The Antonine Wall in Scotland was the northernmost frontier of the Roman empire. The barrier consisted of a line of auxiliary forts and fortlets connected by a continuous rampart wall and ditch. These entrenchments ran from Borrowstounness (Bo'ness or even Bridgeness) near Carriden in Edinburgh on the Firth of Forth, to Old Kilpatrick in the outskirts of Glasgow near Dumbarton on the Firth of Clyde. The wall ran for 39 miles - exactly half the distance of Hadrian's defensive works further south - and passed along the central valley of Scotland formed by the River Kelvin in the west and the Bonny Water to the east. For the most part the defences were positioned to the south of these two streams, which themselves formed a natural line of defence against attack from the north.
Roman forts were first established along the isthmus of the Forth and Clyde during the fourth campaign season of the celebrated eleventh governor of Roman Britain, Gnaeus Julius Agricola in AD81, after having swept through the lands of the Selgovae and Votadini in the Borders region of south-eastern Scotland the previous year (Tacitus' Agricola 23). These Agricolan garrison forts were placed in the lands of the Caledonian Damnoni¹ tribe who occupied the area of modern Strathclyde and west Lothian, and who were probably conquered in that same year or perhaps during the previous winter (AD80/81). Either way, after cutting off any hope of reinforcements from the north, Agricola spent the next campaign season waging mahem upon the Novantae of the Galloway Peninsula in south-western Scotland and the following year (AD83) saw him in action to the north of the Forth and Clyde opening hostilities against the Venicones of Central and Fife. The next year, after defeating the combined forces of the Caledonian tribes in a decisive battle at Mons Graupius somewhere in the Grampian region of north-east Scotland, Agricola was recalled to Rome by the emperor Domitian and spent the rest of his life in retirement.
This important - though difficult - seventh century geographical work contains a passage in the section apertaining to Britain (vide supra) which mentions the names of ten Roman stations along the line of the Antonine Wall. You may be forgiven for thinking that this should be good news, but unfortunately, we know of nineteen forts on the Wall, and with no epigraphic evidence to corroborate the place-names recorded in the R.C. we are unable to ascertain which name refers to which fort. One exception is the name Velunia or Veluniate, the first in the list, which is generally assigned to the minor settlement at Carriden in Central. This station marks the eastern end of the Antonine Wall, and it is assumed that the Ravenna Cosmography again adopts the convention of listing stations in frontier systems from east to west, as is the case with the fort's along Hadrian's Wall.
|R&C No.||Roman Name||Modern Name|
|191||Velunia||Velvniate (Carriden, Central)|
The barrier was everywhere laid upon a fourteen-feet wide foundation of large stone cobbles faced with massive kerbstones front and rear. The rampart wall was for the western three-quarters of its length constructed of stacked turves, laid grass to grass, but in the remaining quarter of the length of the defences to the east of the road leading through the wall from Watling Lodge northwards to Camelon, the available turf was possibly of very poor quality and the rampart was here constructed of an earthen bank enclosed within blocks of clay. There is no evidence of any timber facing to either the the front or rear of the rampart, which was about ten feet (3m) high and battered to an angle of about 70°, therefore too steep to be easily climbed. The top of the rampart would have been about six feet wide, and the rampart walk probably decked with wooden laths and fronted by a wattle breastwork.
The wall was fronted by a ditch which was almost invariably present, except on a short section at Croy Hill, situated on an outcrop of igneous basalt, where the legionaries apparently gave up digging after breaking many of their tools. The fosse is generally 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep, but varies considerably both in width and depth depending on the nature of the ground in which it was dug. It is separated from the rampart wall by a berm, generally 20 feet wide, hardly ever narrower than this, though sometimes much more, with a maximum width of 116 feet (again at Croy Hill). The outcast from the fosse was not used to infill the rampart wall, but was instead thrown out onto the northern side of the ditch to form a glacis bank.
