just a little note a famous point in the wall sycamore gap had someone cut down the famous sycamore tree featured in films like robin hood prince of thieves very recently, it's quite upsetting someone would do that to a national treasure
As much as it is sad and is horrible to see it happen… the tree itself wasn’t a blip on the age of the wall constructed and wouldn’t of been there at the time or any tree for that matter when the Scott’s came rambling over every now n then! Plus it would of damaged the wall even more hence there being no trees around as it’s roots are already through it and blowing the wall to pieces!!! Would ya pay a guy to come cut a 2-3 hundred year tree down next to your 5 hundred year old house if it was about to fall on it ?
@@debbielough7754 so… you’d let your 5 hundred year old house get damaged by a 3 hundred year old tree roots as well as falling? I agree it wasn’t cut properly it is a shame but there’s no other tree around for a reason! Someone planted it there…..
Life both sides of the wall went on as if the wall didn't exist. People came and went freely. The Romans saw little value in conquering the Picts and just wished to shut them out. It also stopped migration from the empire. The term 'barbarian' just means 'from outside the Roman empire' and it didn't make them bad people. 😀 I was born a mile from the wall and I've walked it and camped on it. It's bleak, inspiring and invigorating. I love it. What have the Romans ever done for us?
Barbarians was a term used by the ancient Greeks for anyone who wasn't Greek and was therefore uncultured and who spoke a different language, which the Greeks said sounded like the bleating of sheep - baa baa. I guess that's what they originally thought of the Romans!
That was Roman propaganda, if they saw little value in conquering the Picts why did they try time and time again to conquer them over 3 centuries. They couldn't let it be known that they got humped by a tribe in Northern Britain, that would have inspired rebellions throughout the Roman empire and would have been the beginning of the end for the Romans much sooner. So they built a wall and said Caledonia wasn't worth conquering, the lying bastards lol. Amittedly i would have probably did the same to save face.
@@michaelwant8501conquered…… that word came to mind first and seemed more fitting…. O well, yes I’m sure he exerted himself thoroughly upon these lands as deep as he could before his final end….
Julius didn't get out of Kent. both of his landings were near disasters . they were simply for propaganda for a man determined to make himself the most famous Roman of all - he succeeded. he had ambitions to be consul when his time in Gaul was over. Britannia was a fabulous mysterious island to the Romans. invading it was a big coup for Caesar - something else for him to write home about apart from his most recent massacre in Gaul.
The thing to remember is that the Scots didn’t live in Scotland in Roman times, nor the English in England - both of them arrived, the English from the continent and the Scots from Ireland, shortly after the Romans left.
truly appreciate the way you look things up when you are not sure of something; when you looked at the photos showing the white cliffs, they may have looked close but it is 21 miles across the Channel
I'm from Hexham, so my neck of the woods. I walked it with a friend when I was 17 (we skipped the first 12 miles as it is urban) It's actually a fairly easy walk because the Romans knew how to use the contours of the land for effective roads. Once you see the Whinn Sill you will see the advantage of the chosen rout. I've also spent two seasons digging at Vindolanda fort but it was just grunt work. Yes, the Romans concluded that there was nothing to be gained in Scotland except trouble. I was taught that it was a defensive structure that allowed for controlled trade. No full scale invasion from the north was implausible but brigand raids could be an issue.
@@toonarmy00 The Birley's have taken some stick over the years from their popularising approach to archaeology but the result has been a remarkable achievement. Some more traditionalist archaeologists felt their reconstructions were unscholarly. My old Sunday school teacher was a geologist who knew Robin Birley (the key man) in the 60's and 70's and very often we ditched bible class for a trip in the back of his Landrover to Vindolanda or Haltwhistle Gorge for wee lectures. I kept going after I stopped believing in God. He was a good teacher.
Contrary to popular belief, Hadrians Wall does not and never did mark the border between England and Scotland. Whilst the western point on the Solway firth is just a few miles south of the current border, in the east it’s around 60 miles south. Back in Roman times concepts of England and Scotland did not exist at all. The video is misleading when it talks about the Picts, they were much further to the north, beyond where the Antonine wall was. Hadrians Wall cut largely through the lands of the Votadini tribe. It was probably built as part defence and partly to control trade. It was possible, indeed normal for local civilians to pass through the wall. Much of the wall runs very close to the northern banks of the river Tyne/South Tyne. Originally the fort at the eastern end of the wall was ‘Pons Aelius’ which was named after the Roman bridge that crossed the Tyne at that point (Pons being Latin for bridge. Aelius being the Emperor Hadrian’s family name). Eventually the wall was extended a few miles further east to the fort of Segedunum, which evolved into the modern day town of Wallsend. Pons Aelius evolved into Newcastle, the main city in the North East of England. The ‘new castle’ which gives the city its name was the second of two castles built by the Normans (the first being a temporary wooden one). Both were built on the site of the old Roman fort. Whilst a lot can be seen of the wall and forts out in rural Northumberland, there is very little remaining of the section that runs through modern day Newcastle, however there are a few remnants and foundations that can be seen in places.
yes, its a bit annoying when ppl set modern borders and country names to ancient times - * so you get "Turkish Santa Clause etc or Scotland a thousand years before it existed. most common error is when they often show present day Ireland/Northern Ireland prior to 1921 ... its as if they don't expect audiences to comprehend
They built the wall there because it was a natural volcanic fault that had scarred the landscape named the Whin Sill. If you look again at the first shots of the wall you can see the rock formations adding to the height and dramatic appearance. This is a fabulous location, very atmospheric and there are several archaeological digs along its length. A visit to Vindolanda is a must. Its so interesting you could spend days here.
We have bits of Hadrian's Wall opposite our house. There are often coaches that stop for touristy photos when there are much better examples just a few miles down the road.
There is another border construct, running across the majority of the Welsh border, Offa's Dyke. Offa was a Mercian King, Mercia as you know was one of the the main kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons, which, prior to the Viking invasions, had conquered much of England with exception to the Northumbrian's to the North, and Cornwall on the South western tip of England. The Dyke is said to be a fortification, to hold the Welsh Kingdoms in check, but other sources hint that it may've been a vanity project, with power projection at it's core. A sort of "See this great fortification, this is the power we wield" concept. It's also speculated that it was built over a large number of years, continued and added to by subsequent Kings of Mercia. So, when you get down to it, Britain has it's fair share of fortifications that predate much of the Initial Norman Castles that got created post 1066. If you want to understand a good piece of British History, then you want to learn about 1066 The Battle of Hastings (known to all, but properly it was the Battle of Senlac Hill), the Norman Invasion, the Last successful invasion of Britain. The Events of 1066 make for quite a good story, seeing as how much went down in one year.
Hi JJ ... re England and France proximity ... during WW1 people living in the south of England could hear the guns being fired in the trenches of northern France .. ps I'm JJ too.
It's only 22 miles across the channel at .it's narrowest point ,the weather forecast for shopping gives the maximum visibility ( distance you can see) at around 40 miles ,so no problem on a clear day ❤.
It wasn't just roads that the wall was used for. Either side of the wall there are houses built from the stone. My favourite of the Vindolanda tablets says something along the lines of 'it's freezing, please send socks'. I grew up near Hadrian's wall. My great grandparents came from a small town (at the time) called Wallsend. Guess how it got it's name...
I highly recommend looking up and reading the Vindolanda Tablets he mentions, the small letters home or too friends written by those living and working at the wall, they will give you a wonderful insight into normal life of the time. And almost certainly surprise you in how little humans change even as our technology moves in leaps and bounds, life remains much the same.
Yes, the first one was discovered in March 1973 and throughout the 70's/80's about 500 were excavated and more are still being found. To date the texts of 752 tablets have been transcribed, translated and published - most being held in the British Museum _(with many on display in Room 49)._ Several tablets are also on display at the Vindolanda Museum by Hadrian's Wall... It's worth checking out the 405 Bloomberg Tablets too... which were discovered during excavations in the City of London - preserved by thick, wet mud!
Spent many a time on the wall at various points, as i live close to it's starting point on the river Tyne and beside the supply fort called Arbeia which is south of the river, supplies could be sent inland in relative safety or ferried across the river to the fort known as Segedunum which was the start point for the wall , the town it stands in is called Wallsend, while many tourists flock to the Vindolanda fort my personal favourite is Housesteads fort which is actually on the wall, the bleakness of the surroundings give a btter insight into what it may have been like for the soldiers stationed there.
