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Visigoth › Antique Origins
Definition and Origins
The Visigoths were the western tribe of the Goths (a Germanic people) who settled west of the Black Sea sometime in the 3rd century CE. According to the historian Herwig Wolfram, the Roman writer Cassiodorus coined the term Visigothi to mean `Western Goths' as he understood the term Ostrogothi to mean `Eastern Goths', sometime in the 6th century CE. Cassiodorus was simply trying to coin a name to differentiate the two tribes of the Gothic people. The designation visigothi seems to have appealed to the Visigoths themselves, however, and they came to apply it to themselves.
When the Huns invaded the area, the Visigoths appealed to the Roman Emperor Valens for sanctuary in the Roman Empire. Valens consented and the Visigoths settled in an area near the Danube. Mistreatment by provincial Roman governors soon led to widespread discontent among the Visigoths and, by 376 CE, open rebellion had broken out. The Visigoths plundered the neighbouring Roman towns, growing in power and wealth as they went.
Emperor Valens took the field with forces mainly drawn from the Eastern Roman Empire and won a number of victories against the Visigoths in what came to be known as The Gothic Wars (376-382 CE). At the Battle of Adrianople in 378 CE the Visigoths won a decisive victory against the forces of Valens (an event which historians mark as the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire ) and the emperor himself was killed in the battle.
Theodosius I then became emperor of the Western Roman Empire and tried to halt the progress of the Visigoths as they then swept on to Thrace. In 382 CE a peace treaty was concluded between Athanaric of the Visigoths and Theodosius I of Rome.Theodosius I tried to cement the peace by instituting regional Visigoth governors and, more importantly, trying to unite the Visigoths and the Romans through Christianity. The Visigoths practiced Arian Christianity while Theodosius I, and the Romans, followed the Nicene Creed instituted by Constantine the Great at Nicea in 325 CE. While he was not successful in this, the peace lasted until the death of Theodosius I in 395 CE.
ALARIC I TRIED TO UNITE THE VISIGOTHS AND ROMANS BY HAVING VISIGOTH GOVERNORS INTRODUCE ROMAN CUSTOMS.
With his death, the Visigoths in service to Rome rejected Roman rule and proclaimed Alaric I their king. Alaric I tried to unite the Visigoths and Romans by having Visigoth governors introduce Roman customs and culture in their regions. While he was moderately successful, Alaric was better suited as a warrior than an administrator and, in 396 CE, led his forces through the Balkans, pillaging as they went, down into Greece. He then turned back to Italy and, after a number of engagements with the faltering Roman forces, sacked Rome in 410 CE.
He died soon after and his successor, Athaulf, led the Visigoths in the conquest of Gaul, establishing the Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse. Following Athaulf, King Wallia expanded the kingdom and his successor, Euric, enlarged it even further to include a large part of Spain. The Visigoths at this time still practiced Arian Christianity while the inhabitants of Spain were Nicene Christians (recognized today as Catholics). According to some sources, Euric carried out intense persecutions of the Nicene Christians while, according to others, he merely targeted high ranking church officials whom he deemed problematic. After his death, Alaric II became king and, at this time (c. 485 CE) Clovis of the Franks accepted Nicene Christianity and sought to drive the Arian Visigoths from the region.
Sack of Rome by the Visigoths
In 507 CE Alaric II was defeated in battle by Clovis, dying in the engagement, and the Visigothic kingdom became Frankish.The capital was set up at Toledo and a gradual merging of the cultures began between the Romans and the Visigoths. In 711 CE the Muslim forces conquered Spain and, in so doing, accelerated the assimilation of the two cultures into one united front against the conquerors. In time, the native Romans of Hispania and the Visigoths became the united culture of Spain.
In 722 CE, at the Battle of Covadonga, Pelagius of Asturias defeated the Muslim forces and thus began the Christian re-conquest of Spain. In 732 CE, at the Battle of Poitiers (also known as the Battle of Tours) the Frankish King Charles Martel (the Hammer) defeated the Muslim forces under Rahman to permanently halt Muslim incursions into Europe. After driving the Muslims out of Galicia in 739 CE, the Roman Catholic Church was established by the new government as the national faith and official religion of the country. The German Visigoths and the Italian Romans had become the unified people of Spain.
