Ancient historian Adrian Goldsworthy is the author of many memorable books, including Pax Romana and How Rome Fell. In a departure from his usual manner of writing hefty, several-hundred-page works, his newest book is a slender, almost pocket-sized introduction to one of Rome’s most fascinating and mysterious monuments: Hadrian’s Wall.
Stretching some 73 miles in northern Britain — from Wallsend in the east to Bowness-on-Solway in the west — Hadrian’s Wall provides a riveting glimpse into the life and culture that once existed in this part of the Roman Empire. It’s the kind of allure which draws the eyes and attention not just of scholars and archaeologists, but large numbers of tourists each year. UNESCO, recognizing the Wall’s importance and deep cultural significance, declared it a World Heritage Site in 1987.
In Hadrian’s Wall Goldsworthy brings history and archaeology together, giving readers an enlightened foray into this one of a kind Roman monument: a structure which tells us much about Roman life yet leaves scholars with a myriad of questions and quandaries. What some of these mysteries are, Goldsworthy is happy to inform the reader, just as he is the historical background and archaeological evidence that guide scholars as they try to better understand this grand fortification.
It was during the reign of Claudius, roughly seventy years before the start of Hadrian’s reign, that the scene was formally set for Roman life in Britain. The tenuously cemented emperor — who had been reluctantly pushed onto the throne by cash-hungry praetorians after the assassination of Caligula — needed a way to show and assert his authority. And so, in 43 AD, he sent a formidable expedition across the water. This led to a hard-earned, and solidified, Roman presence on the island (a location that Julius Caesar had briefly ventured to nearly a century before).
Claudius’s forces scored some big wins, including the capture of Camulodunum (Colchester) in the south-east. But resistance, rebels, and conflict, particularly in the north, would prove to be major problems. Subsequent emperors, including Hadrian (r. 117 – 138), often had their hands full.
Indeed early on in his reign Hadrian experienced trouble in Britain — an event which seems also to have been true for subsequent emperors, like Antoninus Pius and especially Marcus Aurelius. Five years into his reign, the empire-trotting Hadrian decided to make a visit to the island. It is likely, though not certain, that it was around this same year, 122, that construction on the Wall began.
Goldsworthy goes into considerable detail about the Wall’s design and construction — from building materials and working procedures to the addition and implementation of ditches, forts, turrets, milecastles, and more. At times, it can all feel like a heavy load of information; and the nature of the material often requires slow re-reading and flipping back and forth between pages to help keep things straight. But one of the most important takeaways is to understand the Wall’s disparate evolution and often ad hoc construction. At an eventual 73 miles long, the Wall was anything but an homogeneous or all-in-one-go project. It was constructed over two decades, altered during that time, and altered throughout the nearly three centuries of its use.
It’s no wonder, then, scholars face an array of conundrums. But this is due not only to figuring out what changes occurred when, or the fact the we have only part of the Wall now available to us. It is also, crucially, because a whole other side of the story is largely missing: a non-Roman side. Goldsworthy is candid in the lack of knowledge historians have in this respect. He writes that “We really do not know enough about the political and military practices of the tribes to describe the threat they posed to the Romans — or for that matter the threat the Romans posed to them.”
But there is, of course, a good deal we do know as well, and readers will hardly come away from the book feeling like everything remains a mystery.
In the opening chapters, Goldsworthy sets the scene and lays out the early life of the Wall. It was built by Roman legionnaires who worked on it in an almost haphazard manner. Sections were sometimes begun while others remained unfinished; quality sometimes took a backseat to speed; changes were commonplace. But it all eventually worked: the Turf Wall section in the west, joined to the Stone Wall section heading east, created a barrier which spanned the narrowest part of the island. It was a significant achievement.
It is somewhat of an irony, then, that in the reign of the succeeding emperor, Antoninus Pius, a new wall was constructed farther north, and Hadrian’s Wall was decommissioned. What precisely prompted this series of actions we don’t know for sure. But Hadrian’s Wall gained back its prominence when the Antonine Wall itself was abandoned around the reign of Marcus Aurelius. For many decades thereafter, Hadrian’s Wall performed a consistent, critical function for military life in Britain.
Much of Goldsworthy’s slender book is spent elaborating on this, showing how the Wall’s many forts (15 major ones), milecastles (a total of 80), and the Wall itself all assisted military life along the 73-mile fortification. Among other things, the Wall allowed Roman forces to prepare and deploy effectively. It also helped to hinder, if not always fully stop, enemies and raiders carrying out successful missions. But whatever specific functions the Wall happened to perform, Goldsworthy argues, it’s raison d’etre came from the men: “Soldiers were not there to serve the Wall, but the Wall was there to serve them.”
And indeed in addition to the Wall’s practical assistance, an active daily life played out along the Wall. Many soldiers had families, and civilian settlements developed alongside some of the forts (though how all of this played out in detail we don’t know). There were also a variety of foods and products, along with Roman culture in general, that reached the areas of the Wall. As Goldsworthy writes, “Life on Hadrian’s Wall was in most respects much like life in the rest of the Roman Empire.”
But this also held true when it came to the empire’s deterioration in the 4th and 5th centuries. Provinces in Britain in the second half of the 4th century experienced significant fights against Picts and Scots. The Romans were sometimes able to settle these, but a victory by the power-hungry Magnus Maximus, a Roman dux, led to civil war (an event which also characterized the beginning of the century). By the early 5th century a great deal had changed in Britain, and life along the Wall effectively came to end.
Goldsworthy’s small book, while written for general readers, packs a great deal, and some of the information is quite in-depth. That being the case, some readers may enjoy the book as much for the general information on the Roman Empire as they do the detailed descriptions of the Wall. Either way, this nicely crafted book on a nearly two-millennia-old Roman monument can be read with much pleasure and profit.
Spectatio 