In the year 120, Hadrian visited Britain, and marched in person to the north. As a contemporary poet said—
Ego nolo Cæsar esse,
Ambulare per Britannos,
Sythicas pati pruinas.
He built the great wall from the Solway to the Tyne: a wall 70 miles long, with an earthen vallum and a deep ditch on its southern side, and fortified by twenty-three stations, by castles, and wall towers.
ROMAN KNIFE-HANDLE
—FIGURE OF
CHARIOTEER,
BRONZE
In the collection of
C. Roach Smith, Esq., F.S.A.
Twenty years later, the Proprætor, Lollius Urbicus, drove the Caledonians northwards into the mountains, and connected the line of forts erected by Agricola from the Forth to the Clyde by a massive rampart of earth called the wall of Antoninus.
Again, after twenty years, the Caledonians gave fresh trouble, and were put down by Ulpius Marcellus under Commodus. On his recall there was a formidable mutiny of the troops. Pertinax, afterwards, for three short months, Emperor, was sent to quell the mutiny. He failed, and was recalled. Albinus, sent in his place, was one of the three generals who revolted against the merchant Didius Julianus, when that misguided person bought the throne.
At this time the Roman province of Britain had become extremely rich and populous. Multitudes of auxiliary troops had been transplanted into the island, and had settled down and married native women. The conscription dealt with equal rigour both with their children and the native Britons. Albinus, at the head of a great army, said to have consisted of 150,000 men, crossed over to Gaul and fought Severus, who had already defeated the third competitor, Niger, at Lyons, when he too met with defeat and death.