PR-2237IRE Ancient Rome

Romans in Britain – Hadrian
Trajan, the emperor before Hadrian, expanded the Roman Empire to its greatest size, but Hadrian
abandoned Assyria and other conquests in the Eastern Empire except for Arabia, which was then a
peaceful province under Roman rule.
Hadrian’s Wall was built from Bowness to Newcastle and later extended to Wallsend near the east
coast. It was built in front of an older line of forts now known as the Stanegate. The original plan was to house
the troops in the Stanegate forts but it was decided to move them into milecastles and larger forts on the wall
itself. Eighty milecastles, each holding about 100 soldiers, were built every Roman mile (about 1 480 metres)
and between them were watchtowers. (A Roman mile was a thousand paces – the Latin for 1 000 was ‘mille’, the
origin of our word ‘mile’.) The new camps encouraged more Britons to join the Roman army and by the end of
Hadrian’s reign most legionaries were born outside Italy.
Hadrian’s Wall varied in height from about 4.5 metres to 6.5 metres. Over a million cubic metres of stone were
quarried and carried to the site. Western sections of the wall, west of the Irthing river, were made of turf as
limestone for mortar was difficult to obtain. The turf was replaced by stone around 180 AD. Each legion built a
section of about 8 km and when the section was completed an inscribed stone telling who the builders were was
built into the wall. The vallum, historians believe, was a military boundary line which civilians could not cross
without permission.
In 138 AD the emperor Antoninus Pius succeeded Hadrian and he extended the Roman frontier in Britain by
building the Antonine wall further north in Scotland.
Hadrian’s Wall
TEACHERS
N OTE
Additional Activity
Small settlements grew up along the wall as local Britons provided
food and other supplies for the troops. The wall was 4.5 to 6.5m high.
Read and discuss the poem ‘The Roman Centurion’s Song’ by Rudyard Kipling. It tells the story of a Roman
soldier who served in Britain for 40 years.
Terms used in Kipling’s poem.
Legate – Governor of a Roman province
Portus Itius – Boulogne harbour
Vectis – Isle of Wight
The Wall – Hadrian’s Wall
Rhodanus – River Rhone
Nemausus – Roman fortress (Nîmes)
Arelate – Roman town (Arles)
Euroclydon – Stormy wind
Via Aurelia – Road from Rome to Gaul (France)
Tyrrhene Ocean – Part of Mediterranean Sea west of Italy.
Viewing Sample
– 72 – Ancient Rome Prim-Ed Publishing www.prim-ed.com