Benutzer:Ratheimer/Hadrianswall1
Hadrian's Wall is a stone and turf fortification built by the Roman Empire across the width of modern-day England. It was the second of three such fortifications built across Great Britain, the first being Gask Ridge and the last the Antonine Wall. All three were built to prevent military raids by the Pictish tribes (ancient inhabitants of Scotland) to the north, to improve economic stability and provide peaceful conditions in the Roman province of Britannia to the south, and to mark physically the frontier of the Empire. Hadrian's Wall is the best known of the three because its physical presence remains most evident today.
The wall marked the northern limes in Britain and also the most heavily fortified border in the Empire. In addition to its use as a military fortification, it is thought that the gates through the wall would also have served as customs posts to allow trade taxation.
A significant portion of the wall still exists, particularly the mid-section, and for much of its length the wall can be followed on foot. It is the most popular tourist attraction in Northern England, where it is often known simply as the Roman Wall. It was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. English Heritage, a government organization in charge of managing the historic environment of England, describes it as "the most important monument built by the Romans in Britain".[1]
The Roman name of the Wall
No stone inscription survives to confirm what the Wall was called in antiquity, and no historical literary source gives it a name. However, the discovery of a small enamelled bronze Roman cup in Staffordshire in 2003 has provided a clue. The cup is inscribed with a series of names of Roman forts (see also the bottom of this page) along the western sector of the Wall, together with a personal name and a phrase:
- MAIS COGGABATA VXELODVNVM CAMBOGLANNA RIGORE VALI AELI DRACONIS
Here we have Bowness (MAIS), followed by what must be the correct name for Drumburgh-by-Sands (COGGABATA) until now known only as CONGAVATA from the late Roman document, the Notitia Dignitatum. Next comes Stanwix (VXELODVNVM), then Castlesteads (CAMBOGLANNA), before we get to the most tantalizing part.
RIGORE seems to be the ablative form of the Latin word rigor. This can mean several things, but one of its less-known meanings is ‘straight line’, ‘course’ or ‘direction’. This sense was used by Roman surveyors and appears on a number of inscriptions to indicate a line between places. So the meaning could be ‘from the course’, or better in English 'according to the course'.
There is no such word as vali, but vallum was the Latin word for a frontier; today vallum is applied to the ditch and berm dug by the Roman army just south of the Wall. The genitive form of vallum is valli, so one of the most likely meanings is VAL[L]I, ‘of the frontier’. Omitting one of a pair of double consonants is common on Roman inscriptions; moreover, transcribing an inscription from a written note is the easiest way to miss out letters: another similar bronze vessel, known as the Rudge Cup (found in Wiltshire in the 18th century) has VN missing from the name VXELODVNVM, for example, although the letters appear on the Staffordshire Moorlands cup. The Rudge Cup only bears fort names.
The name AELI is also in the genitive. This was Hadrian's nomen, his main family name, the gens Aelia; we know that the Roman bridge at Newcastle-upon-Tyne was called Pons Aelius.
Finally we have the name DRACONIS, which can be translated as ‘[by the hand – or property] of Draco’. It was normal for Roman manufacturers to give their names in the genitive (‘of’), and ‘by the hand’ would be understood. The form is common, for example, on Samian ware.
The translation, therefore, could be:
‘Mais, Coggabata, Uxelodunum, Camboglanna, according to the line of the Aelian frontier. [By the hand or The property] of Draco’.
This would mean the Romans knew Hadrian's Wall as the line demarcating Vallum Aelium, 'the Aelian frontier'.
Dimensions
Hadrian's Wall was 80 Roman miles (73.5 English miles or 117 kilometres) long, its width and height dependent on the construction materials which were available nearby: east of River Irthing the wall was made from squared stone and measured 3 m (9.7 ft) wide and 5 to 6 metres (16–20 ft) tall; west of the river the wall was made from turf and measured 6 metres (20 ft) wide and 3.5 metres (11.5 ft) high. This does not include the wall's ditches, berms, and forts. The central section measured 8 Roman feet wide (7.8 ft or 2.4 m) on a 10 foot base. Some parts of this section of the Wall survive to a height of 10 feet.
Route
Hadrian's Wall extended west from Segedunum at Wallsend on the River Tyne to the shore of the Solway Firth. The A69 and B6318 roads follow the course of the wall as it starts in Newcastle upon Tyne to Carlisle, then on round the northern coast of Cumbria. The Wall is entirely in England and south of the border with Scotland by 15 kilometres (9 mi) in the west and 110 kilometres (68 mi) in the east.
Hadrian
Hadrian's Wall was built following a visit by Roman emperor Hadrian (AD 76–138) in AD 122. Hadrian was experiencing military difficulties in Britain, and from the peoples of various conquered lands across the Empire, including Egypt, Judea, Libya, Mauretania, and many of the peoples conquered by his predecessor Trajan, so he was keen to impose order. However the construction of such an impressive wall was probably also a symbol of Roman power, both in occupied Britain and in Rome.
Frontiers or limes in the early empire were largely based on natural features or fortified zones with a heavy military presence. Military roads often marked the border, with forts and signal towers spread along them, and it was not until the reign of Domitian that the first solid frontier was constructed, in Germania Superior, using a simple fence. Hadrian expanded this idea, redesigning the German border by ordering a continuous timber palisade supported by forts behind it. Although such defences would not have held back any concerted invasion effort, they did physically mark the edge of Roman territory and went some way to providing a degree of control over who crossed the border and where.
Hadrian reduced Roman military presence in the territory of the Brigantes, who lived between the rivers Tyne and Humber, and concentrated on building a more solid linear fortification to the north of them. This was intended to replace the Stanegate road which is generally thought to have served as the limes (the boundary of the Roman Empire) until then.
