ROMAN BROUGH : = ANAVIO. I 79 



hilly country of the north and west. Those fastnesses which 

 longest resisted the conquest were deemed by the conquerors 

 most suitable for the military frontier of the country they had 

 annexed, and thus became in effect the frontier of their empire 

 in this direction. Then, during the early second century, under 

 Hadrian and the Antonines, it is found that a system of military 

 works and fortifications was organized throughout the north and 

 west, to hold in check the unconquered tribes and people of 

 the hills beyond. The practice of building durable forts 

 {castella) for the purposes of occupation had indeed already 

 been initiated by Julius Agricola during his campaigns of 

 conquest in the north at the close of the first century, but 

 archaeology has not yet defined the nature of his works, nor, 

 indeed, satisfactorily ascribed any separately to him. In the 

 early third century also there seems to have been some special 

 effort made at increasing or strengthening the defences through- 

 out Britain, as throughout the empire ; and at a later date, again, 

 to meet the special need of defending the Saxon Shore from 

 inroads of pirates from the opposite coasts of the North Sea, 

 a line of some nine forts was built along the sea front to 

 the south-east of the island. But the general scheme of 

 defence, in which the Roman fort at Brough was a unit, 

 belongs, in the main, to the early and middle second century. 

 A military wall crossed the neck of land between the sites of 

 Newcastle and Carlisle, reaching from sea to sea, covered by 

 watch-towers and fortresses, arranged with Roman precision 

 along its length. A few forts were, at some time, advanced 

 beyond this line, but it was to the south that the engineers were 

 chiefly busy. York and Chester had been fixed as the head- 

 quarters of the Legions of occupation, and throughout the area 

 thus defined in the north as far as the Wall, a series of subsidiary 

 fortresses was methodically placed at suitable points and 

 distances, joined, so far as practicable, by roads, until, with 

 the completion of the scheme, the hilly country was held 

 veritably by a net. 



It is these roads and forts, particularly the latter, that are of 



