The Antonine Wall E-Book

David J. Breeze

• Herausgeber: Origin
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 270

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

As the most advanced frontier construction of its time, and as definitive evidence of the Romans' time in Scotland, the Antonine Wall is an invaluable and fascinating part of this country's varied and violent history. For a generation, from about AD 140 to 160, the Antonine Wall was the north-west frontier of the Roman Empire. Constructed by the Roman army, it ran from modern Bo'ness on the Forth to Old Kilpatrick on the Clyde and consisted of a turf rampart fronted by a wide and deep ditch. At regular intervals were forts connected by a road, while outside the fort gates clustered civil settlements. Antoninus Pius, whom the wall was named after, reigned longer than any other emperor with the exception of its founder Augustus. Yet relatively little is known about him. In this meticulously researched book, David Breeze examines this enigmatic life and the reasons for the construction and abandonment of his Wall.

Leseprobe

David Breeze is a former Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments in Historic Scotland and a past President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. He holds honorary professorships at the universities of Durham, Edinburgh, Newcastle and Stirling. He has written extensively on Roman Scotland, Hadrian’s Wall and the Roman army. He led the team which successfully nominated the Antonine Wall as a World Heritage Site in 2008.

DEDICATION

For Jamie Simon BreezeBorn 6 March 2006

This edition published in 2023 by

Origin, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd

West Newington House

10 Newington Road

Edinburgh

EH9 IQS

www.birlinn.co.uk

First published in 2006 by John Donald in association with Historic Scotland Subsequently reprinted by Birlinn Ltd in 2015

Copyright © David J. Breeze, 2006, 2023

The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978 1 788852 73 9

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is availablefrom the British Library.

Design: Mark Blackadder

Printed and bound by Gutenberg Press, Malta

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction

I.

Antoninus Pius

II.

Sources

III.

The Roman Army

IV.

The Invasion of Scotland

V.

The Antonine Wall

VI.

Military Deployment

VII.

Life on the Edge

VIII.

The Function of the Antonine Wall

IX.

The End of the Antonine Wall

X.

Grim’s Dyke

XI.

Final Thoughts

Appendices

I.

The regiments of the Antonine Wall

II.

The Roman names of the forts on the Antonine Wall

III.

The governors of Britain during the occupation of the Antonine Wall

IV.

Africans on the Antonine Wall?

V.

Where to see the Antonine Wall

Further Reading

Index

This distance slab, found at Braidfield, Duntocher, in 1826, records work by soldiers of the Sixth Legion. The plaque recording this is supported by two winged victories.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to Professor A. R. Birley, Dr Brian Dobson, Professor Bill Hanson and Professor Lawrence Keppie for reading and commenting on an earlier draft of this book and to Jackie Henrie for her usual efficient copy editing. I am also grateful to the following for kind permission to reproduce illustrations:

Auld Kirk Museum, Kirkintilloch 10.4, 10.5; The British Library 2.4; © The Trustees of the British Museum 1.1; Deutsche Limes-kommission 4.9, 5.3, 11.2; Falkirk Museum 7.7; Historic Scotland 2.8, 2.12, 4.1, 4.3, 5.2, 5.6, 5.8, 5.9, 5.10, 5.12, 5.13, 5.14, 5.16, 5.18, 5.19, 5.21, 6.1, 6.3, 6.4, 6.6, 6.9, 6.10, 6.12, 6.13, 6.14, 7.1, 8.1, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5, 8.6, 9.4, 10.1, 10.2, 10.7, A.1, A.2, A.3; Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow page VI,1.5, 1.7, 2.1, 5.7, 5.22, 6.8, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, 7.10, 9.3, 11.1, A.4; Angus Lamb 3.2, 4.6, 4.7, 6.15, 8.2, 8.6; the Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland 10.3; National Library of Scotland 2.5; the Trustees of the National Museums of Scotland 2.3, 4.4, 4.8, 5.4, 7.8, 7.9, 9.2; Ordinance Survey 4.5; Rômisch-Germanischen Zentral-museum, Mainz 3.1, 3.3; Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland 2.10, 4.9, 5.5, 6.2, 6.5; Society of Antiquaries of London 2.6, 2.7; Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 7.2; Vindolanda Trust 6.7. All other photographs are my own. I am further grateful to my colleagues Bryony Coombs and David Henrie for much help with the illustrations.

