HADRIANS WALL

[THE FUGITIVE]

Hadrian's Wall (Latin: Vallum Aelium), also called the Roman Wall, Picts' Wall, or Vallum Hadriani in Latin, was a defensive fortification in the Roman province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the emperor Hadrian. It ran from the banks of the River Tyne near the North Sea to the Solway Firth on the Irish Sea, and was the northern limit of the Roman Empire, immediately north of which were the lands of the northern Ancient Britons, including the Picts.

It had a stone base and a stone wall. There were milecastles with two turrets in between. There was a fort about every five Roman miles. From north to south, the wall comprised a ditch, wall, military way and vallum, another ditch with adjoining mounds. It is thought the milecastles were staffed with static garrisons, whereas the forts had fighting garrisons of infantry and cavalry. In addition to the wall's defensive military role, its gates may have been customs posts.[1]

A significant portion of the wall still stands and can be followed on foot along the adjoining Hadrian's Wall Path. The largest Roman artefact anywhere, it runs a total of 73 miles (117.5 kilometres) in northern England.[2] Regarded as a British cultural icon, Hadrian's Wall is one of Britain's major ancient tourist attractions.[3] It was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.[4] In comparison, the Antonine wall, thought by some to be based on Hadrian's wall (the Gillam hypothesis),[5] was not declared a World Heritage site until 2008.[6][7]

It is a common misconception that Hadrian's Wall marks the boundary between England and Scotland. In fact Hadrian's Wall lies entirely within England and has never formed the Anglo-Scottish border.[8] While it is less than 0.6 miles (1.0 km) south of the border with Scotland in the west at Bowness-on-Solway, in the east it is as much as 68 miles (109 km) away.

Dimensions[edit]
Hadrian's Wall was 80 Roman miles or 117.5 km (73.0 mi) long;[9] its width and height varied according to the construction materials available nearby. East of the River Irthing, the wall was made from squared stone and measured 3 metres (10 feet) wide and 5 to 6 metres (16 to 20 feet) high, while west of the river the wall was originally made from turf and measured 6 metres (20 feet) wide and 3.5 metres (11 feet) high; it was later rebuilt in stone. These dimensions do not include the wall's ditches, berms and forts. The central section measured eight Roman feet wide (7.8 ft or 2.4 m) on a 3 m (10 ft) base. Some parts of this section of the wall survive to a height of 3 m (10 ft).

Immediately south of the wall, a large ditch was dug, with adjoining parallel mounds, one on either side. This is known today as the Vallum, even though the word Vallum in Latin is the origin of the English word wall, and does not refer to a ditch. In many places â€" for example Limestone Corner â€" the Vallum is better preserved than the wall, which has been robbed of much of its stone.

Route[edit]

Route of Hadrian's Wall

Sections of Hadrian's Wall remain along the route, though much has been dismantled over the years to use the stones for various nearby construction projects.
Hadrian's Wall extended west from Segedunum at Wallsend on the River Tyne, via Carlisle and Kirkandrews-on-Eden, to the shore of the Solway Firth, ending a short but unknown distance west of the village of Bowness-on-Solway.[10] The A69 and B6318 roads follow the course of the wall from Newcastle upon Tyne to Carlisle, then along the northern coast of Cumbria (south shore of the Solway Firth).

Although the curtain wall ends near Bowness-on-Solway, this does not mark the end of the line of defensive structures. The system of milecastles and turrets is known to have continued along the Cumbria coast as far as Risehow, south of Maryport.[11] For classification purposes, the milecastles west of Bowness-on-Solway are referred to as Milefortlets.

Purpose of construction[edit]

Hadrian's Wall facing east towards Crag Lough
Hadrian's Wall was probably planned before Hadrian's visit to Britain in AD 122. According to restored sandstone fragments found in Jarrow which date from 118 or 119, it was Hadrian's wish to keep "intact the empire", which had been imposed on him via "divine instruction".[12]

Although Hadrian's biographer wrote "[Hadrian] was the first to build a wall 80 miles long to separate the Romans from the barbarians", reasons for the construction of the wall vary, and no recording of an exact explanation survives.[13] Theories have been presented by historians, mostly of an expression of Roman power and Hadrian's policy of defence before expansion. On his accession to the throne in 117, Hadrian had been experiencing rebellion in Roman Britain and from the peoples of various conquered lands across the Empire, including Egypt, Judea, Libya and Mauritania.[12]

These troubles may have influenced Hadrian's plan to construct the wall as well as his construction of limites in other areas of the Empire, but to what extent is unknown. Scholars disagree over how much of a threat the inhabitants of northern Britain really presented and whether there was any economic advantage in defending and garrisoning a fixed line of defences like the Wall, rather than conquering and annexing what has become the Scottish Lowlands and defending the territory with a loose arrangement of forts.[12]

The limites of Rome were never expected to stop tribes from migrating or armies from invading, and while a frontier protected by a palisade or stone wall would help curb cattle-raiders and the incursions of other small groups,[14] the economic viability of constructing and keeping guarded a wall 72 miles (116 km) long along a sparsely populated border to stop small-scale raiding is dubious.[12]

Another possible explanation for the wall is the degree of control it would have provided over immigration, smuggling and customs.[12] Limites did not strictly mark the boundaries of the empire: Roman power and influence often extended beyond the walls.[12] People within and beyond the limes travelled through it each day when conducting business, and organised check-points like those offered by Hadrian's Wall provided good opportunities for taxation. With watch towers only a short distance from gateways in the limes, patrolling legionaries could have kept track of entering and exiting natives and Roman citizens alike, charging customs dues and checking for smuggling.[citation needed] Another theory is of a simpler varietyâ€"that Hadrian's Wall was partly constructed to reflect the power of Rome and was used as a political point by Hadrian. Once its construction was finished, it is thought to have been covered in plaster and then whitewashed: its shining surface reflected the sunlight and was visible for miles around.[12]

