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BRITAIN’s GREATEST BUILDING PROJECT – HADRIAN’s WALL1 Rupert Jackson’s talk to a group of judges on the evening of 20 April 2021 This talk is in three parts: 1 – Introduction 2 – The Wall 3 – The Legacy. PART 1. INTRODUCTION In the spirit of the times, I must begin by saying that slavery, empires, colonies and conquests are all very bad things. Rome was a serial offender on each of those fronts. It can only be a matter of time before protestors demand the obliteration of all Roman monuments. The mindset of the ancient world was about as far away as it is possible to be from the sensitivities of modern times. I ask you to set aside those sensitivities and to step back in time more than 2,000 years. The Roman Empire emerged almost by accident. Rome began as a small community around the Palatine Hill. It battled against the Etruscans and then against other communities in Italy. In the struggle for survival, someone had to come out on top and it was Rome. There was then a struggle for survival against the other great powers of the Mediterranean, principally Carthage and Macedonia. Again, someone had to come out on top and it was Rome. By 100 BC, Rome was the dominant power across the Mediterranean. But that was not a stable situation. Hostile tribes were massing in the hinterlands of Spain, Gaul, central Europe, the Balkans and Asia. The only way of achieving long term security was by conquest and control. That is precisely what happened in the first century BC, when the Empire expanded massively. A series of generals with super-commands won spectacular victories in those hinterlands. Each was driven by burning personal ambition. The result was an Empire which embraced Western Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, i.e. almost all the known world. There were several reasons for Rome’s astonishing success. (i) A highly effective professional army after the Marian reforms in 107 BC. (ii) Exceptional engineering skills. These enabled the army to create the infrastructure of Empire – roads, bridge, viaducts and cities. (iii) A mature legal system, which included a law of contract. More thoughtful Romans wondered why they had got this vast Empire. The answer was obvious: the will of the gods. The belief that Rome had a divine mission to rule the world was most eloquently expressed in Virgil’s Aeneid. In book 1, Jupiter tells the other gods his plan for Rome: ‘Imperium sine fine dedi’. This is the theme of all twelve books. Such was the mindset of the Roman authorities in AD 43 when they set about annexing Britain. Britain was the last major province to join the Empire and – four centuries later – the first major province to drop out. During those four centuries we stood on the fringe of the Empire. A convenient place to banish miscreants. Also senior politicians who made a nuisance of

1 For further reading, see my recently published ‘Roman occupation of Britain and its legacy’: www.bloomsbury.com/9781350149373/

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themselves could be despatched to govern Britain. This kept them out of the way for a few years. It was in Britain that the Roman army met its match. They successfully subdued England and Wales, but were never able to annexe Scotland – despite successive campaigns by top generals. Hence the need for Hadrian’s Wall.

PART 2. THE WALL This was a single structure some 75 miles long. It ran from the mouth of the River Tyne in the east to Solway Firth in the west. Built on the orders of the Emperor Hadrian, when he visited Britain in AD 122. He decided that it should be built just to the north of Stanegate Road – the road linking Corbridge to Carlisle. There was already a line of forts along that road, including the famous Vindolanda fort. Frontiers of the Empire. Before we delve into the details of the wall, let us look at the context. Every empire needs frontiers and they must be defined. The Romans used geographical features if they were roughly in the right place. The Atlantic Ocean was certainly in the right place. So that took care of the western frontier. Luckily, the Sahara Desert and the Atlas Mountains were also in the right place. So they formed much of the southern frontier. The eastern frontier was always going to be a headache. The only natural features were rivers and they could easily be crossed. It was the eastern frontier that ultimately led to Rome’s downfall. Northern frontier. During the Augustan age and the New Testament era, the English Channel formed a perfectly satisfactory northern frontier. Then came the conquest of Britain, which was a big mistake. Rome acquired a frontier problem which was wholly unnecessary. The result was Hadrian’s Wall – the most formidable structure on any of the imperial frontiers. It is now the largest surviving monument of the Roman Empire. Let’s now look at it. PHOTO 1 – one typical section of wall The wall was not a uniform structure. The eastern end was built of stone. The western end was originally built of turf, but a stone wall was soon substituted for the turf. For reasons which are no longer apparent some sections of the stone wall were broad, and some were narrow. The broad sections were about 3 metres wide. The narrow sections were about 2.5 metres wide. The original height of the wall appears to have been about 4 to 5 metres. Along most of the wall a ditch was dug on the north side. The ditch was V-shaped. It was about 8.4 metres wide at the top and about 2.7 metres deep. The gap between the wall and the ditch, known as the ‘berm’, was about 6 metres wide. The spoil thrown up from digging the ditch was piled on the north side to create a mound. At various points in the eastern part of the wall, pits have been found in the berm. Each pit held wooden stakes, pointing upwards and sharpened at their tips. All this meant that anyone attacking from the north would have to clamber over the mound, scramble down and up the sides of the ditch and then sprint across the berm. If they had the good fortune to reach the berm alive, they were still at risk of being impaled on the stakes. The central section of the wall stood on tall crags, which made any fortification to the north both impossible and unnecessary.