MEASUREMENTS

All measurements are given in metric with imperial in brackets. Where appropriate, Roman measurements are also provided. A straight translation from imperial to metric can sometimes be misleading as the original measurements were often not as precise as a detailed metric figure can imply. Some latitude has therefore been allowed, for example when ‘yards’ have been used to indicate an approximate distance. Metric measurements are given to the second decimal point, except where this detail has not been provided in the original excavation report.

INTRODUCTION

If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus.

EDWARD GIBBON,The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (London 1776)

A Roman state existed in one form or another for over 2,000 years. The traditional date for the foundation of Rome was 753 BC while Constantinople fell to the Turks in AD 1453. The empire of the Roman state grew slowly, but by the middle of the second century AD it completely encircled the Mediterranean Sea – Mare Nostrum, Our Sea – and included all or part of over thirty modern countries. It stretched for over 2,500 miles west to east from the Atlantic Ocean to modern Iraq, and for nearly 2,000 miles north to south from the Highlands of Scotland to the Sahara Desert.

Once aggressively expansionist, by the second century AD that process had slowed down. The Emperor Trajan (97-117) conquered Dacia and Parthia, but the new provinces in the east were abandoned by his successor Hadrian (117-38) and thereafter, with the exception of the Eastern conquests of Septimius Severus (193-211), there were to be no major new additions, though it was to be another 150 years before the contraction of the empire began. As the expansion slowed, the Romans started to construct frontiers to define and protect their empire. The process had begun by the late first century and reached its apogee with the building of the Antonine Wall in Scotland in the 140s. For a single generation, from 142 to the early 160s, the Antonine Wall stood as the north-west frontier of the Roman empire before, for a reason which we still do not know, it was abandoned.

The Roman empire in the time of the Emperor Antoninus Pius.

The Antonine Wall is one of only three artificial frontiers built by the Romans to protect their European provinces. The others are Hadrian’s Wall and the German limes. Elsewhere, in Dacia (modern Romania) and in north Africa, shorter lengths of bank and ditch, or stone wall, were used to control access to the empire but they are not as well explored and dated as the frontiers of north-west Europe. Enough is known, however, to indicate that these linear barriers owed their origins to Hadrian.

Hadrian’s Wall was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987. Ten years later, Germany started the long process to have their frontier ascribed as a World Heritage Site, succeeding in July 2005 when it was formally added to the list of about 800 Sites by UNESCO. At that point a new type of World Heritage Site came into existence, a multi-national Site, for UNESCO had decided not to elevate each section of the Roman frontier within each modern country to the status of a separate World Heritage Site, but to create a single Site embracing all sections of the frontier and all modern countries. This new World Heritage Site is called Frontiers of the Roman Empire, and, so far, consists of Hadrian’s Wall and the German limes. However, already several countries have announced their intention to nominate their sections of the frontier as part of this new World Heritage Site. These countries are Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia and the UK for the Antonine Wall.

In January 2003, the then Deputy Minister for Culture and Sport in Scotland, Dr Elaine Murray, announced that the Scottish Executive intended to nominate the Antonine Wall as a World Heritage Site. Preparations began immediately. Officials of Historic Scotland and all five of the local councils which include the Antonine Wall in their areas – East Dunbartonshire, Falkirk, Glasgow, North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire – are working closely to ensure that all necessary protective measures are in place and that a protective buffer zone for the monument is defined. These are two of the measures required by UNESCO. The potential World Heritage Site also needs to be defined in map form. The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland is preparing a new map which brings together the results of survey and excavation along the Antonine Wall over the last 250 years, and provides, through GIS and its own electronically-based archive, a tool for its better management – a further requirement of UNESCO.

