The Antonine Wall, Scotland
Emperor Antoninus Pius tried to extend the Roman Empire 100 miles further north than his predecessor Hadrian, but his wall was much less substantial and was soon abandoned
Most people have heard of Hadrian’s Wall, which was built on the orders of Emperor Hadrian across northern England and completed around the year AD 128. The Emperor had decided that there was a limit as to how far north the Empire could be extended, and this was it. Although he was happy for trade to continue with the people living north of the Wall, he saw no point in imposing Roman rule on them and undertaking the expense of so doing.
However, his successor as Emperor had other ideas. This was Antoninus Pius, who ruled from 138 to 161. He believed that the Empire could include the whole of what is now Northumberland and southern Scotland, and so he ordered the building of a new wall to link the Firth of Clyde to the Firth of Forth. This marks the ‘waist’ of Scotland and is therefore a distance of only 37 miles as opposed to the 73 miles of Hadrian’s Wall.
Despite the much shorter distance and inferior structure — turf-faced earth ramparts as opposed to solid stone —, the new wall took longer to complete, namely twelve years from 142 to 154. Antoninus was…
