The oldest Roman frontier system

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve!

 

01 September 2007 The oldest Roman frontier system produces another twist in Scotland

[longshotgene]

According to what I learned this past summer, Hadrian's Wall was never totally abandoned. The forts there were used as a secondary line of defense. The number of troops may not have been as strong when the Antonine line was being built, but it was never totally abandoned.

[Northern Neil]

Was the fosse way, in the mid-60-s not in effect a frontier system? Maybe this doesn't count, as it did not have a regular, systemetised organisation and the military installations were more sporadic... but it seems to have functioned as a frontier for a short time.

[G-Manicus]

More...

 

EVIDENCE OF SETTLEMENT UNEARTHED NEAR ROMAN FORT

 

A Two-week investigation at a Roman fort in Perthshire has uncovered evidence of a nearby settlement.

 

The discovery at Strageath is the first example of a civilian settlement outside a Roman fort north of the Antonine Wall.

 

The survey was carried out by members of the Roman Gask Project, as part of their work in the wider area, and in conjunction with Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust.

 

Coins and metalwork were found at the site, which was described as a "fairly extensive area of occupation" and is thought to date from the second century AD.

 

Birgitta Hoffmann, a member of the project team, said: "This has far surpassed our expectations. We thought we might find a couple of houses, but this appears to be a fairly extensive area of occupation."

 

Following excavations in the 1970s, it was discovered that the Strageath fort was originally built at the end of the first century AD, subsequently abandoned, and then reoccupied at the same time as the Antonine Wall in the second century AD.

 

Unlike any of the other Roman forts north of the Antonine Wall, aerial photographs of Strageath showed evidence of straight lines surrounding the fort, as well as smaller field systems, suggesting a civilian settlement surrounded it.

 

The Roman Gask Project's work in the area has also seen excavations at a possible Romanised settlement at Cuiltburn and a Roman road cutting at Innerpeffray Chapel which led to the Earn crossing.

 

People can now walk The Antonine Way, which links Bo'ness on the River Forth with Old Kilpatrick just outside Glasgow on the River Clyde.

 

There are various sections of the wall still available to view along the 37-mile trail and it passes very close to the Falkirk Wheel.

[Pertinax]

Was the fosse way, in the mid-60-s not in effect a frontier system? Maybe this doesn't count, as it did not have a regular, systemetised organisation and the military installations were more sporadic... but it seems to have functioned as a frontier for a short time.

I suppose the "mental judo" we might need to employ is this: as we know proir to Hadrians Wall the Stanegate was in essence the frontier. The road system existed to deliver combatants to a required area or at least to allow policing and intelligence collection , at all possible speed within a given area.The suggested mindshift of Hadrian is to "an Empire with boundaries" , where by necessity he felt obliged to "manage" possible reasonably definable physical frontiers , his predecessors had always followed the idea of an "Empire without boundaries" ie: acknowledging the idea of Rome as a constantly dynamic , expanding entity with a moral certitude of civilising the non-civilised.So perhaps all pre-Hadrianic road systems had the potential to be "frontiers" in a very loose sense delivering garisson troops to unsettled areas as required. A quote from Rosen in Justinian's Flea (as regards the pre-Islamic arabs) but quite reasonable in N Europe and "Caledonia" in particular was " dangerous to annoy , but pointless to conquer" .That is warlike inhabitants with nothing that Rome needed save for them to shut up and go away.