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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Wile E. Coyote wrote: | | Or to build a straighter connecting military road in front of Stanegate but still behind the forts and milecastles which would enable the fastest movement of troops |
This was the Roman option, according to Wiley. They built a straight connecting road coast to coast.
It is called the Vallum. We know that the Vallum was built after the forts as it deviates south around some of them. There is evidence of causeways linking the Vallum to the forts as you would expect.
Ortho does not view it this way. According to ortho the Vallum is another (like the wall) unique archaeological military feature of the landscape. A long ditch and rampart border zone south of the wall where civilians were unable to pass, as the wall itself would have been undefendable.........
It is a second line of defence both intellectually for ortho conceived as a second line militarily for the Romans, as nobody can see how a military wall would operate.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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The first person to propose that the Vallum was a road was Geoff Carter on Theoretical Structural Archaeology
| This is probably the largest "earthwork" in Europe and popularly misrepresented as a "Bank & Ditch"; if that were the case there would be no issue with it also being deemed some sort of boundary. The Engineering clearly indicates that this was foundation trench for a frontier road that was never completed, no other explanation can realistic account for its physical form and the massive investment in man hours. |
http://structuralarchaeology.blogspot.com/search/label/Roman%20Wall
In my view it was a military road that was completed but then fell into non use as the threat of a uprising disappeared and folks switched back to using the easier civilian road suitable for carts and animals which are unable to manage steep gradients.... Stanegate.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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What about people though? Pedlars, say.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Hadrian's Wall came up in Digging for Britain (BBC2). I wasn't really paying attention but woke up when someone mentioned that the earliest reference to Hadrian's Wall was in a biography of Hadrian, written two hundred years after he died. Why such a large, possibly unique, structure went unrecorded for so long was unsurprising apparently so I wondered if it was worth looking into.
Turns out a 'biography of Hadrian' is somewhat misleading. It was included in a collection of the Lives of various Roman emperors, known as 'Historia Augusta', by an unknown author(s)
| The Historia Augusta (English: Augustan History) is a late Roman collection of biographies, written in Latin, of the Roman emperors, their junior colleagues, designated heirs and usurpers from 117 to 284. Supposedly modeled on the similar work of Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, it presents itself as a compilation of works by six different authors (collectively known as the Scriptores Historiae Augustae), written during the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine I and addressed to those emperors or other important personages in Ancient Rome. The collection, as extant, comprises thirty biographies, most of which contain the life of a single emperor, but some include a group of two or more, grouped together merely because these emperors were either similar or contemporaneous. |
An extremely untrustworthy work as per Wiki's observations but presumably there were no other contemporary sources to turn to. Some historians, including Gibbon, believed it was authentic
The true authorship of the work, its actual date, its reliability and its purpose have long been matters for controversy by historians and scholars ever since Hermann Dessau in 1889 rejected both the date and the authorship as stated within the manuscript. Major problems include the nature of the sources that it used, and how much of the content is pure fiction. For instance, the collection contains in all about 150 alleged documents, including 68 letters, 60 speeches and proposals to the people or the senate, and 20 senatorial decrees and acclamations.
Despite the conundrums, it is the only continuous account in Latin for much of its period and so is continually being re-evaluated. Modern historians are unwilling to abandon it as a unique source of possible information, despite its obvious untrustworthiness on many levels. |
The Historia Augusta states that Hadrian's Wall was built during Hadrian's reign so either it was responsible for the wall's name or the wall had already been named after him by the time the book was written. Unfortunately the extant version of the HA is said to derive from 'a lost original' and some of the fictitious entries are attributed to 'a corruption in the original'.
The first edition was dated 1475. I wouldn't normally post up a list of editions but it reveals editions of the HA, despite its numerous errors, were reprinted over four centuries.
Editio Princeps: edited by Bonus Accursius, Milan, 1475.
Venice Editions: printed by Bernadinus Ricius (Rizus), 1489, and J. Rubens de Vercellis, 1490.
Aldine Edition: edited by J. B. Egnatius, Venice, 1516; Florence, 1519.
Desiderius Erasmus: published by Froben, Basel, 1518.
Isaac Casaubon: Paris, 1603.
Janus Gruter: Hanover, 1611.
Claudius Salmasius; containing also Casaubon's notes: Paris, 1620; London, 1652.
C. Schrevel: Leyden, 1661.
Variorum Edition; containing the commentaries of Casaubon, Gruter, and Salmasius: published by Hack, Leyden, 1671.
Ulrich Obrecht: Strassburg, 1677.
J. P. Schmidt, with preface by J. L. E. Püttmann: Leipzig, 1774.
Bipontine Edition, 2 vols: Zweibrücken and Strassburg, 1787 and 1789.
Panckouke, 3 vols.: Paris, 1844‑1847.