You really should visit Vindolanda Roman Fort sometime (the one mentioned where the tablets were found). It was a family trip there when I was 16 that sent me on my path to study human evolution and anthropology at university. A simple trip changing my entire path in life. It is wonderfully preserved and you get to learn so much about the site and the people who lived there.
At 9:30, that dot in Mauretania marking the location of a rebellion is in the wrong place. That's the modern country called Mauretania. The Roman province with that name was located approximately where Morocco is today. Although the wall was in use for 300+ years of the Roman occupation of Britain, the garrisons were not the same people and their descendants all the time. They were rotated home or to other duties and replaced by new units
Simon Whistler makes a few errors. The Emperor Hadrian died in 138, not in 123. I think when the Wall was first built, most people living in what is now Scotland were not called Picts, but by the names of various tribes, including the Caledonii. My belief is that the main reason for the conquest of Britain was that the Emperors were short of silver. ( The Emperors were responsible for the coinage.) Britain had a lot of lead mines - which significantly were immediately exploited. The point was that the lead ore galena, lead sulfide, contained some silver sulfide, and the silver could be separated out. You mustn't forget that the Roman Emperors were dictators, with an elastic attitude to the truth. I think there was a massive rebellion about 118 AD, which was hushed up. Nothing else would explain the massive attention paid by a Roman Emperor. The Wall may have been an attempt to separate the tribes. It is about this time - not at the time of Boudica's rebellion - that the Ninth Legion mysteriously disappears. I have visited places along the Wall. This video doesn't show you all the massive ruins along the Wall, and the wonderful museums they have. The Vindolanda tablets are indeed wonderful; their writing, on scraps of bark, faded away immediately they were dug up, but they can still be read in the infra-red. Since ordinary soldiers could hire scribes to write their little notes, all sorts of aspects of life of the squaddies are revealed, including one soldier sending underpants and socks to another. Officially the only women allowed in the military encampments were the wives of the commandants; the birthday-party invitation was from one such wife to another. However it is rather clear that the soldiers often had camp-followers in the villages outside the forts.
ATTENTION Anyone know visit the wall Yes it is tempting to take one of the stones BUT PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS We lost mosth of the wall to history and stupidly we don't want to lose any to visitors Thank you for reading.
I'm from Liverpool we don't have any Roman stuff here but Chester is just a short 40 minutes away on Merseyrail local transit, Chester which was a Roman town complete with Roman wall etc also has lot's of medieval and Elizabethan buildings too and two cathedrals the older and original one now St Johns church is more interesting and much older, well worth a visit after or before getting totally shit faced in the party town of Liverpool
The Romans is a stunning outdoor venue located on Otterspool promenade. Located overlooking the River Mersey, in a stunning open air space, The Romans is a purpose-built Roman themed activity and adventure park, specially designed for groups.@@secondtimearound2539
This wall is in England, 30 miles south of the Scottish border. For those who wish it was the border..... from Scotland, thanks for all the territory!!!!
It's the English who should be thanking the Scots for the territory. Once it marked the border between "Scottish" lands and Roman lands. Now it's England on either side. Those once "Scottish" lands just to the north of the wall are now part of England. Cheers for that.
@@adambattersby8934 Scotland didn't exist when the wall was constructed. England didn't exist either. Waffling on about "Scottish" lands makes no sense. But if we want to talk about borders there was a time when England went all the way up to East Lothian and Scotland went down into what is now Cumbria. I think, with the current border, a nice balance has been found.
If you are interested in Roman Britain and are ever over here you need to visit the city of Bath. There are superb excavations which provide a wonderfully mundane but intimate view into the lives of ordinary Roman citizens (most of whom were never more than 10 miles from home).
The best thing about Hadrians Wall is the scenery surrounding it in Northumberland. There is also Offa's Dyke built by King Offa to keep the Welsh out of Mercia.
I've been binge watching your videos lately. I'm not usually into 'react' videos, but yours are really interesting. There's no such thing as a 'stupid question' (most of the time!). I hope you're able to visit our shores sometime soon, brother. Peace o,/
ginger beard growout at target 20k! just an idea lol this was another fantastic and fascinating reaction, like a 'special edition' extra footage and wiki facts, thanks JJ
Not only Brits, but no European (be they French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, etc) has ever asked for any reparations or money. Just leaving this out there. (I gotta say though, I gotta commend the Americans for being one of the few nations that don't go down this route)
He didn't mention much about the Ditches that ran on one side of the wall, very deep with steep sides. Probably more of a deterrent than the wall. Once you got into them it was difficult to get out again and they would have been a killing field.
Most people think, that the Roman Empire was the largest empire EVER !!! But it pails into insignificant when compared to the once formidable British Empire. Oh how far, we have fallen 😞 lol The Roman empire spanned *1.9 million square miles* The British empire spanned *13.7 million square miles.* The largest in the history of planet Earth.
My family lives in, Heddon-on-the-wall. There are visible remains there. As a kid we would play on the wall. There is actually a small village called Walll, no guessing as to where the stone came from lol
Part of that influence comes from the time longer period they ruled what is now France (and by extension the dominance of Latin in the Catholic Church). The French then brought plenty of Latin derived words into the English language when they invaded/conquered in 1066.
Sometimes the scripts of these videos from the network behind Simon Whistler are a bit off... 10:10 why was Hadrian's Wall, the apparantly only roman border wall, built in northern england/scotland? I think they jus forgot about the Limes...
The common Roman Soldiers normally were not allowed to marry and had to serve a minimum of 25 years. Only Officers were allowed to marry and most didn't have their families with them. Most Roman Soldiers were not from Rome or even the Italian peninsula they were from conquered lands and would never be allowed to serve in their own countries. This was to minimise any thoughts of common rebellion. If you survived your 25 years with good conduct you could expect a plot of land as reward and a pension. The highest rank an enlisted soldier could hope to achieve would be Centurion (roughly Sargeant Major).
Boudica used to be known as BOADICEA ( BO DI SEE A) when I was at school in the 70s. NORFOLK is pronounced NORFUK. The L is silent. Hadrian's Wall isn't , and has never been, the border between England and Scotland.
Same, although having looked into it a little bit a while ago, that spelling of her name does appear to be erroneous. But then, hardly surprising, things change...when I was at school there were 9 planets and countries called Yugoslavia, Rhodesia, Burma and Kampuchea. And you couldn't begin a sentence with a conjunction. I mean, who on Earth would have known back then that there would now be 877,543,945,934,572,837,478,384 different genders; probably with more arriving tomorrow.
Same - I was in primary school in the 60's and it was Boadicea then. What was the name of blue they painted their faces with back then. I thought it was ?Wodin blue? but can't find any reference to it.
@nolasyeila6261 I believe the war paint used by the Iceni and other celts was called "woad". It's a plant in the cabbage family that could have blue dye extracted from it.
Boadicea is the latinised version of her actual name, Boudicca, and it is what the Roman historians called her when they wrote about Britannia. She was called Boadicea when I was at school too, years ago, but then the modern history books decided that it was about time that we shrugged off the Roman influence and began calling her by her proper tribal name in the same way that we now call London, London, and not Londinium and we call this country Britain (from our original Celtic language, when it was referred to as Prythain) and not Britannia.
@@nolaj114 If I remember rightly it was called woad now I'm not entirely sure I've spelt that right it could be woade but it definitely was woad and when I was in school between the fifies and sixties she was still called boadicea dont know when they changed it to boddica or bodicca which to my eyes don't look right.
