i9i4" I 9 I S-] Hadrian's Wall. 135 



good idea of their original appearance and dimensions. These 

 are Cilurnum — known to us moderns as Chesters, near Chol- 

 lerford, Borcovicus on the hill-farm of Housesteads, Aesica, 

 and Amboglanna, known to us as Birdoswald — this last just 

 outside the popular resort of Gilsland, famous for its mineral 

 springs and for its connection with the courtship and with the 

 novels of Sir Walter Scott. What was the wall like ? Un- 

 fortunately the Eomans have left us but scanty information on 

 the subject, and, long before sufficient interest was taken in it 

 to tabulate exact particulars, the wall had gone to ruins. But 

 there is evidence that in the sixteenth century parts of it were 

 still standing 15 feet high, and it is generally considered that 

 it stood 18 feet high. Of its breadth we can be quite certain, 

 on the ground-level at least, for in innumerable places it still 

 remains, and shows a varying breadth of from 7| to 9 feet. It 

 is supposed that, at a height of about 14 feet, there was a con- 

 tinuous platform, surmounted by a battlement 4 feet high, be- 

 hind which the defenders of the wall had sufficient standing 

 room and protection. Throughout its entire length, except in 

 those parts where the wall ran along the edge of a precipice, 

 there was on its north side a fosse or ditch which had an 

 average depth of 15 feet and a width across the top of 36 feet. 

 The bottom of the ditch came to a sharp angle. 



Under shelter of the wall ran a paved road, the Eoman 

 military way, and to the south of that there was another series of 

 works, consisting of a ditch as formidable as the northern one, 

 and two earthen walls or continuous mounds, known as the 

 Vallum. The stone wall is usually spoken of as the Murus. 

 The exact purpose of the vallum is still a puzzle to anti- 

 quarians, but you will not fail to appreciate the vast labour 

 involved in the construction of seventy-eight miles of it, or to 

 believe that the Eomans had some serious purpose in making 

 it. It is usually considered to have been made at the same 

 time as the wall, with the object of protecting the road from 

 attack from the south. 



The wall was built by the soldiers of the Eoman army. All 

 along the Antonine Wall in Scotland there are found tablets 

 recording the lengths of wall built by different parties of the 

 legions, and if we cannot find evidence on the spot, a reference 

 to the column of Trajan in Eome shows us very clearly how 



