The Antonine Wall was built after Hadrian's Wall had been abandoned as an outpost and was positioned further to the north in present-day Scotland between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde. 142 CE by Emperor Antoninus Pius) the Vallum appears to have been partially filled in for easier passage. When the Antonine Wall was constructed further north (in c. The Vallum was built after the construction of the wall and the forts as evidenced by its deviation from existing ruins and the clear indication of causeways across the ditch at intervals which correspond to established fortification sites. This claim is in keeping with the growing scholarly consensus that the wall was actually conceived of as more of a symbolic gesture, a dramatic statement of Rome's power, than a line of defense or a means of seriously limiting illegal immigration. Adkins note that the Vallum "probably served as a boundary marker, keeping civilians away" (98). The construction of the Vallum does not even seem to have built for defensive purposes. ( Ancient Civilizations, 313)Ĭlearly, then, there was a defensive aspect to the wall but that still does not seem to have been its primary purpose. They were part of the ideology of empire. In both cases, in addition to any military function, the physical barriers served in the eyes of their builders to reinforce the conceptual divide between civilized and noncivilized. In the same way, the Chinese emperors built the Great Wall to separate China from the barbarous steppe peoples to the north. The biographer of Hadrian remarks that the emperor built the wall to separate the Romans from the barbarians. Regarding this, Professors Scarre and Fagan write,Īrchaeologists and historians have long debated whether Hadrian's Wall was an effective military barrier…Whatever its military effectiveness, however, it was clearly a powerful symbol of Roman military might. The argument goes that, had the wall actually been built as a defensive barrier, it would have been constructed differently and at another location. The military effectiveness of the wall has been questioned by many scholars over the years owing to its length and the positioning of the fortifications along the route.
0 kommentar(er)
