximus (A.D. 207);[303] perhaps as a guard over the actual workers, who were probably a _corvee_ of impressed natives.

F. 10.--Yet another inscription worth notice was unearthed in 1897, and tells how a water supply to Cilurnum was brought from a source in the neighbourhood through a subterraneous conduit by Asturian engineers under Ulpius Marcellus (A.D. 160). That this should have been done brings home to us the magnificent thoroughness with which Rome did her work. Cilurnum stood on a pure and perennial stream, the North Tyne, with a ma.s.sively-fortified bridge, and thus could never be cut off from water; it was only some six acres in total area; yet in addition to the river it received a water supply which would now be thought sufficient for a fair-sized town.[304] Well may Dr. Hodgkin say that "not even the Coliseum of Vespasian or the Pantheon of Agrippa impresses the mind with a sense of the majestic strength of Rome so forcibly" as works like this, merely to secure the pa.s.sage of a "little British stream, unknown to the majority even of Englishmen."

SECTION G.