Hi, at the closest point to my house the wall is only a couple of hundred metres from my house. The Roman’s stamp on the area remains, my kid’s school is called “Milecastle”, one of the local pubs was called “The Vallum”, my parent’s street is called “The Chesters” and my cousins live a few miles further down the wall in an area called “Wallsend”, you Can guess by the area’s name what was significant about the wall there 😂
The point of the Wall was to control the lands to its north. With thousands of Roman cavalry in the forts, which had gates on the north side of the wall line, the Romans could send patrols far to the north to police all the lowlands. The far off Highlands held no value to Rome, so they gave up trying to totally conquer them. Whenever the Romans did go north they always overwhelmed the natives, who were rendered quiet for many years. Hadrian's Wall was built between rivers at each end, & upon a high ridge in the centre, at the narrowest distance across the north of England. The Antonine Wall was much shorter, across the narrowest part of central Scotland, so it took most of the useful lowlands into the Roman Province. There was little danger to civilians near the Wall because of the huge numbers of Roman soldiers in the area. Yes many Roman Auxiliary units remained on Hadrian's Wall for 3 hundred years, living & raising families in effect becoming Romano-Britons. The tribes of Scotland were not called Picts at the time of these Walls. The term Pict is not mentioned until the late 3rd/early 4th centuries, before which numerous tribal names are used. The Antonine Wall will have had a wooden palisade on top of the turf, making it much harder to cross, & again it had thousands of Roman troops to protect it, yet still their job was to keep trouble at a distance, with the Walls acting as a base & back stop not a forward limit marker. Hadrian had similar boundaries built in many other borders of the Empire, including on the Danube/Rhine , across parts of the eastern boundary with the Parthian Empire, & across much of north Africa, but these were not as monumental as the Wall in Britannia, still they each represented the same sort of border system, of control & patrol base. None of these were intended as the absolute limit of the Empire, but military control points, & taxation posts. There is nothing irrational about these boundary control points, though it was dependant on the will of the Emperor if & where they were constructed, but based upon military intelligence. They were built by the experts of the Legions but occupied by Auxiliary units, recruited from various tribes from around the Empire. Simon got Hadrian's date wrong, he died in 138 AD, not 123AD, & Antoninus Pius became the Emperor then, & shortly after decided to move the army in Britannia forward to the Clyde-Forth line. After his death Marcus Aurelius moved them back to the Hadrianic line, but no doubt still meant to control the lands up to the Antonine boundary.
When Boudicca was taught to me it was spelt Boudica and pronounced Bo-de-see-ya. Oh how the times have changed... The Romans first invaded Britain (Britannia) in 43 AD. With Ronan rule ending 383AD and finally removed 410AD.
@@johnashtone7167 What on Earth are you trying to say there? Specificity and context please? I'm relating how I was taught, so that wasn't wrong, it's a fact. If what I was taught us wrong it might help to actually be clear and tell us phonetically how it was spoken... Otherwise your just saying we're wrong which is pointless without at least correction and substantiation.
@@johnashtone7167 I think they're using boo-de-ka now. As for the Latin or Roman pronunciation, do you think the Romans named an early British Queen? It really doesn't matter how they pronounced it or what letters they used... It's not relevant.
@@johnashtone7167 Because as a name it's down to the owners pronunciation not other people, alphabets or cultures... A name is one of the few things defined and asserted by the owner... So Latin is not a defining factor, Celtic or Common Brittonic is... _Her name was also misspelled by Tacitus, who added a second 'c. ' After the misspelling was copied by a medieval scribe, further variations began to appear. Along with the second 'c' becoming an 'e,' an 'a' appeared in place of the 'u', which produced the medieval (and most common) version of the name, Boadicea_
@@johnashtone7167 Actually since you're so upset by this I did some checking... It's NOT a name it's a title. 'Boudica', comes from the old proto-Gaelic word BOUDEG, which means 'Victory'. So now we're into Gaelic as well as Celtic. You obviously didn't read my posts because there is a written record from the time. _As a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars_ _a few inscriptions have been identified. The Bath curse tablets, found in the Roman feeder pool at Bath, Somerset (Aquae Sulis), bear about 150 names - about 50% Celtic (but not necessarily Brittonic)_ _The ancient Celts wrote on stones, using their own alphabet called Ogham. Celts lived in Ireland as well as parts of France, England, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man. Each Celtic region had its own language_ _One of the earliest writing systems of the British Isles was rune stones. Runes were first used in 200 A.D., and they represented the old Scandinavian alphabet_ _The earliest texts in English survive as very short runic inscriptions on metal objects and ceramic pots_
@@johnashtone7167 By the way I wasn't upset, if you read correctly I said "this is what I was taught" not this is how it should be pronounced. I was actually drawing attention to how it's change over the years... Why would that upset me? If it changes in a few decades how do you think it's changed in millenia? It's was really you who categorically refused to accept what I was taught, as if that was up for interpretation. How it was supposed to be pronounced wasn't at issue - until YOU asserted I was wrong. When I wasn't asserting how it was pronounced only how I was taught it was pronounced. Two different things entirely...
The invitation to a Birthday party has a PS written by the Forts commander's wife the one of the first signs that some women were able to read and write
Stanegate has never been on or near the Anglo-Scots border. The northern border of the kingdoms thst became England was much further north than that, at the Firth of Forth, and it was only in the 10th and 11th centuries that it assumed something like its present position, still well north of Stanegate (about 70 miles at the eastern end - a decent distance by UK standards).
@@michaelconway8877Yes, he did. The border between England and Scotland at that time was well south of Stanegate and Hadrian's Wall (the whole of present day Cumbria and south into Lancashire, right the way across to the river Tees) so, again Hadrian's Wall did not mark the boundary. It returned more or less to the present border after his reign and there were only a few minor or shortlived alterations in the coming centuries (Edward I's temporary incursions, Berwick-upon-Tweed and the Debatable Lands).
You might look at the third great wall, the Wall of Gorgan built by the Sasanian emperors of Iran between the Caspian Sea and the mountain chain 120 miles to its east, blocking the so-called Caspian gates. This was built towards the end of the period of the Roman occupation of Britain. According to the historian Procopius, the Eastern Roman emperors helped subsidise the occupation of this wall, a wall designed to block attacks by tribes from Central Asia.
Except the Picts didn't exist then, they came along later. There was various tribes there before the Picts, mainly the Caledonians in the North who fought the Romans in a massive Battle which may be ficticious.
I mean, President trump wanted to build a wall 🧱. England has had a wall since roman times, and the Americans can't ever think of something new. For everyone who gets upset, this is a joke.
The Wall was built by legionnaires - the Roman army was unlike anything seen before, or since.. soldiers usually had some skill or trade besides combat. and they had a degree of literacy not seen for centuries afterward. apart from the odd military disaster , a Roman soldier had a pretty good chance of surviving his 20 years service and retiring on a pension and land grant. auxiliaries got citizenship too. it was a career.. ambitious men might become centurions - the "sergeant majors" of the army , usually recruited from slightly more affluent, and literate class of Romans. they were the backbone of the army throughout Roman history.
Worth remembering that whilst that Boudicca story is cool, there are alternative stories about her, and no one is entirely sure she even existed at all...
Considering that they have found relics with her name and likeness on them (from that period) and multiple accounts of her story, we can be pretty sure she existed, how much of the story is real, we'll likely never know.
The ancient Greeks were the first to refer to Britain as Bretannike, which means painted or tattooed people. The Romans describe the British as being painted and tattooed as well. I'm sure both sides of Hadrian's wall had cultural similarities.
Funny you mention GoT as George R. R. Martin has specifically stated that inspiration for the wall in the books/tv show were inspired by Hadrians Wall and the war of five kings was inspired by the wars of the Roses which were essentially a series of civil wars in England between House Lancaster (I wonder where house Lannister got their name) and House York, vying for the English Throne.
The Romans invaded Britain mainly to secure control of Cornwall & Devon, which was the best source of Tin in Europe. British tin is found all over Europe and large ingots have been found as far as Israel. When combined in small quantities with Copper it creates Bronze, a substance so important that it's discovery leads to the Bronze age (3,200BC to 1,200BC), when humans first started working with metals, in which was an incredibly useful material. Tin is not a particularly common element (250x less common than Iron) with high quality grades of tin ore even rarer, while the best quality & some of the easiest to recover deposits of tin in Europe were to be found in Devon & Cornwall with it's extraction beginning around 2,000BC. On the back of its trade, Tintagel in Cornwall became a very rich and powerful city and reputedly also the source of the legend of King Arthur. Having conquered what it needed to secure the tin supplies of Cornwall, the Romans discovered significant quantities of Gold in Wales, while England was a particularly fertile place due to the good soils and mild weather, so lots of food could be produced. These were useful to the Empire but once you start getting to the moorlands of northern England there was less and less need for Rome to keep going. Therefore England & Wales represented a strategically important province, but Scotland and much of the north of England behind the wall was not known for much of importance to the Empire. There were no significantly useful resources they would import from there or could not get from elsewhere and once you get to the Scottish Highlands you find the area sparsely populated with poor soils, strategically difficult to control areas and much worse weather with little protection from the ravages of the Atlantic (a lot of England sits in the rain shadows of Ireland & Wales since the prevailing winds are South-Westerlies). One thing to be clear about is that Hadrian's Wall represents a retrenchment from the Antonine Wall - you might think of it as a prototype of Hadrian's Wall as it was built before its bigger more famous cousin to the suoth. The Romans did push even further north but found fewer reasons for doing so as they went. This far north represented a big departure for legionaries, many of whom would have come from Mediterranean climates, so the calculus of risk versus reward changes and eventually the Roman Empire established its limits in the north of England. Hadrian's Wall represented the easiest control point, crossing the neck of England at its narrowest point from the Irish Sea at the Solway firth to Wallsend (Walls' End) in Tyneside where I am from. Fun fact I used to play on some discarded Hadrian's Wall stones in the Hall Grounds until they were taken to incorporate into a replica of the old wall that is built at the site of Segedunum (the Roman name for the fort in Wallsend). The wall was not in itself a complete shut out. Much local trade was to be had with 'rebellious Scots' as our northern siblings like to style themselves, bringing goods to trade with the Romans at the larger forts. By controlling & taxing the trade at the border and intimidating the tribes to the north with this wall technology unlike anything they would know, Rome established a stable frontier that partly subsidised itself.
