He got here, he noticed, and he constructed a wall, in keeping with the Historia Augusta (HA). In AD 122, Hadrian (r. 117-138) turned solely the second serving emperor to go to Britain. We’re advised that he ‘corrected many abuses and was the primary to construct a wall, 80 miles in size, which was to separate the barbarians from the Romans’. On the power of this report within the HA, which was in all probability compiled greater than 200 years after Hadrian’s loss of life, 2022 is the 1,900th anniversary of not solely the emperor’s tour to Britain, but additionally the order to erect probably the most well-known monument to bear his title. Whereas the normal begin date of 122 remains to be generally used – and can also be the premise for a welcome collection of occasions commemorating the frontier – specialists are more and more cautious about the place exactly the choice to construct the Wall falls amid the occasions besetting Britain throughout this period. A distinct begin date may have essential implications for a way we view the Wall.
What’s in a 12 months?
It’s clear that Britain skilled violence at across the time of Hadrian’s go to. The HA notes that ‘the Britons couldn’t be stored underneath Roman sway’ following Hadrian’s accession. Different straws within the wind embrace an expeditio Britannica or army taskforce being despatched to Britain with 3,000 reinforcements, a tombstone from Vindolanda fort – simply south of Hadrian’s Wall – referring to the loss of life of a centurion ‘in warfare’, and the arrival of a brand new legion, the VI Victrix. Many years later, a correspondent of the emperor Marcus Aurelius (r. 161-180) used Britain throughout Hadrian’s reign as an illustration of extreme Roman troop losses. That at the least a few of this turmoil is related to understanding the origins of the Wall is indicated by an inscription fragment discovered reused at Jarrow. The reconstructed textual content, which can as soon as have graced a victory monument at Wallsend, states that ‘after the barbarians had been dispersed and the province of Britain recovered, he [presumably Hadrian] added a frontier line’.
One of many challenges going through Wall specialists is attempting to set these occasions in chronological order. Maybe the best unknown is the date of the expeditio Britannica. A few years have been proposed, however – because the late Anthony Birley noticed – an emperor would usually be personally current. That makes 122 the almost certainly candidate, as a result of Hadrian was in Britain. On the face of it, this enables a promising state of affairs to be proposed: the hostilities famous initially of Hadrian’s reign had been delivered to a detailed by an expeditio in 122, after which order was restored and the Wall constructed. This matches properly with diplomas issued to retiring veterans on 17 July 122. An unprecedentedly giant variety of army models in Britain discharged troops then, maybe as a result of phrases of service had been prolonged to quell a previous disaster. The diplomas additionally title Aulus Platorius Nepos, the brand new governor of Britain, who seems on constructing inscriptions from the Wall. By this studying, the Wall may very well be a broadly profitable expression of Hadrian’s devotion to – because the HA put it – ‘sustaining peace all through the world.’
As has lengthy been appreciated, although, it appears probably that there was an earlier cessation of combating in Britain. A Roman victory c.119 would match with coin problems with round that point that includes Britannia and destined for circulation within the province. A programme of road-building was additionally underneath means in 119-121. Each initiatives make sense as measures to help post-conflict reconstruction. Most importantly, Erik Graafstal has just lately made a case for a number of components of Hadrian’s Wall being accomplished previous to Hadrian and Nepos’ arrival in 122. That will almost certainly require constructing to be underneath means in 121, whereas the preparatory work of planning, surveying, troop actions, and logistics may simply have taken a 12 months or two, doubtlessly pointing to a call being made c.119. But when a victory was achieved then, how can we clarify the necessity for an obvious expeditio in 122, and the amount of models discharging veterans in the summertime of that 12 months?
This has raised suspicions of a second warfare. In that case, a robust chance is that quite than Hadrian’s Wall restoring order, work on the barrier system introduced violence to a head as soon as extra. We all know that it minimize by means of a well-populated area, that means that native political, working, and spiritual landscapes would all have been fractured. The Wall has additionally been implicated within the collapse of a long-standing agricultural neighborhood, which lay to the north on the Northumberland coastal plain (see CA 277). Native teams residing close by had a lot to lose, then, offering a strong motive for resistance.
What this boils right down to is {that a} begin date in 122 may see the Wall serving to to usher in a interval of relative stability, whereas work commencing in 121 appears a greater match with it upsetting an eruption of violence. Right here, in its starkest sense, is the conundrum going through trendy students looking for to grasp the preliminary impression of Hadrian’s Wall: warfare or peace?
Additional data For extra details about the 1,900th anniversary commemorations, go to https://1900.hadrianswallcountry.co.uk. Matthew Symonds is the writer of Hadrian’s Wall: creating division (Bloomsbury, 2021).
