It is inconceivable that our best historians should have gone so entirely against the direct testimony of the older authorities. They have in this given too much weight to the opinion of Bede, who first declared the remains of the wall between the Tyne and the Solway to be those of Severus’s wall, for opinion it is only, and he was naturally biassed by the remains of the northern rampart being always before his eyes. Nennius gives the native tradition before his time when he quotes the passage from Eusebius, and adds, ‘et vocatur Britannico sermone Guaul a Penguaul quae villa Scotici Cenail, Anglice vero Peneltun dicitur, usque ad ostium fluminis Cluth et Cairpentaloch, quo murus ille finitur rustico opere;’ thus clearly placing the wall between the Forth and Clyde.
Moreover, placing Severus’s wall between the Tyne and Solway involves the manifest inconsistency, that, after penetrating almost to the end of the island, and making a peace, in which territory was ceded to him, he abandoned the whole of his conquests, and withdrew the frontier of the province to where it had been placed by Hadrian. Chalmers, who saw this difficulty, supposes that he built the wall before he commenced his conquests; but this is equally against the direct statement of the older authorities, that it was built after he had driven back his enemies and concluded peace. Mr. Bruce has the pertinent remark that ‘if Severus built the wall (between Tyne and Solway), we should expect to find frequent intimations of the fact in the stations and mile castles. The truth, however, is that from Wallsend to Bowness we do not meet with a single inscription belonging to the reign of Severus, while we meet with several belonging to that of Hadrian’ (p. 382).
[82]. Aurel. Victor. de Caes. 39; Eutrop. ix. 21; Orosius, vii. 25.
[83]. Eumenius, Paneg. Const. c. 12. Eutrop. ix. 22.
[84]. Eumen. Pan. Const. Caes. c. 6. Mamert. Pan. Max. Herc. c. 11, 12.
[85]. Comp. Eumenius, ‘prolixo crine rutilantia,’ with Tacitus, ‘rutilae Caledoniam habitantium comae.’
[86]. Non dico Caledonum aliorumque Pictorum silvas et paludes.—Eumen. c. 7.
[87]. Appian. Alex. Hist. Rom. Præf. 5. Eumen. Pan. Const. cc. 9-19.
[88]. Sunt in Gallia cum Aquitania et Britanniis decem et octo provinciae ... in Britannia, Maxima Cæsariensis, Flavia, Britannia Prima, Britannia Secunda.—Sextus Rufus Festus (360), Brev. 6.
[89]. ‘Consulatu vero Constantii decies, terque Juliani, in Britanniis cum Scotorum Pictorumque gentium ferarum excursus, rupta quiete condicta, loca limitibus vicina vastarent, et implicaret formido provincias præteritarum cladium congerie fessas.’—Am. Mar. B. xx. c. 1. The sentence which follows—‘Hyemem agens apud Parisios Cæsar distractusque in solicitudines varias, verebatur ire subsidio transmarinis; ut retulimus ante fecisse Constantem,’ etc.—implies that there had been a previous attack in 343, but as this part of Ammianus’s work is lost, it is impossible to found upon it. The peace said to have been broken probably followed it.