Boudica would have killed herself to avoid being brought to Rome and displayed to it's people, before being sacrificed to their Gods. Which had happened in Gaul to the king Vercingetorix, who was held in Rome until Julius Caesar's triumph, where he was sacrificed to Jupiter.
Another great react video. And Ireland has the largest number of redheads per capita in the world (10%). Scotland merely 6% :) Sincerely, from the north of Ireland
Hadrians wall is built on a massive fault which runs almost from coast to coast and is as several of the photo's show a cliff so the walls top was in its heyday atleast 60 feet high, so the wall itself was probably never attacked, though the Gates are another thing! As an aside the 'Scots' didn't exist then as they had yet to invade and complete the Roman attempt at Genocide in circa 330 ad. before that on the East coast a people called by the Romans 'Pictii' (painted folk, scot comes from an anciant 'cumbric word, which was the main language in Britain when the Romans were in Britain, scot means boat people as they arrived on boats from Ireland which is their ancestral homeland) on the west coast the people were called the Caled's hence Caledonia! further norththere were several other peoples.
Have you ever heard what happened to defeated leaders who opposed Rome? Paraded through Rome in chains before being killed, often garrotted! For the entertainment of the populous! A leader who killed themselves would avoid a brutal, painful and humiliating death! AND offer a final act of defiance! For comparision, how many people of deathrow commit suicide?
I live in the town where it ends on the west side, you can still see where it came into the town, the roads still follow the path of the wall, a lot of the churches & old farm buildings in the area are made out if stones they stole from the wall 😂
The "Celts" are a literary creation created in the 17th century by the same Englishman that invented Tartan, he did both to promote Scottish tourism and was Isaac Newton's best mate. Boudica was a Scottish Pictish princess that was married off to the King of the Iceni who's kingdom stretched between modern day Essex into North Herts. Boudica would have been my Queen back then. We know nothing of the Iceni because their culture died out, but, we can assume they were a Pictish tribe purely because Boudica was married off to their King.
Simon 'half the stuff in my videos are complete nonsense information' Whistler. I think there's more misinformation in this guy's work than on Wikipedia.
Quick correction to that guy, Gaul didn't call itself that, the Wallonains (from north of there) called it Walholant, meaning "Land of the foreigners" or "Land of the Romans". So it's right that it wasn't the latin name for it but it also wasn't what the "gauls" themselves called it, the romans called it Gallia. This guy makes good videos in general but they are riddled with little errors like that.
The whole concept of these people being "romans" (literally people from rome) amuses me, if you were born in Britain, and it was your great, great grandfather who came across the English channel, you're about as "roman" as those Americans who say theyre "Irish" 😂
@@redceltnetyou're correct. There's nearly no genetic impact from the Romans. They pulled in professional soldiers from all over the empire and they returned home as they would today.
No, the scots are not the people the romans fought . The Scots were a much later people who arrived from the Dublin area after the Vikings invasion of Ireland. The destroyed and absorbed the picts
Re dangerous dogs: a local man was killed by his friend's American XL Bully dog earlier this year. Apparently he opened the cage to feed it. There were about 13 other dogs of the same breed there which were seized by the police. Because of one dog a man lost his life and his family lost a husband, son and dad.
Britain is the name of the biggest island in the British Isles and the one that England Scotland and Wales are on Britannia is what the romans called it They never conquered all the British Isles
@@aa-xg3ct As neither of us is speaking Latin, why are you mentioning what the Romans called this island? The largest British Isle is called Great Britain. This is a matter of fact, not a matter of opinion. PS Rome called Libya "Africa". Would you like to tell people from Africa that they're not African? I'll hold your coat.
just a little note a famous point in the wall sycamore gap had someone cut down the famous sycamore tree featured in films like robin hood prince of thieves very recently, it's quite upsetting someone would do that to a national treasure
Was a very, very sad day!
@Evasion381 👍
As much as it is sad and is horrible to see it happen… the tree itself wasn’t a blip on the age of the wall constructed and wouldn’t of been there at the time or any tree for that matter when the Scott’s came rambling over every now n then! Plus it would of damaged the wall even more hence there being no trees around as it’s roots are already through it and blowing the wall to pieces!!! Would ya pay a guy to come cut a 2-3 hundred year tree down next to your 5 hundred year old house if it was about to fall on it ?
The roots weren't damaging the wall.
The careless cutting down of the tree, however, has now been confirmed as damaging the wall itself.
@@debbielough7754 so… you’d let your 5 hundred year old house get damaged by a 3 hundred year old tree roots as well as falling? I agree it wasn’t cut properly it is a shame but there’s no other tree around for a reason! Someone planted it there…..
Life both sides of the wall went on as if the wall didn't exist. People came and went freely. The Romans saw little value in conquering the Picts and just wished to shut them out. It also stopped migration from the empire. The term 'barbarian' just means 'from outside the Roman empire' and it didn't make them bad people. 😀
I was born a mile from the wall and I've walked it and camped on it. It's bleak, inspiring and invigorating. I love it.
What have the Romans ever done for us?
Barbarians was a term used by the ancient Greeks for anyone who wasn't Greek and was therefore uncultured and who spoke a different language, which the Greeks said sounded like the bleating of sheep - baa baa.
I guess that's what they originally thought of the Romans!
The aqueduct?
Sanitation
That was Roman propaganda, if they saw little value in conquering the Picts why did they try time and time again to conquer them over 3 centuries. They couldn't let it be known that they got humped by a tribe in Northern Britain, that would have inspired rebellions throughout the Roman empire and would have been the beginning of the end for the Romans much sooner. So they built a wall and said Caledonia wasn't worth conquering, the lying bastards lol. Amittedly i would have probably did the same to save face.
@@davidhyams2769 yes, because they thought ppl speaking anything other than Greek was literally just "ba ba ba" :P
"I came; I saw; I conquered," - Julius Caesar.,... well until he got to Scotland and he was like, hell no, they are fkng mental, wall em in.
More like wall them out, 'Out of the Empire'.
Julius Caesar never got anywhere near what is now Scotland. Up to around the Thames was the farthest north he ever penetrated.
@@michaelwant8501conquered…… that word came to mind first and seemed more fitting…. O well, yes I’m sure he exerted himself thoroughly upon these lands as deep as he could before his final end….
Julius didn't get out of Kent. both of his landings were near disasters . they were simply for propaganda for a man determined to make himself the most famous Roman of all - he succeeded. he had ambitions to be consul when his time in Gaul was over. Britannia was a fabulous mysterious island to the Romans. invading it was a big coup for Caesar - something else for him to write home about apart from his most recent massacre in Gaul.
I live 1 mile from the wall and my house is made from stone from the wall.
The thing to remember is that the Scots didn’t live in Scotland in Roman times, nor the English in England - both of them arrived, the English from the continent and the Scots from Ireland, shortly after the Romans left.
Perhaps that's why he said Picts....
truly appreciate the way you look things up when you are not sure of something; when you looked at the photos showing the white cliffs, they may have looked close but it is 21 miles across the Channel
I'm from Hexham, so my neck of the woods. I walked it with a friend when I was 17 (we skipped the first 12 miles as it is urban) It's actually a fairly easy walk because the Romans knew how to use the contours of the land for effective roads. Once you see the Whinn Sill you will see the advantage of the chosen rout. I've also spent two seasons digging at Vindolanda fort but it was just grunt work.