There have been other initiatives in relation to the proposals. Mrs Patricia Ferguson, Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport, subsequently announced an education initiative in 2004. The aim is to see how schools might want to use the Antonine Wall in their teaching – in Chinese schools, World Heritage Sites are used as a vehicle for teaching modern citizenship. A booklet providing information on the nomination of the Antonine Wall was launched in 2004, and a second publication on the wider proposal to create a new Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site in 2005.

The purpose of this book is to provide an account of the Antonine Wall. The aim, however, is not just to describe the Wall, but to place it in its British and Roman imperial setting and consider its importance and significance. From one perspective, the Antonine Wall was a ‘normal’ frontier containing many features found elsewhere. From another, it has many unique or unusual elements. These include aspects of the structure itself. This, not unusually, was of turf, but it was uniquely erected on a stone base. The forts were closer together than on any other frontier and many had associated annexes. No annexes appear on Hadrian’s Wall and they are rare on the German frontier. In addition, there were ‘expansions’, probably serving as beacon-platforms, and small enclosures, unfortunately of unknown purpose, both unparalled on any other frontier. Many camps are known along the line of Hadrian’s Wall, but the long life of that frontier renders it difficult to distinguish between labour, marching and practice camps. The short life of the Antonine Wall allows us to see that most camps were constructed and used by the soldiers building the frontier. The distribution of these camps enables us to understand something of the process of building the frontier. Relating the camps to the surviving distance slabs provides another level of understanding about the division of labour. These distance slabs, of which twenty are known either whole or in part, record the lengths of Wall built by each of the three legions involved in the work. They are not, though, simple records, but highly decorated and sculptured stones which depict events and form the single most important collection of Roman military sculpture from any frontier of the Roman empire. They are a most significant element of Scotland’s historical heritage, as is the Antonine Wall itself.

The Antonine Wall was the most complex and highly developed of all frontiers constructed by the Roman army. It lay at the end of a development process which had started sixty years earlier in Britain and much earlier on the Continent. Following its abandonment, the army was never again to build such a complex frontier system, thus the Antonine Wall stands alone amongst all Roman frontiers. Its special position appears to have been recognised at the time for the distance slabs which record its construction and represent a brazen statement of imperialist aggression are a unique testimony on any frontier to the power and might of Rome.

The application to have the Antonine Wall added to the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site will not be decided until 2007-8. In the meantime, I hope that this book will provide information about a monument which can still be seen and explored today and which for twenty years was the north-west frontier of one of the world’s greatest states.

This book is not a detailed academic treatise about the Antonine Wall, nor is it a guide-book. Gordon Maxwell and Bill Hanson’s Rome’s North-West Frontier: The Antonine Wall (Edinburgh 1986) is still the most comprehensive and detailed modern account of the Wall, while the guide-book by Anne Robertson and Lawrence Keppie, The Antonine Wall, A Handbook to the Surviving Remains (Glasgow 2001) is indispensable for those wishing to follow the Wall on the ground. The aim of this book is to bring together the results of recent research and offer an account of the Antonine Wall and the man who ordered its construction.

Note: This book has been reprinted as originally published, with the exception of the Further Reading, which has been updated.

Fig. 1.1 Antoninus Pius.

ANTONINUS PIUS

Antoninus never willingly made war ...

PAUSANIAS,Description of Greece, 8, 43

On 10 July 138, the Roman empire acquired a new ruler. On that day, the Emperor Hadrian died in his villa at Baiae on the bay of Naples and was succeeded peacefully by his chosen successor, the man known to history as Antoninus Pius. The reign of the new emperor over the whole empire was to last longer than any other of his predecessors or successors with the exception of the founder of the empire, Augustus. Yet, he is relatively little known and the reasons for his two expansions of the empire – in Britain and in Germany – remain a matter of conjecture. Partly, this results from a lack of contemporary sources – the only biography of Antoninus was written 200 years after his death. Yet, this was Gibbon’s Golden Age when the deeds of Antoninus’ immediate predecessors, Trajan and Hadrian, and his successor, Marcus Aurelius, are well known. Who was this man who controlled the destiny of millions of people for twenty-three years and, in Scotland, ordered the construction of the Antonine Wall?

TITUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS

The new emperor was born Titus Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus at Lanuvium a little to the south of Rome on 19 September 86. He was the only child of Titus Aurelius Fulvus and Arria Fadilla. His father was consul in 89, and his father, T. Aurelius Fulvus from Nîmes in Gallia Narbonensis (Provence), consul before him. Indeed, as his other grandfather had also been a consul, Antoninus had a distinguished background. Yet, the family had only recently risen into the top echelons of society, gaining advancement as a result of the disturbances which followed the death of the Emperor Nero in 68 when four emperors ruled in quick succession.

The family had two estates close to Rome, at Lanuvium and at Lorium. Antoninus was brought up and educated at Lorium, 20 km (12 miles) to the west of Rome, which he always regarded as his home. About 110 he married Annia Galeria Faustina, daughter of Marcus Annius Verus and Rupilia Faustina. Annius Verus was to have the rare distinction of being consul three times. There were two sons of the marriage, who both died young, and two daughters.

Antoninus was very wealthy, owning much property in Etruria and Umbria. Two hundred years later, his biographer was to offer a thumbnail sketch: ‘He was a man of striking appearance, his natural capacities were brilliant and his character kindly. His countenance was noble, his innate qualities were outstanding – he was a polished speaker and exceptionally learned. A man of moderation and a thrifty landowner, of mild disposition, with his own he was generous and he kept away from what belonged to others. All these qualities were in balance and without ostentation.’ According to one story, he gained the surname Pius because of his solicitude for his aged father-in-law Annius Verus; another that it reflected his respect for his predecessor; while a third suggested that the Senate granted the title to acknowledge his devotion to the gods.

Many aristocrats like Antoninus followed a career in the emperor’s service, holding a succession of senior military and civilian posts in Rome and the provinces, in effect helping to run the empire. This clearly did not appeal to Antoninus. He held the basic posts, serving as quaestor and praetor, before becoming consul in 120. Subsequently he only held two senior posts, both very prestigious and presumably held for that reason. He served as governor of one of the four provinces created by Hadrian in Italy and was proconsul of Asia in 134-5. Yet, while his interests did not lie in the direction of public service, he did serve on the emperor’s council.

IMPERATOR TITUS AELIUS AURELIUS CAESAR ANTONINUS

The Emperor Hadrian had no children and in 136 made arrangements for the succession. He chose, for reasons which are unclear, Lucius Ceionius Commodus. The new Caesar was only in his thirties, but not a fit man, and Hadrian’s intention may have been that he should merely be a stand-in until his real preference, Marcus Aurelius, was old enough to succeed. However, the emperor’s plans were thwarted by the death of his nominee on 1 January 138. Later that month, Hadrian announced the name of his new choice as successor, the 51-year-old Titus Aurelius Antoninus. Antoninus did not accept immediately, but on 25 February he was formally adopted by Hadrian and invested with appropriate powers. His new name was Imperator Titus Aelius Aurelius Caesar Antoninus.

Several reasons may have led to the choice of Antoninus. Firstly, he was clearly a man of peace. He had no military experience and presumably Hadrian thought that at fifty-one he was unlikely to undertake new military adventures and therefore reverse Hadrian’s own policies which had been resolutely non-expansionist. Secondly, Antoninus was popular, mild-mannered and a respected administrator. Hadrian, in the speech put into his mouth by Cassius Dio, described him as ‘… noble, mild, compassionate and prudent. He is neither young enough to do anything rash nor old enough to be neglectful. He has exercised authority in accordance with our ancestral customs, so that he is not ignorant of any matters which concern the imperial power, but he can deal with them all. I know that he is not in the least inclined to be involved in affairs and is far from desiring such power.’ Finally, Antoninus may have been distantly related to Hadrian through his father-in-law Annius Verus, but, more importantly, he was the uncle by marriage of Marcus Aurelius.

