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The Fate of Agricola's Northern Conquests

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

T. Davies Pryce  and
Eric Birley
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Extract

The problem of the duration of the first Roman occupation of Scotland is an interesting and important one, and it has been the subject of considerable discussion since the excavation of Newstead added the evidence of archaeology to that of the scanty literary sources. There can be no doubt that, by the time that Hadrian's Wall was planned, Agricola's conquests north of Cheviot had been relinquished by the Romans, but it is not definitely known at what date after his recall, late in the year A.D. 84, the withdrawal took place. There are four emperors under whom the change of frontier policy thus effected may have occurred—Domitian, Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian. The latter's evacuation of most of Trajan's Eastern acquisitions seemed, at one time, to qualify him as the author of a similar limitation of the Empire's extent in Britain.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , 1938 , pp. 141 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © T. Davies Pryce and Eric Birley 1938. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Cf. JRS ix, 111 f.; 59 f., 187 f.; xxvii, 93 f.; and the further references given in these papers. We use the following abbreviations through out this paper: AA 2–4 =Archaeologia Aeliana, second-fourth series; Newstead=J. Curle, A Roman Frontier Post, etc.; PSAS= Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

2 Provinces of the Roman Empire; English Translation, i, 186.

3 Newstead, 401.

4 JRS ix, 132.

5 JRS xxvii, 94, and xxv, 188.

6 JRS xxvii, 93 f.

7 Cf. The Roman Wall in Scotland (2nd ed.), 2; Anderson's edition of Furneaux's Agricola, p. lxxi.

8 JRS xxvii, 96.

9 Ibid., 96.

10 Hist. i, 1.

11 JRS xxvii, 95, 97.

12 Not merely of Agricola, as is assumed in JRS xxvii, 95.

13 Cf. Ritterlingin P–W s.v. ‘Legio,’ col. 1443 f.

14 Newstead, 401.

15 PSAS lii, 275.

16 PSAS lii, 203–276, lviii, 325–329; lxviii, 27–40.

17 AA 3 viii, 210 f.

18 HN iv, 102.

19 AA 4 ix, 235.

20 PSAS lii, 208.

21 AA 2 iii, 269 f.

22 Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, NS, 130 f.

23 Carrawburgh fort overlies the ditch of the Vallum (Durham University Journal, 1935, 93 f.), and so comes late in the series of Hadrianic works.

24 Cf. PSAS lii, 207.

25 In this connection, it may be worth pointing out that in the earth-camps at Hofheim virtually none but bronze coins was found: Ritterling, Das frührömische Lager bei Hofheim, 113.

26 Newstead, 405–6, nos. 163 and 170.

27 AA 3 vii, 203 f.

28 Newstead, 407, no. 187.

29 JRS xxv, 68.

30 Ibid., 63.

31 Ibid., 59 f.

32 Ibid., 198.

33 Cf. JRS iv, 27 f.

34 PSAS lxv, 432 f.

35 Ibid., 447.

36 Ibid., 445 f.

37 Ibid., 446 f.

38 Cf. Newstead, 209, 1, 4 and 213, 5.

39 S. N. Miller, Old Kilpatrick, 17.

40 PSAS xxxii, 440 f., and plan, plate v.

41 Newstead, 23–24.

42 Further excavations may be out of the question at Camelon, but Ardoch and Inchtuthil both hold out admirable prospects.

43 It is also desirable that a further exploration of the defences of Newstead should be undertaken, in order to decide whether the second earth-fort was built in the early period, or whether it was the first work of the Antonine occupation, as Dragendorff first suggested (JRS i, 135 f.).

44 Cf. Tacitus, Agric., 22.

45 Satires iv, 127.

46 Ibid., 35.

47 Ibid., 111–112.

48 Cf., for example, the situation of Virius Lupus in Britain (Cassius Dio, lxxv, 5, 4).

49 JRS xviii, 211.

50 Wheeler, The Roman fort near Brecon, 71 f.

51 Eph. Ep. ix, 1031.

52 CIL vii, 241; perhaps we should add the fragment from Lancaster, Eph. Ep. vii, 943, a dedication to Trajan not datable more closely.

53 Suetonius. Domitianus, 6.

54 Ibid., 2.

55 ILS 1025.

56 Legionare Kriegsvexillationen usw. (Diss. Breslau, 1907), 32Google Scholar.

57 ILS 9200.

58 Agric. 24.

59 Ibid., 25.

60 Ibid., 34.

61 Ibid., 38.

62 P-W s.v. ‘Legio,’ col. 1443 f.

63 Roman Britain and the English Settlements (2nd ed.), 119.

64 JRS xxvii, 98.