Yes, the Romans concluded that there was nothing to be gained in Scotland except trouble. I was taught that it was a defensive structure that allowed for controlled trade. No full scale invasion from the north was implausible but brigand raids could be an issue.
I am from Morpeth, I remember visiting Housesteads on a school trip around 1991. I thought it was the best preserved fort on the wall to visit.
@@toonarmy00 The Birley's have taken some stick over the years from their popularising approach to archaeology but the result has been a remarkable achievement. Some more traditionalist archaeologists felt their reconstructions were unscholarly. My old Sunday school teacher was a geologist who knew Robin Birley (the key man) in the 60's and 70's and very often we ditched bible class for a trip in the back of his Landrover to Vindolanda or Haltwhistle Gorge for wee lectures. I kept going after I stopped believing in God. He was a good teacher.
Contrary to popular belief, Hadrians Wall does not and never did mark the border between England and Scotland. Whilst the western point on the Solway firth is just a few miles south of the current border, in the east it’s around 60 miles south. Back in Roman times concepts of England and Scotland did not exist at all. The video is misleading when it talks about the Picts, they were much further to the north, beyond where the Antonine wall was. Hadrians Wall cut largely through the lands of the Votadini tribe. It was probably built as part defence and partly to control trade. It was possible, indeed normal for local civilians to pass through the wall. Much of the wall runs very close to the northern banks of the river Tyne/South Tyne. Originally the fort at the eastern end of the wall was ‘Pons Aelius’ which was named after the Roman bridge that crossed the Tyne at that point (Pons being Latin for bridge. Aelius being the Emperor Hadrian’s family name). Eventually the wall was extended a few miles further east to the fort of Segedunum, which evolved into the modern day town of Wallsend. Pons Aelius evolved into Newcastle, the main city in the North East of England. The ‘new castle’ which gives the city its name was the second of two castles built by the Normans (the first being a temporary wooden one). Both were built on the site of the old Roman fort. Whilst a lot can be seen of the wall and forts out in rural Northumberland, there is very little remaining of the section that runs through modern day Newcastle, however there are a few remnants and foundations that can be seen in places.
It wasn't Scotland then, it was Caledonia, and later scotia. (Thats where nova Scotia) comes from. ❤
The Scotii were invaders from Ireland.
yes, its a bit annoying when ppl set modern borders and country names to ancient times - * so you get "Turkish Santa Clause etc or Scotland a thousand years before it existed. most common error is when they often show present day Ireland/Northern Ireland prior to 1921 ... its as if they don't expect audiences to comprehend
@@coling3957 i know right
They built the wall there because it was a natural volcanic fault that had scarred the landscape named the Whin Sill. If you look again at the first shots of the wall you can see the rock formations adding to the height and dramatic appearance. This is a fabulous location, very atmospheric and there are several archaeological digs along its length. A visit to Vindolanda is a must. Its so interesting you could spend days here.
We have bits of Hadrian's Wall opposite our house. There are often coaches that stop for touristy photos when there are much better examples just a few miles down the road.
There is another border construct, running across the majority of the Welsh border, Offa's Dyke. Offa was a Mercian King, Mercia as you know was one of the the main kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons, which, prior to the Viking invasions, had conquered much of England with exception to the Northumbrian's to the North, and Cornwall on the South western tip of England. The Dyke is said to be a fortification, to hold the Welsh Kingdoms in check, but other sources hint that it may've been a vanity project, with power projection at it's core. A sort of "See this great fortification, this is the power we wield" concept. It's also speculated that it was built over a large number of years, continued and added to by subsequent Kings of Mercia.
So, when you get down to it, Britain has it's fair share of fortifications that predate much of the Initial Norman Castles that got created post 1066.
If you want to understand a good piece of British History, then you want to learn about 1066 The Battle of Hastings (known to all, but properly it was the Battle of Senlac Hill), the Norman Invasion, the Last successful invasion of Britain. The Events of 1066 make for quite a good story, seeing as how much went down in one year.
Hi JJ ... re England and France proximity ... during WW1 people living in the south of England could hear the guns being fired in the trenches of northern France .. ps I'm JJ too.
Yes, and often people can pick up tv or cellphone reception from across the channel.
You can _smell_ France from across the Channel. In 2013 a French gas leak caused a big stink in south east England.
@@neuralwarpwe got French TV and radio in Margate as a kid in the 80's.
It's only 22 miles across the channel at .it's narrowest point ,the weather forecast for shopping gives the maximum visibility ( distance you can see) at around 40 miles ,so no problem on a clear day ❤.
It wasn't just roads that the wall was used for. Either side of the wall there are houses built from the stone.
My favourite of the Vindolanda tablets says something along the lines of 'it's freezing, please send socks'.
I grew up near Hadrian's wall. My great grandparents came from a small town (at the time) called Wallsend. Guess how it got it's name...
Hadrian saw a group of Celtic and Rangers fans having a mix up and thought, "nope, we'll have none of that, lets build a massive fuck off wall..."
Simon Whistler grates my gears. You make it better though lol
'It's not a 'great' wall...it's an alright wall. It's the Alright Wall of China.' - Karl Pilkington.
It’ll do Wall?
The It’ll do Wall of China…… Me
and it didn't work - the Mongols simply went round it..
I highly recommend looking up and reading the Vindolanda Tablets he mentions, the small letters home or too friends written by those living and working at the wall, they will give you a wonderful insight into normal life of the time. And almost certainly surprise you in how little humans change even as our technology moves in leaps and bounds, life remains much the same.
Yes, the first one was discovered in March 1973 and throughout the 70's/80's about 500 were excavated and more are still being found. To date the texts of 752 tablets have been transcribed, translated and published - most being held in the British Museum _(with many on display in Room 49)._ Several tablets are also on display at the Vindolanda Museum by Hadrian's Wall...
It's worth checking out the 405 Bloomberg Tablets too... which were discovered during excavations in the City of London - preserved by thick, wet mud!
The Wall in Game of Thrones was based on this wall.
Yes, the author 'George R. R. Martin' has said that in at least one interview.
@@Thurgosh_OG Let's be honest even if he denied it it's pretty obvious.
Spent many a time on the wall at various points, as i live close to it's starting point on the river Tyne and beside the supply fort called Arbeia which is south of the river, supplies could be sent inland in relative safety or ferried across the river to the fort known as Segedunum which was the start point for the wall , the town it stands in is called Wallsend, while many tourists flock to the Vindolanda fort my personal favourite is Housesteads fort which is actually on the wall, the bleakness of the surroundings give a btter insight into what it may have been like for the soldiers stationed there.
Used to travel along that route on a regular basis when going to work. Also been to numerous forts on the wall.
You really should visit Vindolanda Roman Fort sometime (the one mentioned where the tablets were found). It was a family trip there when I was 16 that sent me on my path to study human evolution and anthropology at university. A simple trip changing my entire path in life. It is wonderfully preserved and you get to learn so much about the site and the people who lived there.
The Romans also built the Antonine Wall which ran coast to coast just north of Glasgow and was 37 miles long in 142 AD
It's in the video, so, yes.
lol@@Thurgosh_OG
At 9:30, that dot in Mauretania marking the location of a rebellion is in the wrong place. That's the modern country called Mauretania. The Roman province with that name was located approximately where Morocco is today.
Although the wall was in use for 300+ years of the Roman occupation of Britain, the garrisons were not the same people and their descendants all the time. They were rotated home or to other duties and replaced by new units
Simon Whistler makes a few errors. The Emperor Hadrian died in 138, not in 123. I think when the Wall was first built, most people living in what is now Scotland were not called Picts, but by the names of various tribes, including the Caledonii.
My belief is that the main reason for the conquest of Britain was that the Emperors were short of silver. ( The Emperors were responsible for the coinage.) Britain had a lot of lead mines - which significantly were immediately exploited. The point was that the lead ore galena, lead sulfide, contained some silver sulfide, and the silver could be separated out.
You mustn't forget that the Roman Emperors were dictators, with an elastic attitude to the truth. I think there was a massive rebellion about 118 AD, which was hushed up. Nothing else would explain the massive attention paid by a Roman Emperor. The Wall may have been an attempt to separate the tribes.
