The stone fort visible today at Vindolanda [ 40], near Hadrian’s Wall, was not built until the 220s, replacing an earlier stone fort, built around a century earlier under Hadrian (117-38). Before that there had been a series of turf and timber forts, dating back at least to c. 90. to the sensational discovery of wooden writing tablets in waterlogged deposits associated with the timber forts, Vindolanda is now one of the most important Roman military sites in the Empire. Such wooden tablets rarely survive, and they provide a priceless window into the bureaucracy and correspondence that kept the Roman world functioning.
The tablets date mostly to the period c. 90-105, when the Ninth Cohort of Batavians and the First Cohort of Tungrians were stationed at Vindolanda. They include work rosters, letters both official and private, and the celebrated strength report of the First Cohort of Tungrians. ‘I have written to you several times’, complains Octavius, in a letter concerning money needed to pay for
Grain.34 In another, Florus seeks the urgent loan of an axe [ 38].35 Much the most moving, however, is the invitation from Severa to her friend, Sulpicia Lepidina, the wife of Flavius Cerealis, who commanded the Batavians [39].
Another letter discusses the thorny problem of how many wagons would be
Needed to transport stone.36 It is certainly not the only one to mention the transportation of commodities by road. The letter from Octavius mentions wagons and the memorable observation that he is not prepared to risk injury to
His animals dum viae male sunt, ‘while the roads are bad’. 37 Another letter (c. 180-200) from Martius asks Victor to write to him at Bremesio (probably Piercebridge), and if that is not possible to leave the letter at Cataractonium (Catterick). Victor seems to have been heading south from Vindolanda along Dere Street, perhaps on his way to York, or even to London.
38. Vindolanda (Northumberland).
Letter from Florus to Calavirus concerning a sealed box and the loan of an axe. (British Museum).
Letter from Claudia Severa inviting Sulpicia Lepidina to her birthday party. About 100. (British Museum).
To Sulpicia Lepidina (wife) of Cerealis, from Severa:
Claudia Severa, greetings to her Lepidina
On the third day before the Ides of September, sister, for the day of my birthday celebration, I give you a warm invitation to make sure that you come to us, to make the day more enjoyable for me by your arrival, if you are present. Give my greetings to your Cerealis. My Aelius and my little son send you their greetings. I shall expect you, sister. Farewell, sister, my dearest soul, as I hope to prosper and
Hail.38
Aerial view of the third-century fort, near Hadrian’s Wall. In the foreground, the civilian settlement (vicus) clusters around the road. The late first-century timber forts that produced the writing tablets lie at much lower levels.
BUILDING FRONTIERS
After the mid-8os, the story has to be pieced together from brief entries in other histories, and reconciled with the archaeology. Monumental inscriptions are rare until well into the second century. When the names of governors turn up in these sources, we often know nothing else about them. Only archaeology can fill the gap, but it cannot create history.
Agricola’s efforts marked a watershed in Roman Britain’s history. There was no attempt to consolidate or hold on to the remoter territory he had won over six or seven hard years of campaigning. But had he ever really won it? The network of roads and forts in the Southern Uplands of Scotland suggests fairly comprehensive control. Further north, the line of advance marked by forts like Cargill, Cardean, Inverquharity and Stracathro suggests that Agricola had only a tenuous hold on the eastern coastal strip. Most of northern Scotland was untouched by the campaign, and it remained that way for the rest of the Roman period. Even in the Southern Uplands many of the new or remodelled forts, like Newstead, were destroyed in the first decade of the second century, probably by the army as it pulled back. The withdrawal of II Adiutrix Pia Fidelis by the late 80s reduced Britain’s legionary garrison permanently to three. Trajan had bigger fish to fry in the East and in Dacia. Britain, in short, was a sideshow.
If Rome ever had designs on conquering all of Britain, this was when they ended. The period 84 to 122 covered the last 12 years of Domitian’s reign and that of the short-lived, elderly emperor, Nerva (96-98), the whole of the reign of Trajan (98-117), and the first five years of Hadrian’s reign (117-38). It saw the transition from dynastic rule to an age in which emperors chose their heirs from suitable candidates and adopted them as sons. The Empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan with the conquests of Parthia and Dacia, before Hadrian abandoned some of the latest additions and consolidated the frontiers.
