Border

A photograph of part of the Antonine Wall at Falkirk in Scotland. This marked the northern border of the Roman empire.

The Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius ordered the wall to be built cAD142. The wall stretched from the River Forth to the River Clyde c37 miles. This wall was a rampart of soil and turf c12 ft high and on the north side protected by a ditch that was c40ft wide and 12ft deep. All this effort was to keep the Scottish northern tribes out. It's not like Hadrian's Wall further south which is a stone wall and probably did not deter many serious folks.

South of the Antonine Wall was a military road linking a series of forts at c2 mile intervals to protect the ftontier. You will gather from this that it was a pretty serious attempt at border control by the Roman Empire. It eventually failed. It was regularly attacked by the Scottish tribes and by cAD160 the weakening Roman Empire abandonded the wall and the Roman forces retreated south.

We Scots can be a right difficult and pesky people when we set our minds to it!

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