Hadrian had come to know Marcus and was impressed by him.

Fig. 1.2 The Castel Sant’Angelo on the west bank of the River Tiber in Rome was builtas a mausoleum by Hadrian, being completed by Antoninus. However, it acquired thename, Antoninorum sepulcrum, the burial place of the Antonines.

As a result, he had taken an interest in the boy’s education. All our information points to the fact that Hadrian saw the young Marcus – at present only fourteen – as his eventual heir and Lucius Ceionius Commodus and Antoninus were merely place-men until the boy was old enough to succeed. However, he badly miscalculated in both cases for Commodus died too early and Antoninus, although only ten years younger than Hadrian, was to live for another twenty-three years!

Antoninus’ first task was to cremate Hadrian and bury his ashes. Antoninus had been with Hadrian when he died at Baiae. He now buried his predecessor at Cicero’s former villa at Puteoli, a short distance from Baiae, and erected a temple there. The new emperor then travelled to Rome to persuade the Senate to deify Hadrian and approve all his acts. This was a most difficult task as Hadrian was hated by the Senate. Nevertheless, Antoninus achieved this delicate mission, though he had to agree to abolish the four consular posts established by Hadrian to govern Italy.

Antoninus also had to complete the construction of Hadrian’s great new mausoleum, built across the River Tiber from the mausoleum of Augustus which was now full. This was achieved in 139 and Hadrian’s ashes were then brought to Rome and placed, together with those of his wife, in the new mausoleum which is known today as Castel Sant’ Angelo. They were joined by the ashes of Antoninus’ two sons and his daughter and then by those of other members of his family and his successors down to Septimius Severus, his wife and his sons in the early third century.

Table 1 The family of Antoninus Pius

Our knowledge of Antoninus’ reign is based upon his much later biography, some inscriptions, citations of his judgements in law books and brief comments by contemporaries. It would appear that his internal policy was broadly conservative. He consulted his council before any action and was accessible to petitioners. He ensured that taxation, government administration and judicial procedures were fair: among the laws he enforced were those against the maltreatment of slaves. He is known to have left a considerable body of legislation. He erected few new buildings in Rome, preferring to complete Hadrian’s or repair existing structures, but he supported new building works in Italy and the provinces. These included harbours, roads and bridges, all contributing to an improved economy. He responded positively to disasters such as earthquakes, famines, floods and fires; one fire in Rome during his reign destroyed 340 blocks of houses. As a result, states his biographer, the provinces all flourished under him. He lived off his own income and on his own private estates but not in an ostentatious way that would excite criticism. He did not travel, ostensibly so as to not burden the provincials with the cost of looking after the imperial retinue. According to Cassius Dio, he left 675 million denarii in the Treasury at his death.

As his adopted son, son-in-law and chosen successor, Marcus Aurelius, grew older, Antoninus shared power with him. In 147 Marcus Aurelius was given powers almost equal to those of the emperor himself and for the remaining thirteen years of his reign the two were virtually co-emperors.

Antoninus undertook those actions expected of a Roman emperor. He gave spectacular public games in Rome at which many animals were slaughtered; and he repaired the Circus Maximus following a structural collapse. He gave money to the people of Rome and to the army. In 147/8 the 900th anniversary of the founding of Rome was celebrated, and the opportunity was taken to commemorate the men who had made Rome great: Aeneas, Romulus, Numa Pompilius and Augustus. Antoninus supported the conservative values of Rome and this is underlined by his coinage which reflected the religious traditions which he and his fellow Romans believed had helped to make their state great.

Fig. 1.3 The temple erected by Antoninus Pius to his wife Faustina in the Forum in Rome was turned into a church, St Lawrence, during the Middle Ages.