We have occasional glimpses of Britain in this period. Suetonius mentions a governor of Britain under Domitian called Gaius Sallustius Lucullus. Lucullus had invented a new type of spear, but was foolish enough to name it the Lucullean.32 The paranoid Domitian promptly had him executed. Lucius Neratius Marcellus is named as a governor of Britain on a military diploma of 19 January 103, and also turns up in Pliny the Younger’s letters, as well as on one of the writing tablets discovered at the fort of Vindolanda (Northumberland).33 The Vindolanda writing tablets are an immensely important resource, but they represent only fragments of archives held at a single fort site on the northern frontier around the end of the first century. None of these references, however, tell us what military policy Marcellus conducted in Britain.
The Roman army maintained a considerable presence in northern England. The pivotal installations were at Corbridge and Carlisle to the west, with a road (today called the Stanegate) running between them [ 41]. Forts were dotted along the Stanegate and throughout northern England, administered from the legionary fortresses at York and Chester [ 42]. The Agricolan lead pipes of 79 at Chester show that the fortress there was certainly in operation by that date [ 43]. By 107, the IX legion was erecting stone gates at its fortress at York and installing monumental inscriptions. Building work was piecemeal and could stretch out over a very long period of time, depending on the legion’s other responsibilities. Chester’s construction was seriously disrupted. During the late first century this was probably due in part to being garrisoned by IIAdiutrix, while the XX legion was in Scotland with Agricola. By c. 89, the XX had taken over, but also had other responsibilities on the northern frontier. It was certainly engaged on Hadrian’s Wall in the 120s.
41. Corbridge (Northumberland).
A short stretch of the Stanegate at Corbridge (Coria) is visible on the site today. This road played a key role in maintaining Roman military control of what is now northern England under Trajan (98-117).
Plan of the legionary fortress at Chester (Deva), which included the unusual ‘elliptical building’ (E), headquarters (H) and baths (B). The fortress was begun c. 76 by IIAdiutrix, but occupied by the XX, which completed it, from c. 87.
This section of lead pipe from the fortress at Deva names the governor, Agricola, showing that building work had begun by the early 80s. The lead had probably been extracted from the lead mines in northern Wales.
Conquest had been replaced with consolidation. To the south, towns were developing, along with a Romanized countryside, though it is a moot point as to what extent urban life pervaded indigenous culture. The former fortresses at Gloucester and Lincoln became colonies, probably under Domitian.39 It is likely that Lincoln became a colony after the IX legion moved on to York and once IIAdiutrix had pulled out, sometime before 89. In the north, the infrastructure of a permanent military zone was being established, though it extended into the south as well. The Vindolanda tablets paint a picture of a world of intermittent skirmish warfare in which the Britons were irritants, not a strategic threat. Officers and their families indulged themselves in hunting and social events. Soldiers were being permanently detached to duties on the governor’s staff at London, where a fort had been built to house them. They administered police duties throughout the province, and along with their supplies formed a major part of the traffic that moved about the road network.
THE WALLS
The withdrawal from Scotland created a rather vague state of affairs, in which the auxiliary garrisons of forts like Vindolanda on the Stanegate maintained a status quo. The arrangements lacked a clear purpose, and also meant that large numbers of troops were scattered across the north. They spent much of their time guarding against minor incursions by bands of opportunists, or policing normal tribal activities, including trade, cattle movements and passage to seasonal settlements. The tombstone of Titus Pontius Sabinus, a centurion with the North African legion III Augusta, records that he had commanded vexillations of three other legions on a ‘British expedition’ between 117 and the late 120s.40 Hadrian’s biographer said that when the emperor came to power in 117, ‘the Britons could not be Restrained under Roman control’, and coins struck c. 119 depict Britannia.41 So it seems that the endless frontier skirmishes may have developed into more serious warfare.
By 117, the practical costs of conquest had become unsustainable. Trajan’s wars in Parthia and Dacia had stretched the Empire too far. Hadrian decided to consolidate the frontiers and bring an end to expansion, though he was largely formalizing what was already the case. Hadrian arrived in Britain in or around 122, and instituted what is today the most visible evidence of Rome’s presence in the island. He had arrived from Germany where he had seen at first-hand the consequences of complacent frontier troops with nothing but routine garrison work to do: lax discipline, corruption, self-indulgence, and a lack of military standards. In Britain the position must have been similar, but Hadrian ordered the construction of a permanent frontier [45]. Britain was not the only place where he did this, but it was the only place where the frontier was to be in stone. The line chosen, a little north of the Stanegate, was short enough at 80 Roman miles (119 km, or 74 miles) for this to be manageable, though to begin with only half was built in stone. The Wall was supposed to ‘divide’ Romans and barbarians.42 Of course, it was more complex than that. A major military project would revive a sense of purpose in the British garrison, and would help compensate for the uneven distribution of forces amongst scattered forts. The design of the Wall shows that it was not an impenetrable frontier, but allowed supervised movement [44].