Construction[edit]
Construction started in AD 122[15] and was largely completed in six years.[16] Construction started in the east, between milecastles four and seven, and proceeded westwards, with soldiers from all three of the occupying Roman legions participating in the work. The route chosen largely paralleled the nearby Stanegate road from Luguvalium (Carlisle) to Coria (Corbridge), upon which were situated a series of forts, including Vindolanda. The wall in its central and best-preserved section follows a hard, resistant igneous diabase rock escarpment, known as the Whin Sill.


Roman fort and town at Corstopitum viewed along the Stanegate
The initial plan called for a ditch and wall with 80 small gated milecastle fortlets, one placed every Roman mile, holding a few dozen troops each, and pairs of evenly spaced intermediate turrets used for observation and signalling. However, very few milecastles are actually sited at exact Roman mile divisions: they can be up to 200 yards east or west because of landscape features or to improve signalling to the Stanegate forts to the south.[17] Local limestone was used in the construction, except for the section to the west of the River Irthing where turf was originally used instead, for unknown reasons; it was later rebuilt in stone. Milecastles in this area were also built from timber and earth rather than stone, but turrets were always made from stone. The Broad Wall was initially built with a clay-bonded rubble core and mortared dressed rubble facing stones, but this seems to have made it vulnerable to collapse, and repair with a mortared core was sometimes necessary.

The milecastles and turrets were of three different designs, depending on which Roman legion built them â€" inscriptions of the Second, Sixth, and Twentieth Legions, show that all were involved in the construction. The turrets were about 493 metres (539 yards) apart and measured 14.02 square metres (150.9 square feet) internally.[citation needed]

Construction was divided into lengths of about 5 miles (8.0 km). One group of each legion would excavate the foundations and build the milecastles and turrets and then other cohorts would follow with the wall construction. The wall was finished in 128.

"Broad Wall" and "Narrow Wall"[edit]

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Vallum at Hadrian's Wall near Milecastle 42 (Cawfields)
Early in its construction, just after reaching the North Tyne, the width of the wall was narrowed to 2.5 m (8.2 ft) or even less (sometimes 1.8 metres) (the "Narrow Wall"). However, Broad Wall foundations had already been laid as far as the River Irthing, where the Turf Wall began, demonstrating that construction worked from east to west. Many turrets and milecastles were optimistically provided with wider stub "wing walls" in preparation for joining to the Broad Wall, offering a handy reference for archaeologists trying to piece together the construction chronology.

Within a few years it was decided to add a total of 14 to 17 (sources[which?] disagree) full-sized forts along the length of the wall, including Vercovicium (Housesteads) and Banna (Birdoswald), each holding between 500 and 1,000 auxiliary troops (no legions were posted to the wall). The eastern end of the wall was extended further east from Pons Aelius (Newcastle) to Segedunum (Wallsend) on the Tyne estuary. Some of the larger forts along the wall, such as Cilurnum (Chesters) and Vercovicium (Housesteads), were built on top of the footings of milecastles or turrets, showing the change of plan. An inscription mentioning early governor Aulus Platorius Nepos indicates that the change of plans took place early on. Also, some time during Hadrian's reign (before 138) the wall west of the Irthing was rebuilt in sandstone to about the same dimensions as the limestone section to the east.


Cross section of the works
After most of the forts had been added, the Vallum was built on the southern side. The wall was thus part of a defensive system which, from north to south, included:

A row of forts built 5 to 10 mi (8.0 to 16.1 km) north of the wall, used for scouting and intelligence (e.g. Bewcastle Roman Fort)
a glacis and a deep ditch
a berm with rows of pits holding entanglements
the curtain wall
a later military road (the Military Way)
The Vallum.

Part of Hadrian's Wall from Housesteads showing the Knag Burn Gateway in the valley
Turf wall[edit]
From Milecastle 49 to the western terminus of the wall at Bowness-on-Solway, the curtain wall was originally constructed from turf, possibly due to the absence of limestone for the manufacture of mortar.[18] Subsequently, the Turf Wall was demolished and replaced with a stone wall. This took place in two phases; the first (from the River Irthing to a point west of Milecastle 54), during the reign of Hadrian, and the second following the reoccupation of Hadrian's Wall subsequent to the abandonment of the Antonine Wall (though it has also been suggested that this second phase took place during the reign of Septimius Severus). The line of the new stone wall follows the line of the turf wall, apart from the stretch between Milecastle 49 and Milecastle 51, where the line of the stone wall is slightly further to the north.[18]

In the stretch around Milecastle 50TW, it was built on a flat base with three to four courses of turf blocks.[19] A basal layer of cobbles was used westwards from Milecastle 72 (at Burgh-by-Sands) and possibly at Milecastle 53.[20] Where the underlying ground was boggy, wooden piles were used.[18]

At its base, the now-demolished turf wall was 6 metres (20 ft) wide, and built in courses of turf blocks measuring 18 inches (46 cm) long by 12 inches (30 cm) deep by 6 inches (15 cm) high, to a height estimated at around 3.66 metres (12.0 ft). The north face is thought to have had a slope of 75%, whereas the south face is thought to have started vertical above the foundation, quickly becoming much shallower.[18]