What is the Evidence for the Roman Occupation of the Antonine Wall?

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What is the Evidence for the Roman Occupation

of the Antonine Wall?

        In 138 AD Antoninus Pius succeeded Hadrian as Emperor of Rome and immediately initiated a change of frontier policy in Britain. After re-conquering the Lowlands, Antoninus decided to build a wall to rival that of his predecessor to mark the new northern extent of Roman territory and Hadrian’s Wall was abandoned. The Antonine wall spans the narrowest portion of lowland Scotland, between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde, and the whole exercise probably had a propaganda view point, as expanding the empire would have improved Antoninus’ reputation and credibility. However, the events only rated a single sentence in Capitolinus’ biography of Antoninus: ‘Through his legates he carried on many wars; for he conquered the Britons through Lollius Urbicus the governor, and, after driving back the barbarians, built another wall, of turf.’ As the Antonine wall was built of turf it’s identity with the quote is reasonably certain.

There is evidence to suggest that Antoninus probably needed a quick military success and that the decision for the construction of a new frontier was made as early as 139 AD. An inscription at Corbridge shows that Lollius Urbicus was making preparations for the campaign in 139 AD and coins of Antoninus show that the re-conquest of the Lowlands had been completed by late 142 or early 143 AD. Corbridge had been the site of one of Agricola’s bases and at this time was re-garrisoned and re-equipped, and as earlier military aspects of Corbridge’s history always reflect events happening in Scotland, it is reasonably safe to assume it was being used as a supply route to move further north. The inscription of 139 AD and another of 140 AD show important building was in progress and further inscriptions record the re-building of Risingham and High Rochester forts. Although there are no accurately dated inscriptions, archaeology shows that rebuilding also took place at, or near, several  previously occupied sites. This indicates that the military occupation of the Lowlands was reasserted almost as strongly as in Flavian times, but much greater use was made of fortlets rather than full forts.

        The Antonine Wall itself is 59km long and runs from the fort at Old Kilpatrick on the Clyde to Bridgeness on the Forth, ending a short distance west of the fort of Carriden. For most of its length it provided excellent command of the ground, with wide views to the north and in front there was a broad ditch up to 12 metres wide and 3.5metres deep. The frontier consisted of forts, fortlets, signal platforms and the military way (a supply road) and there were also outpost forts at each end. It is known from archaeology and aerial photography that there were fourteen forts along the line of the wall but the spacing suggests that originally there were eighteen or nineteen and there is also evidence of substantial variations in size. It has also been noted that the spacing between the forts is quite close, 3.2km apart, as opposed to 8-12km apart on Hadrian’s Wall.

        The fort at Mumrills was big enough for a cohort of 1,000 men and Old Kilpatrick, Balmuildy, Castlecary, Bar Hill and Cadder are large enough for cohorts 500 strong or even more. The other forts, Bearsden, Westerwood, Croy Hill, Rough Castle and Duntocher, where the area is known, are much smaller and could only have held parts of larger units. However some of the evidence is quite confusing. For example, an inscription was found at Rough Castle relating to Cohors VI Nerviorum, but it certainly could not have held the whole unit and Castlecary has produced inscriptions of two cohorts. On the other hand, at Mumrills inscriptions for Ala I Tungrorum and Cohors II Thracum were found which were smaller than expected, each 500 strong, and there is no reason to believe that they were in garrison together.

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There is also evidence to suggest that, like Hadrian’s Wall, the occupation of the Antonine Wall system was subject to changes during construction. In 1975 J. P. Gillam discovered that structural evidence showed several of the larger forts were earlier than the Wall, and most of the small forts were later than the Wall.  This indicates that, originally, it was perhaps planned in a similar way to Hadrian’s Wall, with large forts at about 12km intervals and mile forts in between, but the change in plan involved a closer grouping of garrisons in additional small forts. Frere suggests that a ...

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