It is about this time - not at the time of Boudica's rebellion - that the Ninth Legion mysteriously disappears.
I have visited places along the Wall. This video doesn't show you all the massive ruins along the Wall, and the wonderful museums they have.
The Vindolanda tablets are indeed wonderful; their writing, on scraps of bark, faded away immediately they were dug up, but they can still be read in the infra-red. Since ordinary soldiers could hire scribes to write their little notes, all sorts of aspects of life of the squaddies are revealed, including one soldier sending underpants and socks to another.
Officially the only women allowed in the military encampments were the wives of the commandants; the birthday-party invitation was from one such wife to another. However it is rather clear that the soldiers often had camp-followers in the villages outside the forts.
Cornwall was also one of the only sources of tin in europe, and the most important
Trading carried on across the wall. Ordinary people lived on both sides, farms and trades people.
ATTENTION
Anyone know visit the wall
Yes it is tempting to take one of the stones
BUT PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS
We lost mosth of the wall to history and stupidly we don't want to lose any to visitors
Thank you for reading.
I'm from Liverpool we don't have any Roman stuff here but Chester is just a short 40 minutes away on Merseyrail local transit, Chester which was a Roman town complete with Roman wall etc also has lot's of medieval and Elizabethan buildings too and two cathedrals the older and original one now St Johns church is more interesting and much older, well worth a visit after or before getting totally shit faced in the party town of Liverpool
@JimAtHome Chester has a lot ofc (Deva), but Liverpool does have a little - Otterspool Park for example.
The Romans is a stunning outdoor venue located on Otterspool promenade. Located overlooking the River Mersey, in a stunning open air space, The Romans is a purpose-built Roman themed activity and adventure park, specially designed for groups.@@secondtimearound2539
This wall is in England, 30 miles south of the Scottish border.
For those who wish it was the border..... from Scotland, thanks for all the territory!!!!
It's the English who should be thanking the Scots for the territory. Once it marked the border between "Scottish" lands and Roman lands. Now it's England on either side. Those once "Scottish" lands just to the north of the wall are now part of England.
Cheers for that.
@@adambattersby8934 Scotland didn't exist when the wall was constructed. England didn't exist either. Waffling on about "Scottish" lands makes no sense. But if we want to talk about borders there was a time when England went all the way up to East Lothian and Scotland went down into what is now Cumbria. I think, with the current border, a nice balance has been found.
If you are interested in Roman Britain and are ever over here you need to visit the city of Bath. There are superb excavations which provide a wonderfully mundane but intimate view into the lives of ordinary Roman citizens (most of whom were never more than 10 miles from home).
The best thing about Hadrians Wall is the scenery surrounding it in Northumberland. There is also Offa's Dyke built by King Offa to keep the Welsh out of Mercia.
I've been binge watching your videos lately. I'm not usually into 'react' videos, but yours are really interesting. There's no such thing as a 'stupid question' (most of the time!).
I hope you're able to visit our shores sometime soon, brother. Peace o,/
ginger beard growout at target 20k!
just an idea lol
this was another fantastic and fascinating reaction, like a 'special edition' extra footage and wiki facts, thanks JJ
notice..... No Brits have ever asked for one penny in reparations.
Boudica is also known as Bodicea
And in Welsh , Boudicca is known as Buddug ( pronounced 'Bith - igg')
Not only Brits, but no European (be they French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, etc) has ever asked for any reparations or money.
Just leaving this out there. (I gotta say though, I gotta commend the Americans for being one of the few nations that don't go down this route)
I have visited the wall so many times, been to all the forts along the wall and walked most of it. One of our major assets.
He didn't mention much about the Ditches that ran on one side of the wall, very deep with steep sides. Probably more of a deterrent than the wall. Once you got into them it was difficult to get out again and they would have been a killing field.
Errr
Watch it again and edit your comment.
There's a great poem by WH Auden called Roman Wall Blues. I strongly recommend looking it up.
Most people think, that the Roman Empire was the largest empire EVER !!!
But it pails into insignificant when compared to the once formidable British Empire. Oh how far, we have fallen 😞 lol
The Roman empire spanned *1.9 million square miles* The British empire spanned *13.7 million square miles.* The largest in the history of planet Earth.
My family lives in, Heddon-on-the-wall. There are visible remains there. As a kid we would play on the wall. There is actually a small village called Walll, no guessing as to where the stone came from lol
It’s easy to forget how relatively little time that the Romans actually ruled Britain, but had such a huge influence that we still see today.
360 years seems quite long to me?
@@HT-io1eg “relatively”
@@Dan-BEhhhhh 400 years give or take.
Influence from atleast the Gallic wars and that’s nearly 500 years.
well, 400 years ,,,,,
Part of that influence comes from the time longer period they ruled what is now France (and by extension the dominance of Latin in the Catholic Church). The French then brought plenty of Latin derived words into the English language when they invaded/conquered in 1066.
If Boudica had been captured it would have been a very bad time for her and that's before being taken back too Rome too be executed
Sometimes the scripts of these videos from the network behind Simon Whistler are a bit off... 10:10 why was Hadrian's Wall, the apparantly only roman border wall, built in northern england/scotland? I think they jus forgot about the Limes...
The common Roman Soldiers normally were not allowed to marry and had to serve a minimum of 25 years. Only Officers were allowed to marry and most didn't have their families with them. Most Roman Soldiers were not from Rome or even the Italian peninsula they were from conquered lands and would never be allowed to serve in their own countries. This was to minimise any thoughts of common rebellion. If you survived your 25 years with good conduct you could expect a plot of land as reward and a pension. The highest rank an enlisted soldier could hope to achieve would be Centurion (roughly Sargeant Major).
Also built houses, churches etc with the stones from the wall.
My house is built from the wall stone
Boudica used to be known as BOADICEA ( BO DI SEE A) when I was at school in the 70s.
NORFOLK is pronounced NORFUK. The L is silent.
Hadrian's Wall isn't , and has never been, the border between England and Scotland.
Same, although having looked into it a little bit a while ago, that spelling of her name does appear to be erroneous. But then, hardly surprising, things change...when I was at school there were 9 planets and countries called Yugoslavia, Rhodesia, Burma and Kampuchea. And you couldn't begin a sentence with a conjunction. I mean, who on Earth would have known back then that there would now be 877,543,945,934,572,837,478,384 different genders; probably with more arriving tomorrow.
Same - I was in primary school in the 60's and it was Boadicea then. What was the name of blue they painted their faces with back then. I thought it was ?Wodin blue? but can't find any reference to it.
@nolasyeila6261 I believe the war paint used by the Iceni and other celts was called "woad". It's a plant in the cabbage family that could have blue dye extracted from it.
Boadicea is the latinised version of her actual name, Boudicca, and it is what the Roman historians called her when they wrote about Britannia. She was called Boadicea when I was at school too, years ago, but then the modern history books decided that it was about time that we shrugged off the Roman influence and began calling her by her proper tribal name in the same way that we now call London, London, and not Londinium and we call this country Britain (from our original Celtic language, when it was referred to as Prythain) and not Britannia.
@@nolaj114 If I remember rightly it was called woad now I'm not entirely sure I've spelt that right it could be woade but it definitely was woad and when I was in school between the fifies and sixties she was still called boadicea dont know when they changed it to boddica or bodicca which to my eyes don't look right.
Hi,
Maybe take a look at Offa's Dyke, built a few hundred years later, between England and Wales.
Hi, at the closest point to my house the wall is only a couple of hundred metres from my house.