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PHOTO 2 – central section of wall Again, Rome was making use of natural features. To ensure even stationing of soldiers and to accommodate them, a series of forts and turrets was built along the whole length of the wall. The earliest fortlets were milecastles. These small structures stood at regular intervals along the length of the wall, on average one Roman mile (1.48 kilometres) apart. Each milecastle had gateways to the north and the south. The gateways

enabled Roman soldiers to pass through the wall, so that they could patrol the territory beyond. PHOTO 3 - milecastle In each stretch of wall between milecastles there were two turrets or watchtowers. They were about 6 metres square and built of stone. There is little evidence of roofing slates having been used. This suggests that the turrets were simply covered with thatch or other organic material. The weather in Cumbria and Northumberland can be pretty wet and miserable, even in the summer. Life would not have been pleasant for the soldiers on turret duty. PHOTO 4 - turret The soldiers who manned the wall were auxiliaries. Initially they all remained living in the forts previously established along Stanegate Road, for example at Corbridge and Vindolanda. Soon, however, it was decided that the soldiers who manned the wall should be garrisoned there. Accordingly, another substantial construction operation was put in hand. Nineteen primary forts and six secondary forts were built along the line of the wall. Some (like the milecastles), but not all, were astride the wall. The via principalis ran across the width of each fort with elaborate gates at both ends. The usual buildings stood inside. These included barracks, granaries, hospital, stores, stables, headquarters block and praetorium. The uniformity of the forts suggests that the architect in charge at each location was working from a standard manual, setting out the size and disposition of the internal buildings. On average the forts were 11.6 kilometres apart. That is half a day’s marching for a Roman soldier, probably a day’s walking for a modern rambler. You can see fine examples of these forts at Chesters, Housesteads and Birdoswald.

PHOTO 5 – Birdoswald fort PHOTO 6 – Possibly Housesteads (uncertain). In the later Roman period, it developed into a civilian community with more buildings. A bit of a jumble now. After the forts had been built, a wide flat-bottomed ditch was excavated on the south side of the wall along its entire length except between Newcastle and Wallsend. The ditch was about 6 metres wide at the top. It was 3 metres deep, with steeply sloping sides. The excavated material was placed on both sides to form two continuous mounds, each about 9 metres from the ditch. The Venerable Bede (writing soon after AD 700) called this entire earthwork the ‘Vallum’, which is Latin for rampart.2 It seems a bit odd to call a ditch a rampart. But Bede is highly regarded –

2 Ecclesiastical History of the English People 1.12

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indeed he is a saint – so everyone has followed suit. Two main roads crossed the Vallum and then passed through the wall, heading northwards. Access roads led up to the forts. In each instance, there was a causeway across the Vallum, with a gate in the middle. These arrangements emphasised the tight security at the frontier forts. What did people call Hadrian’s Wall? Until this century the name was a mystery. That changed in 2003 when someone walking in Staffordshire with a metal detector discovered a small vessel, which is now called the ‘Staffordshire Moorlands Pan’. An inscription round the side helpfully lists all forts at the western end of Hadrian’s Wall. Even more helpfully it refers to the wall as vallum Aelium. So now we know. Everyone called it the ‘Aelian Rampart’. Religion. The soldiers manning the wall were almost all auxiliaries. They came from Gaul, Belgium, Germany and other provinces. Conscripted and forced to serve far from home. They brought with them their own gods. Individual army units dedicated altars in Britain to all sorts of foreign deities, such as the Eastern god Jupiter Dolichenus, the German goddesses Ricagambeda and Viradecthis. The Batavians brought with them a god called Magusanus. He became quite popular and was sometimes identified with Hercules. This may have been gratifying for Magusanus but Hercules, that mighty hero of Greek and Roman mythology, must have hated being associated with an obscure little god from the Rhine. You can see dedications to all these gods dotted along Hadrian’s Wall.

