Osprey - Fortress 002 - Hadrian’s Wall AD 122-410.pdf

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HADRIAN’S WALL
AD 122–410
NIC FIELDS
ILLUSTRATED BY DONATO SPEDALIERE
FORTRESS • 2
HADRIAN’S WALL
AD 122–410
NIC FIELDS
ILLUSTRATED BY DONATO SPEDALIERE
Series editors
Marcus Cowper and Nikolai Bogdanovic
Contents
Introduction
Roman fortifications
Fortresses • Forts • Fortlets • Watchtowers
Marching-camps • Practice-camps
4
5
The origins of Hadrian’s Wall
Chronology
9
12
The anatomy of Hadrian’s Wall
The Wall • Ditch • Military Way • Vallum • Milecastles • Turrets • Forts
Bridges • Northern outposts • West coast defences • Phases of construction
The construction of Hadrian’s Wall
Chronology • Materials • Builders
26
35
40
48
The function of Hadrian’s Wall
The garrison of Hadrian’s Wall
Life on Hadrian’s Wall
Duties • Diet • Alcohol • Bathing • Gaming
Sports • Women • Leave • Soldier and civilian
The sites today
Useful contact information
60
61
62
64
Further reading and research
Glossary
Index
Introduction
As the first century AD matured, the boundaries of the Roman Empire become
increasingly fixed, and what were once temporary stop lines become firm
frontiers. Significantly, from the Latin for frontier,
limes
(pl.
limites),
we gain
our word ‘limit’. Consequently, the army’s role predominately became one of
policing the frontier tribes, preventing livestock rustling and tax evasion,
mounting punitive raids, and showing the flag to friendly tribes outside the
empire.
The frontiers of the empire took many forms. Some of them were completely
open with scarcely any boundary definition, while a military road marked others.
Some of them followed the lines of rivers, while others were closed off with
manmade barriers. The latter were not of uniform design, except that most were
accompanied by one or more ditches. Hadrian’s Wall was extremely elaborate,
composed of three separate defensive features, a ditch to the north, then the
wide stone curtain-wall with turrets, milecastles and forts strung out along it, and
finally a larger earthwork to the south. Running some 75 miles from sea to sea,
it has been justifiably described as over the
top. Other frontiers were less complex. In
Germania, Hadrian built a palisade fronted by
a ditch, replaced at a later date by a bank
of earth. In Britannia Hadrian’s Wall was
replaced for a short time by the Antonine
Wall, 45 miles to the north, built not in stone,
but turf-blocks. In Raetia, approximately the
area of modern Switzerland and Austria, a
stone curtain-wall was constructed, but not so
wide as Hadrian’s Wall. In Africa stretches of
dry-stone walling have been found marking
sections of this very long frontier, other
sections of which were left open, but not
necessarily unguarded as is evident from a
number of blockhouses.
In most frontier provinces legionary
fortresses were situated in the interior, some
distance behind the borders. On parts of
the Rhine and Danube, particularly where
the frontiers were marked by the rivers
themselves, the legions were stationed at
strategic points close to the river banks,
sometimes so close that the fortresses were
washed away and had to be rebuilt further
back from the rivers. Auxiliary troops were
generally stationed in forts on the line of the
frontier itself, actually attached to them as
on Hadrian’s Wall and the Antonine Wall, or
some short distance (c. 1 mile) behind them,
as in Germania and Raetia. Most frontiers
were equipped with smaller fortlets like the
milecastles attached to Hadrian’s Wall, or the
freestanding
Kleinkastellen
along the Rhine.
In between these were usually watchtowers.
The Wall at Walltown Crags,
looking south-west from turret
45a (Walltown), showing the
facing-stones and rubble-core
used in its construction. This is a
section of the Narrow Wall.
(Author’s Collection)
4
Roman fortifications
Most of our knowledge concerning the layout and terminology of Roman
military installations derives from two literary sources. The earliest surviving
description of a marching-camp is that given by Polybius (6.33–7), who was
writing in the middle of the second century BC. In the reign of Trajan
(AD 98–117) a surveyor commonly known as Hyginus Gromaticus wrote a
theoretical surveying manual (De
munitionibus castrorum),
which was intended
to provide the appropriate accommodation for every type of army unit the
student was likely to encounter. Despite being written nearly three hundred
years apart both accounts are still broadly comparable, with divergences due
mainly to the differing needs of an army in permanent garrison as opposed
to a temporary rest camp. Archaeology and aerial reconnaissance, especially
in Britain, have demonstrated that the basic principles laid down by these
two writers were incorporated into the planning of fortifications from the late
Republic until well into the third century AD.
When the army was on campaign it constructed marching-camps to provide
security at night, and, once an area was conquered, a network of turf and timber
forts roughly a day’s march apart. In Britannia this phase lasted until the
mid-80s AD. Additionally, before the legions had established their permanent
bases in Britannia, they constructed fortresses either to provide part of a legion
with a summer campaign base (castra
aestiva)
or winter quarters (castra
hiberna).
Once the army was no longer poised to continue the expansion of the empire
these fortresses and forts became permanent, their plan and design preserving
the main defensive features of the marching-camp from which they had
evolved. The shallow ditch and palisade of the latter were, however, replaced by
more substantial earthworks in permanent fortifications, often with two or
more V-shaped ditches and an earth or turf rampart surmounted by a timber
parapet. The four gateways were retained, but towers now defended them, and
further towers were added at the four angles and at intervals between.
It should be emphasised that there is no such thing as a typical Roman
fortress, fort or marching-camp. The basic layout of a fortress, for instance, was
A turf and timber fort, as depicted
on Trajan’s Column (Scene LI),
showing detail of the installation’s
fortified gateway and angle-towers.
The two buildings just inside the
fort appear to be granaries.
(Reproduced from Lepper, F. and
Frere, S. S.,
Trajan's Column: A New
Edition of the Chicorius Plates,
Sutton,
Stroud, 1988)
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