Search For Glory: The Empire Moves North

Conquer and triumph were key parts of the rule of all Roman emperors. Conquering new lands and tribes brought the cache associated with strength and strategy in battle, as well as the economic benefit that flowed back to Rome in the form of the spoils of war and captured slaves. The triumphal procession naturally followed any conquest and this was the emperor's chance to put on a public display of his new-found riches and defeated opponents, which were testimony to his supremacy as ruler of the Roman empire. It is reasonable to suppose that many Roman emperors may have felt considerable pressure to push the boundaries of the empire as far as possible in order to win personal glory and popular respect.

Once these frontiers were gained, they had to be maintained and defended. So the Romans built defensive barriers across wide tracts of their provinces, consisting of stone walls, ditches, earthen mounds and forts, settlements and watchtowers. The frontiers of the empire eventually spanned a distance of 5,500km, circling the provinces from Britain in the north, Gaul and Germania, then following the empire's frontiers around the eastern Mediterranean and northern Africa. Collectively these frontiers are called the Roman Limes.

Invasion of Britain

When it came to pushing the empire's frontiers northwards, the Romans came up against persistent opposition from Germanic and Celtic tribes in the region north of the Danube and east of the Rhine, as well as ferocious resistance from

Celtic tribes in Britannia. The Roman invasion of Britannia was gradual and started with the famous landing of Julius Caesar in 55 BC (he was quickly seen off by aggressive Celts). He returned in 54 BC, and was more successful, defeating the local tribes. Caesar's sojourn in Britain lasted just a few months as his attention was then called to problems in Gaul, but ties between the Romans and ancient Britons were established and trade routes began to flourish.

It wasn't until Claudius's rule that Britannia was under attack again from the Romans in 43 AD. This time the Romans were more successful and gradually managed to take control of almost all of the island. By 77 AD the last of the tribes had been conquered and Britain was all Roman – or at least almost. In 79 AD Agricola, a Roman general under the emperor Vespasian and then Titus, launched his campaign against the Picts in modern-day Scotland, but with no success. Some 43 years later, in 122 AD, Hadrian came to visit the most northerly Roman province and gave orders for his men to build a wall as a defence and a surveillance post to keep the Scottish tribes at bay. The wall took at least six years to build.

Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall is still visible in large parts today: a snaking stone construction that gently follows the curves of the English hills. It stretches for about 73 miles (117km) from Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the east to Carlisle and then to the western coast at Solway Firth. The greater part of the wall was built with local stone, three metres wide and six metres high. The section of wall that runs from the west coast to the river Irthing, about 10km east of Carlisle, was built of turf and is thought to have been six metres wide by three metres tall. Several forts were built along Hadrian's wall and these include the forts of Arbeia, Segedunum, Chesters, Housesteads, Vindolanda and Birdoswald. Vindolanda was also a civilian settlement and now has a lively visitors' centre around the remains of the town and fort, as well as opportunities to view live excavations during the summer and a display of the Vindolanda Tablets. Corbridge was another Roman town near to Hadrian's wall.

The Antonine Wall

Some 20 years after work first started on Hadrian's Wall, the Romans had once again launched an attack on the Picts and this time they had more success. In 142 AD, under Hadrian's successor,  Antoninus Pius, work began on another wall in yet another attempt to dominate the unruly Picts. This second wall spanned 39 miles and ran from Bo'ness west of Edinburgh to Old Kilpatrick on the western coast of the Firth of Clyde. It became the new most-northerly frontier of the Roman empire. Unlike Hadrian's Wall, which was largely stone-built, the Antonine Wall was constructed of turf and clay laid on a stone foundation. It was still an impressive size though and was probably enough to make any northern tribes think twice about an assault on the Romans. The Antonine Wall stood about three metres high and two metres wide and there were several forts along its length.

The Antonine Wall was short lived because it was abandoned in 160 AD, less than 20 years after it was first built. But the northern frontier remained an important point of contact between the Roman Empire and Celtic tribes. In the 360s AD a series of attacks on Roman Britain from Picts, Scots, Franks and Saxons meant that all lines of defence were crucial. By 388 AD the Roman Empire was in crisis and Romans based in Britain were told to leave. By 410 AD Britain was free of the Romans and its northern defences fell out of use.

Battles in Germania

If the Picts and the Scots posed enough resistance to warrant two imposing frontiers, then the Celtic and Germanic tribes in the area known to the Romans as Germania were even more difficult to dominate. Julius Caesar's first crossing of the Rhine into Germania in 56 BC quickly became legendary, if only for the speed and ingenuity with which his soldiers bridged the river. In the space of 10 days his men had felled the necessary wood from the surrounding forests and had constructed an amazingly sturdy bridge spanning up to 400m across the Rhine, enabling 40,000 legionaries to cross over into Suevi territory. The local tribes retreated very quickly on seeing what must have been a truly incredible sight of a whole Roman army crossing easily over the river, but Caesar achieved what he wanted: to secure the eastern border of Gaul.

Several further battles took place following Caesar's foray north of the Rhine. By the time of Augustus some Germanic tribes had fallen under Rome's control, but in 9 AD the Romans suffered a catastrophic defeat against an alliance of Germanic tribes lead by Arminius. This battle took place in the Teutoburg Forest and three Roman legions (up to 20,000 men) were destroyed and their golden eagle standards lost (the latter was a sore embarrassment). Germanicus continued to battle Arminius and other Germanic tribes north of the Danube until he was recalled to Rome in 16 or 17 AD. After this time Rome agreed upon a client King to rule the region and it seems that the empire was happy to leave its border along the line of the Danube and the Rhine, at least until the 70s AD.

Defending Rome Against the Germanic Tribes

When Vespasian came to power following Nero's death and three short-lived emperors in 68-69 AD, he decided to secure the border with Germania by pushing north to 'fill the corner' between the Danube and the Rhine. Domitian extended the border further north again in 83 AD, and it is thought that he protected the new frontier with a fence and forts – known today as limes. The exact date of the Germanic and Rhaetian limes is not certain, but it is thought they were erected during Domitian's time or shortly after his death. The frontier consisted of a ditch and a mound of earth, with stakes driven into the mound and fenced off. While this wasn't an-army proof defence, it sufficed to allow the Romans to control who came and went within their empire. The limes were fortified and rebuilt during the rule of Hadrian, even though he and his successor Antoninus Pius were to extend the reach of the empire again. They built a new lime, which coincided with the old frontier at certain points.

Today these frontiers are collectively known as the Upper Germanic and Rhaetian Limes and they stretch 550km from the Rhine in the west as far as the Danube in the south-east. More than 1,000 watchtowers and 200 forts of varying sizes were placed along this frontier. As the biggest archaeological monument in Europe, the limes in modern-day Germany are testament to the Roman military's strength and sophisticated surveying techniques. One central stretch of the Limes Germanicus is straight for up to 80km.
 
The limes in Germany, together with Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall are collectively listed as Unesco World Heritage sites.

Photos by: Alan Green (Hadrian's Wall); Andrew Barclay (Antonine Wall); and Hans Vaupel (Saalburg Fort).

Read or leave comments

Interesting Articles

Roman London

London may seem quintessentially English. But the city was actually built and founded by the Romans. If you look carefully, you can still see the remains of the city's Mediterranean past.

Roman Africa: Preserved by the Sahara

The voracious Roman conquerors came to Africa destroying Phoenician and Berber towns, then rebuilding with their own brand of functional yet ostentatious architecture. Today many of those towns are still visible, preserved and protected since antiquity by the Sahara's sands.