PHOTO 7 – altar. Many along H’s Wall, to all manner of gods. What was the purpose of the Wall? The precise functions of the wall are a matter of keen debate amongst scholars. Most agree that one purpose was the prevention of raiding. The main controversy relates to its wider role, in particular, whether its primary purpose was defence. Given the scant literary references, our principal source must be the wall itself. It formed a continuous and almost impregnable barrier. It accommodated large numbers of auxiliary soldiers. It was linked into a network of forts which stretched across the north of England, all subject to control from York. The Brigantes were effectively pacified by the end of the first century. Most (but not all) tribes further north were hostile to Rome. Against that background, it is suggested that seven separate purposes of the wall can be discerned: (1) demarcation; (2) prevention of raiding; (3) military base; (4) border control; (5) revenue protection; (6) bulwark against invasion and (7) architectural display. (i) Demarcation. The construction of the wall brought to an end a difficult situation in which boundaries were fluid and ill-defined. From then on everyone in northern Britain knew what formed part of the formal Roman Empire and what (at least for the time being) did not. The wall emphatically did not mark the limit of Rome’s territorial ambitions. (ii) Prevention of raiding. The raiding of nearby territories was a perfectly normal pastime of Iron Age peoples. Many of the Iron Age hillforts were a bulwark against repeated attacks by raiding parties. The arrival of the Romans would have changed all that, at least in the areas under Roman control. The Iron Age communities now became respectable civitates with town councils and magistrates. But the Roman conquest would not have ended raiding between the lowland Scottish peoples and the Brigantes. The Stanegate Road did not form an impregnable barrier. Up until AD 122 brigands could still slip through by night. There can be little doubt that Hadrian’s Wall was intended to, and did, stop petty raiding. (iii) The wall served as a vast military base. Although the wall marked the boundary of the province, it did not operate like a modern frontier between hostile states, for example that between North and South Korea. The Romans were not confined to ‘their’ side of the wall.

