52 Transactions. 



have referred, was one of Agricola's camps. But however that 

 may be, it was the Emperor Hadrian who completely subdued 

 and organised the warlike Brigantes, and established Roman rule 

 in orderly fashion in the north of England. He was ten years in 

 Britain, and during a large portion of that period he seems to 

 have been engaged mainly in the north. We learn that part of 

 his policy was to employ the broken native tribes in forced labour, 

 and that roads and other works were made by him, thus com- 

 pelling the Britons to exliaust their energies in remunerative toil, 

 instead of organising raids and rebellions. He seems to have 

 cared little for Agricola's vague conquests among the wild 

 Caledonians ; therefore it consorted with his Conservative policy 

 to defend the southern part of the island from the unreclaimed 

 north. That he founded some if not all the stations across the 

 isthmus, made the road, opened quarries, and formed some sort of 

 continuous defence, seems to be beyond question. But did he 

 erect the stone wall as well as the earthworks comprised in the 

 vallum ? I think he erected the vallum, but not the stone wall. 

 The times were still too rough, the situation too undetermined, 

 and the resources within his reach too slender, I fancy, for the 

 completion of those great stone buildings which we find to have 

 existed on the line of the wall. I believe these to have been the 

 slow and gradual product of a more advanced age — when the 

 country to the south of the wall was thoroughly subdued and 

 Romanised. The erection of the vallum, however, was not only 

 feasible, but it might have been expected as in perfect harmony 

 with the conditions of the times. 



There was a pause at this point in the march of Roman con- 

 quest in Britain. It is evident, however, that the intention of 

 subduing the whole island had not been given up ; and twenty 

 years afterwards, in the peaceful reign of Antoninus Pius, a 

 supreme effort was made not only to consolidate the Roman con- 

 quest of this island, but to complete it. Lollius Urbicus, with a 

 strong army, marched north, punishing the rebellious tribes on his 

 route. He seems to have made no pause at the barrier erected by 

 Hadrian, but, evidently believing that (to be safe) the Roman 

 dominions must extend farther north, he swept over what are now 

 the Scottish Lowlands, and only paused when he was confronted 

 by the barrier of the Highland mountains. He decided to draw 

 his boundary through the narrow isthmus between the estuaries of 