The Roman’s stamp on the area remains, my kid’s school is called “Milecastle”, one of the local pubs was called “The Vallum”, my parent’s street is called “The Chesters” and my cousins live a few miles further down the wall in an area called “Wallsend”, you Can guess by the area’s name what was significant about the wall there 😂
The point of the Wall was to control the lands to its north. With thousands of Roman cavalry in the forts, which had gates on the north side of the wall line, the Romans could send patrols far to the north to police all the lowlands. The far off Highlands held no value to Rome, so they gave up trying to totally conquer them. Whenever the Romans did go north they always overwhelmed the natives, who were rendered quiet for many years. Hadrian's Wall was built between rivers at each end, & upon a high ridge in the centre, at the narrowest distance across the north of England. The Antonine Wall was much shorter, across the narrowest part of central Scotland, so it took most of the useful lowlands into the Roman Province. There was little danger to civilians near the Wall because of the huge numbers of Roman soldiers in the area. Yes many Roman Auxiliary units remained on Hadrian's Wall for 3 hundred years, living & raising families in effect becoming Romano-Britons. The tribes of Scotland were not called Picts at the time of these Walls. The term Pict is not mentioned until the late 3rd/early 4th centuries, before which numerous tribal names are used. The Antonine Wall will have had a wooden palisade on top of the turf, making it much harder to cross, & again it had thousands of Roman troops to protect it, yet still their job was to keep trouble at a distance, with the Walls acting as a base & back stop not a forward limit marker. Hadrian had similar boundaries built in many other borders of the Empire, including on the Danube/Rhine , across parts of the eastern boundary with the Parthian Empire, & across much of north Africa, but these were not as monumental as the Wall in Britannia, still they each represented the same sort of border system, of control & patrol base. None of these were intended as the absolute limit of the Empire, but military control points, & taxation posts. There is nothing irrational about these boundary control points, though it was dependant on the will of the Emperor if & where they were constructed, but based upon military intelligence. They were built by the experts of the Legions but occupied by Auxiliary units, recruited from various tribes from around the Empire.
Simon got Hadrian's date wrong, he died in 138 AD, not 123AD, & Antoninus Pius became the Emperor then, & shortly after decided to move the army in Britannia forward to the Clyde-Forth line. After his death Marcus Aurelius moved them back to the Hadrianic line, but no doubt still meant to control the lands up to the Antonine boundary.
When Boudicca was taught to me it was spelt Boudica and pronounced Bo-de-see-ya. Oh how the times have changed...
The Romans first invaded Britain (Britannia) in 43 AD. With Ronan rule ending 383AD and finally removed 410AD.
@@johnashtone7167 What on Earth are you trying to say there? Specificity and context please?
I'm relating how I was taught, so that wasn't wrong, it's a fact. If what I was taught us wrong it might help to actually be clear and tell us phonetically how it was spoken...
Otherwise your just saying we're wrong which is pointless without at least correction and substantiation.
@@johnashtone7167 I think they're using boo-de-ka now.
As for the Latin or Roman pronunciation, do you think the Romans named an early British Queen? It really doesn't matter how they pronounced it or what letters they used... It's not relevant.
@@johnashtone7167 Because as a name it's down to the owners pronunciation not other people, alphabets or cultures... A name is one of the few things defined and asserted by the owner...
So Latin is not a defining factor, Celtic or Common Brittonic is...
_Her name was also misspelled by Tacitus, who added a second 'c. ' After the misspelling was copied by a medieval scribe, further variations began to appear. Along with the second 'c' becoming an 'e,' an 'a' appeared in place of the 'u', which produced the medieval (and most common) version of the name, Boadicea_
@@johnashtone7167 Actually since you're so upset by this I did some checking... It's NOT a name it's a title.
'Boudica', comes from the old proto-Gaelic word BOUDEG, which means 'Victory'. So now we're into Gaelic as well as Celtic.
You obviously didn't read my posts because there is a written record from the time. _As a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars_
_a few inscriptions have been identified. The Bath curse tablets, found in the Roman feeder pool at Bath, Somerset (Aquae Sulis), bear about 150 names - about 50% Celtic (but not necessarily Brittonic)_
_The ancient Celts wrote on stones, using their own alphabet called Ogham. Celts lived in Ireland as well as parts of France, England, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man. Each Celtic region had its own language_
_One of the earliest writing systems of the British Isles was rune stones. Runes were first used in 200 A.D., and they represented the old Scandinavian alphabet_
_The earliest texts in English survive as very short runic inscriptions on metal objects and ceramic pots_
@@johnashtone7167 By the way I wasn't upset, if you read correctly I said "this is what I was taught" not this is how it should be pronounced. I was actually drawing attention to how it's change over the years... Why would that upset me? If it changes in a few decades how do you think it's changed in millenia?
It's was really you who categorically refused to accept what I was taught, as if that was up for interpretation. How it was supposed to be pronounced wasn't at issue - until YOU asserted I was wrong. When I wasn't asserting how it was pronounced only how I was taught it was pronounced.
Two different things entirely...
The invitation to a Birthday party has a PS written by the Forts commander's wife the one of the first signs that some women were able to read and write
Stanegate has never been on or near the Anglo-Scots border.
The northern border of the kingdoms thst became England was much further north than that, at the Firth of Forth, and it was only in the 10th and 11th centuries that it assumed something like its present position, still well north of Stanegate (about 70 miles at the eastern end - a decent distance by UK standards).
Oh, really. Didn't David I of Scotland rule his people from Carlisle? Receiving papal legates and the like until he died there in 1154
Scotland used to be much further south
@@michaelconway8877Yes, he did. The border between England and Scotland at that time was well south of Stanegate and Hadrian's Wall (the whole of present day Cumbria and south into Lancashire, right the way across to the river Tees) so, again Hadrian's Wall did not mark the boundary. It returned more or less to the present border after his reign and there were only a few minor or shortlived alterations in the coming centuries (Edward I's temporary incursions, Berwick-upon-Tweed and the Debatable Lands).
You might look at the third great wall, the Wall of Gorgan built by the Sasanian emperors of Iran between the Caspian Sea and the mountain chain 120 miles to its east, blocking the so-called Caspian gates. This was built towards the end of the period of the Roman occupation of Britain. According to the historian Procopius, the Eastern Roman emperors helped subsidise the occupation of this wall, a wall designed to block attacks by tribes from Central Asia.
Except the Picts didn't exist then, they came along later. There was various tribes there before the Picts, mainly the Caledonians in the North who fought the Romans in a massive Battle which may be ficticious.
I live in wallsend. It never started here but it was extended to wallsend as those crafty picts kept sneeking through some of the glacial gullys
Hello from Monkseaton aha
The Antonine wall is very unusual. Tweacher and Falkirk. It’s in Scotland not England.
You should check out the Bruce Fumey/Scotland history tours take on the wall after listening this bools in mooth posho.
I feel so thankful we have this history I take it for granted
I mean, President trump wanted to build a wall 🧱.
England has had a wall since roman times, and the Americans can't ever think of something new.
For everyone who gets upset, this is a joke.
The Wall was built by legionnaires - the Roman army was unlike anything seen before, or since.. soldiers usually had some skill or trade besides combat. and they had a degree of literacy not seen for centuries afterward. apart from the odd military disaster , a Roman soldier had a pretty good chance of surviving his 20 years service and retiring on a pension and land grant. auxiliaries got citizenship too. it was a career.. ambitious men might become centurions - the "sergeant majors" of the army , usually recruited from slightly more affluent, and literate class of Romans. they were the backbone of the army throughout Roman history.
Worth remembering that whilst that Boudicca story is cool, there are alternative stories about her, and no one is entirely sure she even existed at all...
Considering that they have found relics with her name and likeness on them (from that period) and multiple accounts of her story, we can be pretty sure she existed, how much of the story is real, we'll likely never know.
The word Pict is Latin, and comes from the same root as Picture - painted.
The ancient Greeks were the first to refer to Britain as Bretannike, which means painted or tattooed people.
The Romans describe the British as being painted and tattooed as well.
I'm sure both sides of Hadrian's wall had cultural similarities.
Funny you mention GoT as George R. R. Martin has specifically stated that inspiration for the wall in the books/tv show were inspired by Hadrians Wall and the war of five kings was inspired by the wars of the Roses which were essentially a series of civil wars in England between House Lancaster (I wonder where house Lannister got their name) and House York, vying for the English Throne.
The wall captures a lot of imaginations because there is so much to speculate about. Even the amateur can have a go
"Don't kill yourself, it's not over yet. Never give up, never surrender". - I love you for this
The Romans invaded Britain mainly to secure control of Cornwall & Devon, which was the best source of Tin in Europe. British tin is found all over Europe and large ingots have been found as far as Israel. When combined in small quantities with Copper it creates Bronze, a substance so important that it's discovery leads to the Bronze age (3,200BC to 1,200BC), when humans first started working with metals, in which was an incredibly useful material. Tin is not a particularly common element (250x less common than Iron) with high quality grades of tin ore even rarer, while the best quality & some of the easiest to recover deposits of tin in Europe were to be found in Devon & Cornwall with it's extraction beginning around 2,000BC.