44* Wallsend (Northumberland).
Reconstructed view of the fort at Segedunum. Wallsend, and the stretch of Wall leading to it from Newcastle, was an addition designed to guard a long stretch of the Tyne. The garrison was the 500-strong part-mounted Fourth Cohort of Lingones.
45- Housesteads (Northumberland). Hadrian’s Wall, looking west. Milecastle 37 (see ‘Hadrian’s Wall’) is visible in the foreground. The Wall builders exploited the landscape so that the frontier commanded the high ground, overlooking steep drops to the north.
The new governor of Britain, Aulus Platorius Nepos (122-26),
Administered the great project, and brought with him from Lower Germany a new legion for Britain’s garrison, VI Victrix. The IX legion had gone by this time, but whether it had been withdrawn several years before for other duties, or was simply changing places, is unknown. What is certain is that IX more or less disappears from the record. The old idea that it had been lost in Britain is no longer considered credible.
The construction of the Wall involved many of Britain’s legionaries throughout the 120s. Most of the initial work was carried out under Nepos, though it is possible that work extended into the governorship of Lucius Trebius Germanus, who was in post by August 127. Despite the fact that modifications were clearly being made in the 130s, by the time Hadrian died the Wall was an operational frontier. Although the Roman administration regarded the territory beyond the Wall as part of the Empire, it was clear where practical power ended.
Ironically, within a few years Hadrian’s Wall was mothballed, and the frontier transferred north to the same Forth-Clyde line that had tantalized Agricola three generations before. In 138, Antoninus Pius succeeded Hadrian and faced trouble in Britain. In or around 139, the governor Quintus Lollius Urbicus was obliged to ‘drive back the barbarians’ and build ‘another wall, of turf’.43 Inscriptions from the Antonine Wall confirm that this was the wall he built, and inscribed stones at other forts show that building work went on elsewhere, including at High Rochester, Birrens, Strageath and Newstead. Newstead was rebuilt as a major stone fort, with evidence that its garrison was divided, perhaps between a legionary vexillation and a cavalry regiment. The Southern Uplands of Scotland were being reincorporated into the military infrastructure of northern Britain. Perhaps the arrangements on Hadrian’s Wall had proved overwhelmingly frustrating to tribal peoples who found their way of life unacceptably disrupted, or perhaps they were simply provoked by the appearance of a frontier and its garrison. The other possibility is that the Wall was too unwieldy to garrison effectively.
The Antonine Wall, at 60 km (37 miles), was shorter and simpler than Hadrian’s Wall [49, 50]. Although it had a forward ditch, there were no turrets or a Vallum. An important series of coins depicting Britannia was issued, all dating to the year 143 (see Chapter 4, ‘Britannia’), exactly one century after the original invasion. The new Wall marked the largest formal extent Roman Britain ever reached. It has produced a series of elaborate inscriptions recording the building work by the various legions [ 51],
Including a vexillation of XXII Primigenia An enigmatic series of Britannia coins was struck in 154, but it is unknown if these refer to specific warfare or were just distributed as a special issue in Britain, which is where almost all of them turn up. The Antonine Wall was held for around a generation, but in the 160s it was given up and Hadrian’s Wall became the permanent frontier. The forts in Scotland were, for the most part, systematically dismantled and their sites cleared before the army withdrew. The recent exploratory excavations at Drumlanrig, near Dumfries, illustrate perfectly how the installation had been levelled, confirming a picture found elsewhere, for example at Strageath.
The turf Antonine Wall was originally designed to have six forts, possibly of stone and interspersed with fortlets, but the plan was changed to have a turf-and-timber fort every 3.2 km (2 miles), though the total number remains uncertain. No evidence for turrets or towers has been found, and there was no Vallum as on Hadrian’s Wall. The Wall was built c. 13943.
50. The Antonine Wall (Dunbartonshire).
Today only weathered sections of the Antonine Wall’s turf rampart and forward ditch survive to mark the short-lived northernmost frontier of Roman Britain.
51. Old Kilpatrick (Dunbartonshire).
Relief from the Antonine Wall, recording completion of 4,411 Roman feet of frontier by the XX legion. About 139-43.
The civilian world also provides us with a watershed in the 140s. Brough-on-Humber was a small town on the Humber estuary that thrived on river trade and ferry traffic. At around this time a civic magistrate, Marcus Ulpius Januarius, paid for a new stage for the town theatre, recorded on an inscription, the last of its type from Britain. From now on there were few major public or military building projects. The first half of the second century was the high water mark of Roman Britain’s public and military life. The rest of Roman Britain’s history would be very different, and no less remarkable.
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