Thomas Vallaurius: Turin, 1853.
H. Jordan and F. Eyssenhardt, 2 vols: Berlin, 1864.
Hermann Peter, 2 vols. (Teubner Text): Leipzig, 1st Edition, 1865; 2nd Edition, 1884. |
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/Manuscripts*.html
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Thank you.
There is a realistic summary of "problems"(for those who want a speed read) here.
https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Augustan_History
| To what extent this is due to the fact that portions of the work are obviously compiled from multiple sources is unclear. Several computer analyses of the text have been done to determine whether there were multiple authors. Many of them conclude that there was but a single author, but disagree on methodology. However, several studies done by the same team concluded there were several authors, though they were not sure how many." |
| Interpretations of the purpose of the History also vary considerably, some considering it a work of fiction or satire intended to entertain (perhaps in the vein of 1066 and All That), others viewing it as a pagan attack on Christianity, the writer having concealed his identity for personal safety. Syme[citation needed] argued that it was a mistake to regard it as a historical work at all and that no clear propaganda purpose could be determined. In his view the History is primarily a literary product – an exercise in historical fiction (or 'fictional history') produced by a 'rogue scholiast' catering to (and making fun of) the antiquarian tendencies of the Theodosian age |
There are a few problems for a long continuous historical work, just like for a long continuous wall, ie authorship, function and how exactly do you fill the gaps?
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | What about people though? Pedlars, say. |
In the Wiley model we separate military roads from civilian. Of course some folks will congregate close to military roads to sell their wares, services etc, whilst they are in use. However when military roads are no longer used by the military these roads fall into disrepair, the rubble is taken and used for other purposes as this is much easier than quarrying new.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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There are no historical plans that have been found for how the Romans might have constructed a continuous military wall, which has led to speculation about how it was planned. If this was a big Imperial military project, you would expect to see some evidence or clues of this in construction.
Orthodoxy has a problem, there is little evidence and, on current knowledge, it appears that the Roman planners were prioritising views to the South. They were prioritising looking south towards civiliasation whilst ignoring the invading barbarians.
| [the departing Romans] thinking that it might be some help to the allies [Britons], whom they were forced to abandon, constructed a strong stone wall from sea to sea, in a straight line between the towns that had been there built for fear of the enemy, where Severus also had formerly built a rampart.[20] |
Hmm, they must have done in a hurry......you know how it is, you have a deadline to submit your tender specification, and the photocopier is on the blink, the diagram of the wall gets rotated 180 degrees. You can't change it because of the penalty clause. Easily done, your military wall is facing the wrong way........
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Still, there has to be an explanation so let's take a look from the perspective of The Boys Book of Imaginary Battles.
What we are looking for is explanations from armchair generals (and which boy isn't, for none of us aspire to a future of a lowly Lance Corporal) for a military wall which is constructed in such a way, that it prioritises views away from the enemy..........
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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The challenge is of course open to girls, it's just they seem less likely to believe they would have actually done better than Napoleon at Waterloo.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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The answer is of course an extremely cunning military ploy, to help explain the archaeology.
Behind the wall there is, to ortho eyes, a ditch.
Aha, the idea is that the barbarians storm the wall but the Romans, with their eagle standards and eagle eyes aided by their great southerly panoramic views, spot them..... The wall has been breached. Using the great visibility the Legionaires signal for reinforcements, who gallop along the windy Stangate road. The brave but foolish barbarians still struggling to cross the ditch are now surrounded both sides, they die cursing their luck in the Roman killing zone.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Have archaeologists uncovered human remains of barbarians near the wall? They used to believe that Maiden's Castle in Dorset was a killing zone, mainly because Mortimer Wheeler said so, until it became clear there was no archaeological evidence of ancient massacres.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Hatty wrote: | | Have archaeologists uncovered human remains of barbarians near the wall? They used to believe that Maiden's Castle in Dorset was a killing zone, mainly because Mortimer Wheeler said so, until it became clear there was no archaeological evidence of ancient massacres. |
I can't see any evidence for this, and there is really no evidence for destruction of the hated "wall" after the Romans left, which again would seem strange.
You get ortho arguments for raiding based on eg Roman items found in non-Roman areas. You also have battlefield accounts from sources in Britain, but, and this might interest your spidey sense.
| no Roman battle in Britain has been securely located although various competing sites have been suggested for a number of actions, such as that the decisive Medway battle, immediately following the Roman invasion in AD 43, and that in which Boudicca was defeated in AD 61. Others include Cefn Carnedd (AD 51) and Mons Graupius (AD 84). |
http://www.battlefieldstrust.com/resource-centre/roman/#:~:text=As%20yet%2C%20no%20Roman%20battle,was%20defeated%20in%20AD%2061.
Wiley not surprisngly makes use of this in the BBOIB
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