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They patrolled territory and maintained forts in the regions north of the wall to such extent as was necessary to protect their interests. The wall was essentially a base, which the Romans used for operations both to the north and to the south. (iv) Border control. The wall and the area on either side formed a militarised zone with tight security, as described above. Civilian and other access was strictly forbidden, except at authorised crossing points. The Roman military controlled who entered and who left the province. The army stationed along Hadrian’s Wall constituted, in effect, the first border agency in Britain. It was rather more effective than some of its successors. (v) Revenue protection. Rome had always asserted the right to levy import and export taxes (portoria) on goods entering or leaving the Empire.3 The turrets and milecastles on Hadrian’s Wall were extremely useful for revenue protection. Any trader moving between Britannia and Scotland had to pass through one of those fortifications. If he did not pay the taxes due, the border guards could seize his goods. (vi) Bulwark against invasion. It was designed to be a formidable barrier. The total width of this barrier from the mound and ditch on the north side to the Vallum and mound on the south side was over 100 metres. The elaborate arrangement of the ditch, the berm, the pits and the sharpened stakes set inside the pits placed fearsome obstacles in the path of any invaders from the north. While the invaders were negotiating those hazards, the Roman guards would have had ample opportunity to hurl down javelins and other missiles. (vii) Architectural display. Hadrian was deeply interested in architecture. One of his driving ambitions was to build monuments across the Empire, by which he would be remembered. Hadrian’s Wall was far more elaborate than it needed to be for any of the purposes mentioned above. The structure contained many architectural features. The gates of the milecastles were intricately designed and crafted. They had towers and guard chambers on each side. The principia of the forts along the wall also contained much intricate detailing. It is hard to resist the conclusion that a large part of the purpose of Hadrian’s Wall was architectural display. This display was achieved both in matters of detail and by the sheer scale of the enterprise. The towering wall, with its line of turrets and milecastles stretching out of sight in both directions, was making a dramatic statement about the might of Rome. What was the effect of the wall? The principal question is whether the wall was a success from a military point of view. The answer must be no. Hadrian’s Wall was a magnificent piece of engineering and it served other purposes as indicated above, but militarily it was of little use. This was essentially for five reasons. First, the regular spacing of forts, milecastles and turrets along the wall at fixed intervals (probably dictated by Hadrian) was a triumph of rigidity over operational considerations. From a military point of view flexibility was needed. This is illustrated by the very different arrangements which were made on the Antonine Wall and by later modifications to Hadrian’s Wall. Secondly, Rome had not given up hope of conquering Scotland. Indeed, it would make periodic attempts to do so over the next two hundred years. The wall would be an obstacle in the path of Roman armies heading north. Thirdly, although the Romans maintained Hadrian’s Wall for three hundred years, they abandoned most of the turrets about half a century after building them. Because of the other fortifications, the turrets were of little utility. Fourthly, Hadrian’s Wall was not sensibly designed for the purpose of serving as a military base. The soldiers billeted there were divided between nineteen primary forts, six secondary forts and numerous milecastles. Fifthly, the military defence of Britain did not depend upon Hadrian’s Wall. The Roman army performed best in the open field. If any serious attack was looming, the commanders would deploy their troops in open country well north of Hadrian’s Wall, where their manoeuvrability would really count. Save

3 Strabo Geography, 4.5.3

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in rare and exceptional circumstances, the Roman army would not allow any sizeable enemy force to get anywhere near the wall. The next question to consider is the impact of the wall on the local population. This must have been disastrous. Some landowners were evicted to make way for the construction project. An even bigger problem was that the wall cut across the territory of the various Brigantian peoples. The construction of the wall must have split communities. Dedications to Brigantia have been found on both sides of the wall. The Goddess of the North would have been furious about this unnecessary barrier. There is evidence that one farm was actually sandwiched between the wall and the Vallum, like the lonely farmhouse which now sits between two carriageways of the M62 motorway. More generally, the Romans expected populations to be static. But they weren’t. Hadrian’s Wall interfered with the normal seasonal movements of people, such as bringing sheep down from the uplands for the winter. Local traders could only cross the frontier if the military gave permission. The border guards should have levied taxes, but they probably took bribes. All of this must have been devastating for the local populace. The one redeeming feature was that Hadrian’s Wall put an end to cross-border raiding by the lowland tribes. That must have come as a relief for the Brigantes, or at least for the majority who lived on the southern side. Nowadays Hadrian’s Wall is more popular. It generates revenue for local businesses. A footpath runs along the entire route of the wall. The views are stunning, except during fog or rain – which seem to be frequent. An excellent guide for the use of walkers is published by National Trail Guides. If you are planning a walk along the Wall, allow plenty of time for stopping to look at forts, milecastles and monuments. These breaks make the walk more like a holiday, and less like a route march. After Hadrian’s departure. After he had re-organised Britain to his satisfaction, Hadrian moved on to deal with the rest of his Empire. Wherever the Emperor went, he left a mountain of work to be done: there was certainly plenty for Britain to be getting on with. Having set sail for Gaul in AD 122, Hadrian never returned to our shores. This must have been a relief for those who were trying to run the province. Change of plan. Everyone happily spent the next 20 years wall-building. Then, when they had finished, along came another Emperor, Antoninus Pius. He decided that H’s Wall was in the wrong place. So he ordered that a new wall be built between the Clyde and Firth of Forth. That kept everyone busy for another 20 years. Antonine Wall. The Antonine Wall was largely built of turf – probably to improve drainage (a problem on H’s Wall). It was about 60 kilometres long, some 4.5 metres wide and 3 metres high. There were magnificent carvings at the end of each section – ‘distance slabs’. Forts were placed at strategic locations, not at fixed intervals. Hadrian’s Wall was now nuisance. It no longer served as a defensive barrier along the northern frontier of Britannia. Instead it straddled the province at a most inconvenient location: an obstacle in the way of troops who were heading northwards or southwards. To reduce this problem, gates were removed from all entrances of the milecastles. Also, the Vallum was filled in at points where soldiers would need to cross. Soil from the mounds on each side of the Vallum was used for this purpose, so that that a clear passage was created. Another change of plan. That arrangement kept everyone happy for another 20 years. Then the imperial government had another change of heart. The occupying army was over-stretched and the tribes of lowland Scotland were behaving badly. The government decided to abandon the Antonine Wall and to recommission H’s Wall. U turns by the people running Britain were as common then as they are now.