On the back of its trade, Tintagel in Cornwall became a very rich and powerful city and reputedly also the source of the legend of King Arthur. Having conquered what it needed to secure the tin supplies of Cornwall, the Romans discovered significant quantities of Gold in Wales, while England was a particularly fertile place due to the good soils and mild weather, so lots of food could be produced. These were useful to the Empire but once you start getting to the moorlands of northern England there was less and less need for Rome to keep going.
Therefore England & Wales represented a strategically important province, but Scotland and much of the north of England behind the wall was not known for much of importance to the Empire. There were no significantly useful resources they would import from there or could not get from elsewhere and once you get to the Scottish Highlands you find the area sparsely populated with poor soils, strategically difficult to control areas and much worse weather with little protection from the ravages of the Atlantic (a lot of England sits in the rain shadows of Ireland & Wales since the prevailing winds are South-Westerlies).
One thing to be clear about is that Hadrian's Wall represents a retrenchment from the Antonine Wall - you might think of it as a prototype of Hadrian's Wall as it was built before its bigger more famous cousin to the suoth. The Romans did push even further north but found fewer reasons for doing so as they went. This far north represented a big departure for legionaries, many of whom would have come from Mediterranean climates, so the calculus of risk versus reward changes and eventually the Roman Empire established its limits in the north of England.
Hadrian's Wall represented the easiest control point, crossing the neck of England at its narrowest point from the Irish Sea at the Solway firth to Wallsend (Walls' End) in Tyneside where I am from. Fun fact I used to play on some discarded Hadrian's Wall stones in the Hall Grounds until they were taken to incorporate into a replica of the old wall that is built at the site of Segedunum (the Roman name for the fort in Wallsend).
The wall was not in itself a complete shut out. Much local trade was to be had with 'rebellious Scots' as our northern siblings like to style themselves, bringing goods to trade with the Romans at the larger forts. By controlling & taxing the trade at the border and intimidating the tribes to the north with this wall technology unlike anything they would know, Rome established a stable frontier that partly subsidised itself.
Boudica would have killed herself to avoid being brought to Rome and displayed to it's people, before being sacrificed to their Gods. Which had happened in Gaul to the king Vercingetorix, who was held in Rome until Julius Caesar's triumph, where he was sacrificed to Jupiter.
The wall wasn't built to keep the raiders out. It was to delay them running off home before the armies arrived to deal with them.
Like the 9th ?
Another great react video. And Ireland has the largest number of redheads per capita in the world (10%). Scotland merely 6% :) Sincerely, from the north of Ireland
Scotland's population is more genetically diverse than the island of Ireland.
@@jackdubz4247they did DNA test and they were 50/50 batter and heroin.
I literally live right next ro it, its quite cool.
Part of Hadrian's wall runs through my town.
Why there is a question often asked about borders.
Hadrians wall is built on a massive fault which runs almost from coast to coast and is as several of the photo's show a cliff so the walls top was in its heyday atleast 60 feet high, so the wall itself was probably never attacked, though the Gates are another thing! As an aside the 'Scots' didn't exist then as they had yet to invade and complete the Roman attempt at Genocide in circa 330 ad. before that on the East coast a people called by the Romans 'Pictii' (painted folk, scot comes from an anciant 'cumbric word, which was the main language in Britain when the Romans were in Britain, scot means boat people as they arrived on boats from Ireland which is their ancestral homeland) on the west coast the people were called the Caled's hence Caledonia! further norththere were several other peoples.
Matey you should check out a video on the Roman Army Marching Camp, Most Roman soldiers were as much engineers as warriors.
Have you ever heard what happened to defeated leaders who opposed Rome?
Paraded through Rome in chains before being killed, often garrotted! For the entertainment of the populous!
A leader who killed themselves would avoid a brutal, painful and humiliating death! AND offer a final act of defiance!
For comparision, how many people of deathrow commit suicide?
The party invitation was from one woman to her best friend. The soldiers, traders and administrators had families with them.
Your questions aren't stupid. They are down to Earth logical.
Hadrians wall was to keep the scotch oot. We could do with a new one to be honest.
Romans not like whisky? We could do with building again to keep the English from buying all the houses in the Highlands.
@@Cainb420You've got plenty of other places to do heroin. We'll just have the houses.
In America you have Adrian's Mall.
Probably.
I live in the town where it ends on the west side, you can still see where it came into the town, the roads still follow the path of the wall, a lot of the churches & old farm buildings in the area are made out if stones they stole from the wall 😂
Like most Americans, you have heard of not a lot due to your insular lives you lead you never leave your bubble.
They didn't really penetrate into Cornwall either, but we didn't get brain damage from watching a Mell Gibson film, so we don't shout about it.
The "Celts" are a literary creation created in the 17th century by the same Englishman that invented Tartan, he did both to promote Scottish tourism and was Isaac Newton's best mate. Boudica was a Scottish Pictish princess that was married off to the King of the Iceni who's kingdom stretched between modern day Essex into North Herts. Boudica would have been my Queen back then. We know nothing of the Iceni because their culture died out, but, we can assume they were a Pictish tribe purely because Boudica was married off to their King.
Scots claiming all sorts of shit because you've never done anything worthwhile.
Simon 'half the stuff in my videos are complete nonsense information' Whistler. I think there's more misinformation in this guy's work than on Wikipedia.
I know, right? And he has about a dozen channels. He's that one floating turd that refuses to flush.
Quick correction to that guy, Gaul didn't call itself that, the Wallonains (from north of there) called it Walholant, meaning "Land of the foreigners" or "Land of the Romans". So it's right that it wasn't the latin name for it but it also wasn't what the "gauls" themselves called it, the romans called it Gallia.
This guy makes good videos in general but they are riddled with little errors like that.
There are lots of protective walls in China, some built over others
2:55 I hate the way he says "later"
Must be the Scott's Porridge Oats
The French Foreign Legion have legionnaires. The Roman army had legionaries.😉
I will take you there if your ever over here😂.
Live near it
The whole concept of these people being "romans" (literally people from rome) amuses me, if you were born in Britain, and it was your great, great grandfather who came across the English channel, you're about as "roman" as those Americans who say theyre "Irish" 😂
Roman Empire, so Romans. Same way as Malayans were British.
That's cute. You think that Roman troops didn't do rotations, or that retired soldiers didn't return to their homeland.
Well one thing that happened was retiring soldiers were given land grants to build a small farm on in the province they were serving in. @@redceltnet
@@redceltnetyou're correct. There's nearly no genetic impact from the Romans. They pulled in professional soldiers from all over the empire and they returned home as they would today.
Come to Segedunium my friend its the Start of the Roman Wall....ill show you round
Offa's dyke is more England's back yard fence.
Just so you know Hadrans wall is just 2 hours away from Liverpool.🤪👍
No, the scots are not the people the romans fought . The Scots were a much later people who arrived from the Dublin area after the Vikings invasion of Ireland.
The destroyed and absorbed the picts
I forgot what I was going to say.
It's not the only thing that Romans built a lot of cities all over Britain
Re dangerous dogs: a local man was killed by his friend's American XL Bully dog earlier this year. Apparently he opened the cage to feed it. There were about 13 other dogs of the same breed there which were seized by the police. Because of one dog a man lost his life and his family lost a husband, son and dad.
The picts were not naked!! This is Scotland ffs!
Lol your baws would get frost bite and fall off
i can see the remains of the Antonine Wall protective ditch from my window. its not as spectacular as Hadrians wall ;)
Can you do some Scottish vids? Think you'll get a better idea of Scotland from a Scot. Scotland History Tours is the best channel
Britain is the name of the biggest island in the British Isles and the one that England Scotland and Wales are on
Britannia is what the romans called it
They never conquered all the British Isles
The name of the largest of the British Isles is *Great* Britain, not "Britain".
The romans called what is now England and Wales Britannia, what is now Scotland was called Caledonia
@@redceltnet i realised afterwards but can't be bothered to edit
@@aa-xg3ct again i forgot about it when writing this but but to be honest to not everyone will know this.
@@aa-xg3ct As neither of us is speaking Latin, why are you mentioning what the Romans called this island? The largest British Isle is called Great Britain. This is a matter of fact, not a matter of opinion.
PS Rome called Libya "Africa". Would you like to tell people from Africa that they're not African? I'll hold your coat.
I am sure some of us Britons will have Roman DNA.