If by disposition he reflected the traditional values of Rome, his tastes also acknowledged the eclectic nature of his inheritance. Both he and his wife were followers of the goddess Cybele. Worshippers, offered salvation after their earthly labours, indulged in hysterical and orgiastic pageants and ceremonies at which bulls were killed. The animals’ blood poured over the bodies of the initiates, who were in pits below the sacrifice, thereby bestowing upon them rebirth. One of the centres of the cult was Lanuvium, birthplace of Antoninus.

In some ways, he rejected the style of his immediate predecessors, not indulging in grandiose wars of conquest like Trajan or foreign travels like Hadrian.

FOREIGN POLICY

The traditional values espoused by Antoninus were very necessary, for his reign was not entirely peaceful. His reign saw military action of various degrees of seriousness on all three frontiers of the empire – on the northern frontier in Britain and Germany, on the Black Sea coast, in the Caucusus and in Mauretania – and diplomatic action also in the East and on the northern frontier in central Europe. In addition, there were rebellions in at least three provinces, Egypt, Greece and Dacia, while, in an obscure incident, Cornelius Priscianus was condemned by the Senate for ‘disturbing the peace of the province of Spain in a hostile manner’.

At the beginning of his reign, Antoninus pushed forward the frontier in Britain, an event to which we will return. Towards the end of his reign he was to undertake a similar action in Germany. Although we do not know the reason for this latter move forward, it brought into the empire rich farmland which had been under Roman surveillance for about seventy years and established the new frontier line on the edge of the Black Forest which was largely uninhabited. It could be seen therefore as a tidying-up operation. Little is known of actions elsewhere on the European frontier at this time, though a coin of 140-44 does record Antoninus giving a king to the Quadi, who inhabited modern Slovakia.

139–42

Reconquest of southern Scotland and construction of Antonine Wall

142/3

Trouble with Getae, Libyans and around the Red Sea

140–44

Gives a king to the Armenians

140–44

Gives a king to the Quadi

early in reign?

Pharasmanes, king of Iberia in the Caucusus, visits Rome

145–50

Warfare in Numidia and Mauretania

148

The new king of Parthia, Vologases IV, threatens Rome

151–5

Special command in Germany may indicate trouble from the Chatti

154

Rebellion in Egypt

156/7–8

Rebellion in Dacia

159/61

Parthian war threatened

late 150s

Advance in Germany and construction of new frontier

Table 2 Foreign affairs

Mauretania and Numidia in north Africa suffered from the depredations of brigands, who were probably raiders from beyond the empire. In 145 a legionary detachment was sent from Judaea but success there was followed by more serious warfare in Mauretania. Reinforcements had to be sent from many of the European provinces, probably including Britain, and it was at least four years before order was restored. An uprising in Upper Egypt occurred shortly after, and then a revolt in Dacia, quelled by Statius Priscus who was later to be governor of Britain. Antoninus’ biographer also records a rebellion in Greece. Aelius Aristides in his speech in honour of Rome, delivered before the imperial court probably in 142 or 143, mentions ‘trouble with the Getae, the Libyans and the people round the Red Sea’.

Antoninus inherited a volatile situation in the far north-east corner of his domain. The Alani, who lived between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea north of the Caucasus, encouraged by Pharasmanes, king of Iberia to the south, invaded their neighbours and pushed on southwards to threaten both the Roman province of Cappadocia and the northern border of Parthia: this was probably in 136. Flavius Arrianus, governor of Cappadocia, took to the field with a powerful force and the Alani withdrew. The Parthians, annoyed at the action of Pharasmanes, a Roman client, sent an embassy to Rome to complain. Early in the reign of Antoninus, Pharasmanes and his family travelled to Rome and were well received, being allowed to make a sacrifice on the Capitol. While flattery was the treatment offered to Rome’s client, the Alani continued to be troublesome and Antoninus had to undertake further action against them, though we do not know the nature of this. It is possible that his appointment of Pacorus to be king of the Lazi, a client state on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, was part of his attempt to curtail the activities of the Alani.

