The Roman Wall - Itinerary Day Six - Saturday
The Roman Wall
he Roman Wall has a rich and bloody history.
We have to go way back in time to understand why it took Roman soldiers, Roman architects and Roman engineers over six years to build a seventy three mile long wall across open countryside in Northern Britain over two thousand years ago.
Ok, so here we go........my condensed version of "why the wall was built"!!
.......Julius Caesar is the first Roman Emperor to invade the British Isles around 55 B.C.
........he returns the following year to overcome many Celtic tribes and withdraws again, but only after establishing allies and treaties. The Roman occupation has begun.
.........despite the Roman presence there always trouble up in the North (Scotland).In 43 A.D. Emperor Claudius despatches 24,000 soldiers to establish military rule.
........the clans in Scotland continue to be" resistant" and "troublesome" to the new regime so in time a great battle takes place and 30,000 Scots are killed. This serves only to enrage the surviving clansmen yet further.
.........Hadrian becomes Emperor in 117 A.D. and by 122 A.D. needing to consolidate boundaries he orders "The Wall" to be built. In his own words, it was to separate "his Romans from the Barbarians"
......... so there you have it, a monument that remains to this day, testimony to the power and grandeur of the Roman Empire.
...........I lived many years ago in a place called Hadrian's Lodge in a town called Wallsend...so this is all close to my heart.
We will have an amazing adventure the day we visit the "Wall"
Let us share it with you!
Time Line
ifty Five B.C. and Britannia comes to the attention of the Roman Empire, in the guise of GAIUS JULIUS CAESAR. Yet it is not until another century has passed that the indomitable legions of CLAUDIUS CEASAR have crushed brave Boudicca and headed out into the heartlands.
In their dusty wake comes slavery and oppression, but it is also a time of enlightenment, as marble columns spring skywards and unerring roads spread outwards across the land. However it is not for these that the oppressors are remembered; not their temples, nor their aqueducts, nor their baths , nor their halls.
It is far to the North within the Secret Kingdom that their legacy lies, where cold seas press in and rolling verdant hills meet with sparse purple moors. Across this harsh territory they build a wall. A wall that will serve as a warning and a symbol in that distant outpost.
From coast to coast it stretches and neither Pict nor Scot can breach it's noble ramparts. Even time itself struggles with its obdurate stones and many rest there to this day, unbroken and unbowed, proud testament to the empire that laid them so very long ago.
Behind that wall, within its protective embrace, Britannia's civilization flourishes. But nothing lasts forever. Decadence arises from within the imperial capital, apathy and complacency hard on its heels. The western empire sinks into decline, a decline that becomes terminal as the Visigoth hordes surround Rome