Britain had been invaded by Claudius in the previous century, and the southern part of the island had been made into a Roman province. Since then the frontier had been pushed farther north, and the frontier strongholds were no longer Colchester and Gloucester, but Lincoln, Chester and York. Hadrian spent several months here in the course of his first journey, and his visit had a remarkable result which we can see with our eyes at this moment. He must have noted two facts: first, the unsettled and rebellious condition of the natives of Yorkshire and Northumberland (Brigantes): and secondly, the narrow waist of the island between the Solway Firth and the mouth of the Tyne. He must have reasoned that if Roman forces could be permanently established on a fortified line between the two seas, this line would serve as a check on the Brigantes, and also as a base of operations for further advance northwards.
Thus it is that “Hadrian’s wall” remains as the most striking of all Roman works in our island. It is about seventy miles long, and consisted eventually (for we cannot be sure that it was completed by Hadrian) of a stone wall on the northern side, twenty feet high, an earthen rampart on the southern side, and a military road between them. At intervals there were fortified stations, seventeen in all, including the two which connected the lines with the sea; of these two the eastern one, near Newcastle, now famous for its collieries, is still known as _Wallsend_. The wall enabled the Romans to advance northwards, and soon another fortification was built on a smaller scale between the Forth and Clyde, about which a large volume has just been published by Dr. G. Macdonald, of Edinburgh. The conquest of the Highlands was never, indeed, carried out; but Hadrian’s great work had an immense moral effect on the population to the south of it, and Britain became very substantially Romanised. Towns and country houses (_villæ_) sprang up in abundance along or near the military roads. As I write these lines in North Oxfordshire, I have the remains of several of these _villæ_ within easy reach, and can visit, each in a day, at least four considerable Roman towns, viz. Cirencester, Gloucester, Silchester (Calleva), and last, but not least, Bath (Aquæ Sulis), where the Romans found and used, as they always did in such spots, the magnificent hot springs, building noble baths about them which may be seen to this day.