Fig. 1.4 Coin of Antoninus Pius bearing the legend REX ARMENIIS DATUS, a king given to the Armenians.

A major test for any emperor in the field of foreign affairs was the relationship with the Parthian empire on the Eastern frontier. This was the only state of equivalent power and a wrong or casual action could have terrible consequences. Here, Antoninus followed a strong line, towards the beginning of his reign giving a king to the Armenians and later dealing firmly with the new king of Parthia, Vologases IV, who had designs on Armenia. Nevertheless, an inscription records that Neratius Proculus was sent to Syria with detachments ‘for the Parthian war’, though fighting does not appear to have broken out.

Whenever possible, Antoninus relied upon diplomacy. When Abgar king of Edessa on the Eastern frontier attacked one of his neighbours, a letter from Antoninus was sufficient to bring him into line. He dealt with several disputes amongst the royal families of the kingdoms of the area, including that of the Bosphoran kingdom of the Crimea. Yet when the neighbouring city of Olbia, situated on the north shore of the Black Sea between the Crimea and Lower Moesia, was attacked by Scythians, he sent a force of auxiliaries to support Rome’s client and help defeat the aggressors.

These wars and the acquisition of new territory stand in complete contrast to the statement by Pausanias that ‘Antoninus never willingly waged war’. Of course, from the Roman perspective, that may be true: the Romans were forced into war by the actions of their neighbours. Nevertheless, the assertion that Antoninus was a man of peace does chime well with several statements of the time.

It was during the reign of Antoninus that Appian started to write his History of Rome. He wrote, in general, possessing by good government the most important parts of land and sea, they prefer to preserve their empire rather than extend it indefinitely to poor and profitless barbarian peoples. I have seen embassies from some of these in Rome offering themselves as subjects, and the emperor refusing them, on the grounds that they would be of no use to him. For other peoples, limitless in number, the emperors appoint the kings, not requiring them for the empire.... They surround the empire with a circle of great camps and guard so great an area of land and sea like an estate.’

At the same time, Aelius Aristides wrote in his Roman Oration of the walls which the Romans had placed round their empire, ‘an encamped army like a rampart encloses the civilised world in a ring’.

In these three writers – Pausanias, Appian and Aelius Aristides – we perhaps see the official governmental line: the Romans were content with what they had. Or perhaps these statements were simply a justification for current imperial policy, which could – and was – reversed at will. Appian and Aelius Aristides, we should note, were Greek, with a very different view of empire from the imperialistic Romans. Furthermore, within the second century, the views of Hadrian and Antoninus were at variance both with the actions of their predecessor Trajan and of their successors. Marcus Aurelius (161-80), it appears, intended to deal with the incipient warfare on his northern frontier by creating two new provinces beyond the Danube, while Septimius Severus (193-211) was responsible for extending the frontier in the east, south and north-west. It was clearly still possible to think of the empire continuing to expand. If the expansionist view was not always predominant, it was partly because the balance was tipping against the Romans.

BRITAIN

It is all the more surprising within the nature of his inheritance and the spirit of his times that Antoninus should opt for a forward movement in Britain. There can be no doubt that this was one of the early decisions of his reign. An inscription erected at Corbridge records the construction of a building by the army under the governor Quintus Lollius Urbicus in 139. Corbridge lies on Dere Street, just south of Hadrian’s Wall, and activity there can often be connected either with wider changes along Hadrian’s Wall or with activities in Scotland. In this case, Scotland seems the more likely as Urbicus was the new governor sent to Britain by Antoninus. The Life of Antoninus Pius records this in the following way: ‘He [Antoninus] conquered Britain through his legate Lollius Urbicus, and, having driven back the barbarians, built a new wall, this time of turf’. Hadrian had died in July 138, too late in the season for action that year, so 139 was the earliest opportunity for a new policy to become visible.