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There were subsequent attempts to conquer Scotland, principally under the Emperor Severus. But all attempts failed. Hadrian’s Wall remained the northern frontier of the province – and of the Empire – until the early fifth century.

PART 3. THE LEGACY OF HADRIAN’s WALL It is not obvious that during the Iron Age there was any stark ethnic division between the communities of highland Scotland, the communities of lowland Scotland and the various communities in the main part of the British island. But the Romans thought that there was. They used the term ‘Picts’ (Picti, meaning ‘painted men’) to describe the strange looking people, who lived north of the Clyde/Forth Isthmus The emergence of a separate Pictish identity appears to be a product of the Roman period. As Sally Foster observes in her history of medieval Scotland:4 ‘It is a remarkable achievement that such a geographically extended and diverse group of peoples as the Picts could have been identified as a grouping since the late Roman period. Equally extraordinary is the fact that this relationship should have survived the withdrawal of the Romans – the external threat which had first impelled the Iron Age tribes of Scotland to bond in adversity against a common enemy.’ In the fifth to tenth centuries there were numerous petty kingdoms in Scotland.5 Those in central and eastern areas gradually coalesced to become a political entity, Pictland, with the shared language P-Celtic. Meanwhile Irish peoples, variously described as ‘Scotti’ or ‘Gaels’, settled on the western side in the Argyll area. Their language was Q-Celtic or Gaelic. The Irish settlers became dominant. When a single kingdom emerged in the tenth century, it was known as ‘Alba’ or Scotland, not Pictland. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle referred to the kings of Alba as kings of the Scots. The language of that kingdom was Scottish Gaelic, a version of Q-Celtic. The Picts (who were in the majority) appear to have adopted the ethnicity of the Scotti, in the same way that the Britons further south (also in the majority) adopted the ethnicity of the Angles and the Saxons. Two large kingdoms emerged in the tenth century, England and Scotland, both taking their names and much of their culture from minority overseas settlers. The origin of the divide between England and Scotland lies in the Roman period. Ever since then, the separate identity of the top section of Britain has been acknowledged. Although England and Scotland were separate, the location of the boundary remained in dispute until 1237, when the Treaty of York established the Anglo-Scottish border roughly where it now is. The issue of Scottish independence6 The problem of how to deal with an independent Scotland first emerged in the Roman period. That has been a recurrent issue through sixteen hundred years of British history7 since the fall of Rome. It is no less topical today. Hadrian’s Wall symbolises the separateness of England and Scotland, but it does not mark, and has never marked, the actual line of the frontier. Hadrian’s Wall lies some way to the south of

4 Foster (2014) 146 5 Ibid chapters 3 and 7 6 With apologies to Lord Sumption, who sees the Scottish independence movement as

essentially a modern phenomenon: Law in a time of crisis (2021), chapter 5. 7 There was no separate Scottish Parliament between 1707 and 1999.

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the present border. But the sense of Scottish separateness from the rest of Britain and the demands for independence have their origins in the events of the Roman period.

Rupert Jackson 20 April 2021

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‘It is a remarkable achievement that such a geographically extended and diverse group of peoples as the Picts could have been identified as a grouping since the late Roman period. Equally extraordinary is the fact that this relationship should have survived the withdrawal of the Romans – the external threat which had first impelled the Iron Age tribes of Scotland to bond in adversity against a common enemy.’

Sally Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots: Early Historic Scotland (Birlinn Ltd, 2014)

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