NOTES ON THE ROMAN WALL. 



By W. Johnstone, B.L. 

 (Read at the Excursion to Cadder, 25th June, i8go.) 



The hollow and mound and remains of stations which are met 

 with at intervals across the isthmus of Central Scotland, and 

 which are somewhat loosely termed the Roman Wall, are insignifi- 

 cant enough in themselves, and yet they at once mark the 

 beginning of history in what is now Scotland and form a monu- 

 ment to the bravery and love of independence of its early 

 inhabitants. Many strange and interesting things have come 

 down to us from people who lived in a more remote antiquity, 

 but no record tells us who set up the circles of great stones on 

 lonely moors, built the hill forts, or hollowed out canoes from oak 

 trunks. All is prehistoric till ' the Romans came. From that 

 time onwards history sheds a faint light on the course of events 

 that led to the making of the England and Scotland of to-day. 



It was in the year 81 of our era that Agricola led the legions 

 who had subdued Southern Britain into the north. The induce- 

 ment was not so much the worth of the country to them as the 

 desire to have the arms of Rome everywhere, in order that, to use 

 his own language, freedom should be out of sight of the con- 

 quered people. He defeated the Caledonians, but could not then 

 subdue them ; and constructing a chain of forts across the country 

 between the Forth and the Clyde, withdrew behind its shelter. 

 This, as we shall see, was the beginning of the Roman Wall. 



The turbulent tribes beyond made it, however, an insecure 

 defence, and when Hadrian visited the island to settle what 

 should be conserved by the empire, he abandoned Agricola's forts 

 and constructed an elaborate line of fortifications seventy-three 

 miles in length, stretching between the Solway and the Tyne. 

 This consisted of— 



