| Antonine Wall, a Roman
frontier barrier in Britain extending for thirty-six and half miles across Scotland from Bidgeness on the Firth of Forth to Old Kirkpatrick on the river
Clyde, was built in ad 142 for the emperor Antoninus Pius [who ruled
the Empire from AD138 after the death of his adoptive father Hadrian
until his death in 161] by Lollius
Urbicus governor of Britain. Built of coursed turfwork on a kerbed
rubble bottoming, it was 14-16ft wide and probably 10ft high,
exclusive of any timber crenelation. A ditch of 40ft wide and over
12ft deep ran 20ft or more in front, and about 50yd to the rear was
a military road.
The wall was controlled from a
series of 19 forts placed at interval of about two miles; also from
fortlets, four of which are now known. Two pairs of stances for fire
signals faced north toward Stirling, one pair south toward
mid-Clydeside. The flanks of the wall were guarded by forts at
Cramond and Inveresk on the Forth and at Bishopton, north of
Paisley, on the Clyde, while at Lurg moor, south of Gourock, there
was a signal station. A road ran northward as far as Perth equipped
with signal stations and forts; the wall was thus the base of a line
of penetration which secured Fife and watched Strathmore.
The wall was built by the 2nd,
5th and 20th legions. It was garrisoned by auxiliary units,
sometimes part mounted and sometimes subdivided among the smaller
forts from which combined sallies could trap attackers against the
barrier. Occupation was interrupted during the northern revolt of
155-158; and the wall said by Dio Cassius (Historia Romana,
lxxii,8) to have been broken by enemy attack in 184 was probably
this one. It was systematically evacuated not late than 196.
Archaeologists have found evidence of one complete reconstruction,
and occasional signs of a second; but historical correlation has yet
been achieved only at Mimrills, linking the first reconstruction
with the events on 155-158.
Antonine Wall in Britannica
ii p94 |
