To the educated American, upon his first visit to our ancestral home in England, the most fascinating objects his eyes rest upon unquestionably are her ivy-grown ruins, with their crumbling battlements and mouldering stones. He feels his youthful confidence, fostered by our untrimmed fields and shaggy forests, gently giving way to wholesome reverence, as his imagination wanders among these venerable relics of "a foregone world." But if Gothic Fane or Norman Keep, in their lovely ruin, whisper to his heart their message of soothing melancholy, how stimulating to his intellectual insight is his first glimpse at the mighty traces left upon the little island by the masters of the ancient world. It is of the most marvellous of these that I shall attempt to give a slight picture: and I will preface my account of it by quoting some fine verses about it contributed Here plant thy foot where many a foot hath trod, Whose scarce-known home was o'er the southern wave, And sit thee down; on no ignoble sod, Green from the ashes of the great and brave; Here stretched that chain which nations could enslave; This shapeless mound, thou know'st not what to call, There was the deep-trenched Vallum-to the left; And when the spring the frozen nations sent, This was his bound-stone, oft with blood besprent-, Here, where the daisies settle, and the rose Now trusts her tender leaves, and the shy violet blows."* "Few who have visited this district" says the learned. historian of "The Romans under the Empire," "have resisted the contagion of the Wall-Fever, caught from the genial enthusiasm of the local antiquaries, the loving reverence of those who dwell beside it, and the threefold interest derived from its bold design and execution, its much-contested history, and the romantic scenery with which it is surrounded." + I propose first to give with some particularity an ac *The Roman Wall-Blackwood's Magazine (Oct., 1822), vol. xii., p. 409. Charles Merivale. Quarterly Review (Jan., 1860), p. 123. count of the origin and character of this great work, and of the conflicting theories that have been maintained in regard to the share taken by different persons in its erection. Here we encounter the confusing circumstance of having, in the words of Dr. Latham, "more builders than structures."* Then I shall endeavor to present a slight picture of its present condition and of what the inquisitive traveller will see as he strolls along its course. In doing this I shall have occasion to refer to some of the numerous discoveries that have been made during the progress of extended excavations carried on at several points along its line by Mr. John Clayton, of Chesters. These may serve to illustrate somewhat the character of the men, and the manner of their life, who for three long centuries, through summer's heat and winter's cold, kept ward and watch along its wind-swept battlements against the fierce barbarians of the North, struggling for their liberty with the mighty power of Rome.† In using the term, "The Roman Wall," I wish to be understood to mean the great structure, drawn by the Roman conquerors across the northern part of England, from the mouth of the Tyne, at Wallsend, near Newcastle, on the east, to Bowness on the Solway, on the west; a distance of some seventy-three and a half miles. This work has always been called The Great Wall; while for the dwellers in its neighborhood it has usually gone by the name of The Picts' Wall. Smith's "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography," vol. i., p. 436. + I wish to acknowledge, once for all, my great indebtedness to “The Roman Wall, a description of the mural barrier of the north of England, by the Rev. J. Collingwood Bruce, LL.D., F. S. A." (third edition, 1867), from which I have freely borrowed whatever seemed useful for my purpose. But it must always be borne in mind, to prevent confusion, that the Romans also built another wall across the narrowest part of Scotland, a little to the north of Edinburgh and Glasgow, from Bridgness, on the Frith of Forth, to Dunbarton, on the Frith of Clyde. A few preliminary words of explanation about that structure seem to be required. The northern wall was made of earth only, and was about half the length of The Great Wall, some thirty-seven miles. It was built (A. D. 141) by Lollius Urbicus, legatus, or provincial governor, of Antoninus Pius, along a line of forts constructed by Agricola, sixty years previous (A. D. 81).* Accordingly it is known to historians as the Wall of Antoninus; locally it has usually gone by the name of Graham's Dyke. Many modern historians are of the opinion that it was this wall, subsequently strengthened by Septimius Severus, during his famous campaign in Scotland (A. D. 208), which the later Roman writers have had in mind, when they have spoken of the Wall of Severus.† Very few traces of the Wall of Antoninus are still to be seen, and the principal interest attaching to it in recent times has arisen from the discovery about twenty years ago of an inscription which marked its eastern termination. It was that discovery which caused Sir Charles Lyell to retract his previously expressed opinion that there had been an elevation of the coast line of central Scotland, subsequent to the times of the Roman occupation.+ Lest it may appear strange that the Romans should * Capitolinus, "Vit. Antonini," 5. 64 † Mommsen, “* Provinces of the Roman Empire,” vol. i., p. 203 ; Skene, “Celtic Scotland," vol. i., p. 89, (Note 27); Elton, " Origins of English History," p. 325. Lyell, “Antiquity of Man" (fourth edition), p. 55; following the authority of D. M. Home (Trans. Roy. Soc. of Edinburgh), vol. xxvii., p. 39. |