The forts along the wall were adjoined to the rampart almost invariable by ninety-degree 'T-junctions', with the Wall itself forming the northern defences of the encampment, a notable exception to this rule being the fort at Bar Hill which is situated about twenty yards behind the Wall. Many of these forts were constructed in the same manner as the wall itself, i.e. of turf, with timber gatehouses and turrets, but some forts were built in stone, where conversely, the northern defences of the fort were to form the line of the rampart wall.
In the table below the wall forts and fortlets are listed from east to west, which seems to be the standard in classical geographical works. All of these stations lay upon the line of the wall, except where noted. The horizontal line represents the Central / Strathclyde regional border.
|Velvniate (Carriden)||NT0280||fort and minor settlement, marching camps at Kinglass Park (NT0080) and Muirhouses (NT0180).|
|Kinneil||NS9780||fortlet nearby 3 temporary camps at Inveravon (NS9679).|
|Mumrills||NS9179||fort with 2 camps at Little Kerse (NS9478) and Polmonthill (NS9478).|
|Camelon||NS8680||fort and 11 marching camps just north of the Wall.|
|Watling Lodge||NS8679||fortlet with nearby camp at Tamfourhill (NS8579).|
|Seabegs||NS8179||fortlet with nearby camps at Dalnair (NS8179) and Milnquarter (NS8279).|
|Westerwood||NS7677||fort, 2 camps at Garnhall (NS7877) and 1 at Tollpark (NS7777).|
|Croy Hill||NS7376||fort, fortlet and minor settlement, with 2 camps at Dullatur (NS7476).|
|Bar Hill||NS7075||fort with nearby marching camp at Twechar (NS6975).|
|Mollins||NS7171||fortlet about 3 miles south of the Wall.|
|Glasgow Bridge||NS6373||fortlet, nearby camp at Easter Cadder (NS6473).|
|Wilderness Plantation||NS5972||fortlet & camp.|
|Balmuildy||NS5871||fort with nearby camp at Buchley (NS5872).|
|Summerston||NS5772||fortlet and camp.|
|Duntocher||NS4972||fort and fortlet.|
There were further forts on the south bank of Clota Aestuarium (the Firth of Clyde), at Bishopton (NS4172) and at Barochan Hill (NS4169) a little to the south, which now overlooks Glasgow's main airport at Paisley. There were also fortlets at Lurg Moor (NS2973) and Outerwards (NS2366) further west, the latter station overlooking Botis Insula (the Isle of Bute) across the Firth. Mention should also be made of the outlying fort at Drumquhassle (NS4887), positioned about ten miles forward of the western end of the Wall, close to Loch Lomond.
There is evidence of a serious disaster suffered by the Romans in Scotland around AD155. Several of the Wall forts, notably Rough Castle, Castlecary and Balmuildy, show signs of fighting and of destruction by fire. Coins were minted at Rome which celebrated a significant victory in Britain c.AD154/5 (vide Spink 645, RIC 930). There are other records of fighting during the administrations of both Julius Verus (governor AD157-158) and Calpurnius Agricola (governor c.AD163-166).
Many stones have been found along the length of the Antonine Wall which bear Latin inscriptions. The texts of almost all of these stones were recorded in the R.I.B. along with the location where they were found, and many of these texts are included in the appropriate web-page for each Antonine fort. There is, however, one inscription from the Wall for which the exact recovery spot is unknown:
|LEG II AVG FEC|
|"The Second Augustan Legion made this."|
In addition to the unassigned stone from the Antonine Wall, there are three more Scottish stones recorded in the R.I.B. for which no location is known. These include an altar to an unknown god dedicated by a 'Vexillation of the Second Augustan Legion' (RIB 2214; not shown), a bronze statue base inscribed with the letter L (RIB 2215), also a very interesting building inscription:
|VEXILLATIO LEG XXII PRIMIGEN|
|"A detachment of the Twenty-Second 'First-Born' Legion [made this]."|
This stone is extremely important as it records the presence of a Roman legion for which no legionary base is known in Britain, either in Scotland or elsewhere. Legio XXII Primigenia are possibly recorded on another stone at Birrens (vide RIB 2116a).