This review is of Hadrian’s Wall by David J. Breeze and Brian Dobson. Reading this book was prompted by visiting Birdoswald Roman Fort, on Hadrian’s Wall, during a recent holiday to the Lake District. I have also read more widely about the Romans in Britain.
Hadrian’s Wall is divided into seven chapters titled The Concept of a Frontier, The Building of Hadrian’s Wall, The Antonine Wall, The Two Walls, The Army of the Wall, Life on the wall and The Third and Four Centuries.
There is a short conclusion chapter and extensive appendices covering Roman Emperors and Governors of Britain, The regiments of Hadrian’s Wall, The Gods Worshipped on the Wall, The Roman Names of the Forts on Hadrians Wall and The Evidence on the Ground.
Emperor Hadrian’s plan to build a wall at a boundary was a novelty in the Roman Empire, to that point the Roman army had acted on the implicit assumption that the boundary was the end of the land. They fought battles with mobile units with forts to provide over-winter accommodation for the following year’s fighting. Hadrian made boundaries in both Britain and Germany. They were not strictly fortification, they served to control access in and out of Roman control rather than anticipating pitched battles on the line of the wall.
Perhaps disappointingly for the British, the Roman Emperors tended to stage military actions for their own advancement, Britain sometimes provided a useful arena but more often Roman Emperors were looking to the Middle East. The Emperor Hadrian (117-138AD) had pulled back troops from Britain to fight elsewhere and planned the Wall to define the Roman area of interest in Britain.
Construction of the Wall proper started around 122AD. It was built over a relatively short period, perhaps 3 or 4 years. The Wall followed on from the older Stanegate Roman road which followed roughly the same line but a little further south. The wall itself is relatively wide, 3 metres, certainly wide enough for patrolling but not for fighting. It was built to a clear masterplan with regularly spaced milecastles (small forts), turrets and gates. A series of larger forts were added to the Wall include Birdosvald, Chesters and Vindolanda. The system of forts extends beyond the wall at the Cumbria end, down to Maryport and the is some evidence for a few forts on the North Sea coast. Breeze and Dobson include much minutiae of the construction of the wall and forts, trying to identify which parts were built by which of the several military units. The plan changed during the construction of the wall with the width reducing part way through. A “vallum”, a bank and ditch earthwork, was added south of the Wall a few years after initial construction in around 130AD.
Work on Hadrian’s wall stopped immediately on the death of Hadrian in 138AD, he was succeeded by Antonius Pius, his adopted son, who started work on his own Wall, the Antonine Wall. Although there is no evidence it seems likely that the construction was a question of military prestige, most likely backed by local generals bored of simply manning a wall. The Antonine Wall was of turf on a stone base, similarly forts had turf ramparts although might contain, it runs between the Forth and Clyde estuaries and is approximately half the length of Hadrian’s Wall. Hadrian’s Wall was largely abandoned when the Antonine Wall was built.
There’s very little written evidence for what was going on in Britain in the mid to late 2nd century. Hadrian’s Wall was reoccupied in 158AD and the Antonine Wall abandoned by the mid 160s. It seems there was some sort of uprising in southern Scotland in the last two decades of the second century.
There is quite a lot known of the structure and career paths in the Roman army, along with the standards for building forts. In the early years these don’t seem to have been greatly adapted for Northern Britain – they contain verandas to protect from the sun! Most notably Hadrian’s Wall was largely manned by auxiliary units largely drawn from the local population. Members of these units signed up for 25 years of service, with 60% surviving the full term. Auxiliary unit members were rewarded with citizenship at the end of their term. Breeze and Dobson note that promotion was often down to personal recommendations and client/patron relationships. We also know a fair amount about life on the Wall from archaeology, including the famous Vindalonda written tablets. Auxiliary soldiers may well have had wives and children who lived outside the walls of the fort or perhaps even inside in the later period of the Roman occupation.
The early third century was tumultuous for the Roman Empire in the early third century although Britain was largely outside of this, over the years. Later in the century there was fighting with the Picts. The Romans finally left Britain in 411AD, or at least that’s when they stopped paying their soldiers in Britain. It is likely individuals remained in place in the area around the wall after this date. Their departure was due problems closer to home in Rome, rather than being militarily pushed out.
It is difficult to recommend this book to the general reader. It seems more directed to the professional by including a lot of very detailed information on, for example, the proportions of forts whilst scarcely touching, for example, on where troop disposition information comes from. There are no scene building asides referencing the researchers the authors have met which is perhaps unsurprising since that was not the style for books like this when it was initially published in 1974, this edition is from 1999.