Hadrian's Wall › Ancient History
Definition and Origins
Hadrian ’s Wall (known in antiquity as the Vallum Hadriani or the Vallum Aelian ) is a defensive frontier work in northern Britain which dates from 122 CE. The wall ran from coast to coast at a length of 73 statute miles (120 km). Though the wall is commonly thought to have been built to mark the boundary line between Britain and Scotland, this is not so; no one knows the actual motivation behind its construction but it does not delineate a boundary between the two countries. While the wall did simply mark the northern boundary of the Roman Empire in Britain at the time, theories regarding the purpose of such a massive building project range from limiting immigration, to controlling smuggling, to keeping the indigenous people at bay north of the wall. Its military effectiveness has been questioned by many scholars over the years owing to its length and the positioning of the fortifications along the route. Regarding this, Professors Scarre and Fagan write,
Archaeologists 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 biographer of Hadrian remarks that the emperor built the wall to separate the Romans from the barbarians. In the same way, the Chinese emperors built the Great Wall to separate China from the barbarous steppe peoples to the north. 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. They were part of the ideology of empire. ( Ancient Civilizations, 313)
THE SUGGESTION THAT HADRIAN'S WALL, THEN, WAS BUILT TO HOLD BACK OR SOMEHOW CONTROL THE PEOPLE OF THE NORTH DOES NOT SEEM AS LIKELY AS THAT IT WAS CONSTRUCTED AS A SHOW OF FORCE.
This seems to be the best explanation for the underlying motive behind the construction of Hadrian's Wall. The Romans had been dealing with uprisings in Britain since their conquest of the region. Although Rome ’s first contact with Britain was through Julius Caesar ’s expeditions there in 55/54 BCE, Rome did not begin any systematic conquest until the year 43 CE under the Emperor Claudius. The revolt of Boudicca of the Iceni in 60/61 CE resulted in the massacre of many Romancitizens and the destruction of major cities (among them, Londinium, modern London) and, according to the historian Tacitus (56-117 CE), fully demonstrated the barbaric ways of the Britons to the Roman mind. Boudicca's forces were defeated at The Battle of Watling Street by General Gaius Suetonius Paulinus in 61 CE. At the Battle of Mons Graupius, in the region which is now Scotland, the Roman General Gnaeus Julius Agricola won a decisive victory over the Caledonians under Calgacus in 83 CE. Both of these engagements, as well as the uprising in the north in 119 CE (suppressed by Falco) substantiated that the Romans were up to the task of managing the indigenous people of Britain. The suggestion that Hadrian's Wall, then, was built to hold back or somehow control the people of the north does not seem as likely as that it was constructed as a show of force.Hadrian's foreign policy was consistently “peace through strength” and the wall would have been an impressive illustration of that principle. In the same way that Julius Caesar built his famous bridge across the Rhine in 55 BCE simply to show that he, and therefore Rome, could go anywhere and do anything, Hadrian perhaps had his wall constructed for precisely the same purpose.
Hadrian's Wall Gate
Emperor Hadrian (born Publius Aelius Hadrianus in 76 CE) ruled the Roman Empire from 117-138 CE. His building projects, especially in Greece, are legendary and his penchant for ambitious monuments is exemplified in his eponymous wall. The work was begun in stone (unlike other fortifications which began with timber) in the east and proceeded westward across uneven terrain to create an impressive reflection of the power of Rome. The wall was originally 9.7 feet wide (3 metres) and 16-20 feet high (six metres) east of the River Irthing, all built of stone, and 20 feet wide (6 metres) by 11feet high (3.5 metres) west of the river, made up of stone and turf, stretching 73 miles (120 km) across the breadth of the land. This ambitious building project was completed within six years through the labour of the Roman legions stationed in Britain. Plans for the construction of the wall were in place prior to Hadrian's visit to Britain in 122 CE and, perhaps, construction had already begun before the traditional date assigned for the initial work on the wall, possibly as early as 118 CE. There were between 14-17 fortifications along the length of the wall and a Vallum (a ditch purposefully constructed of earthworks) which ran parallel to the wall. The Vallum measured 20 feet (6 metres) wide by 10 feet (3 metres) deep, flanked by large mounds of tightly packed earth. It is this composition of the site which has given rise to the traditional interpretation of the wall as a defensive work built to repel invasion from the north.
Hadrian's Wall Milecastle 37
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. When the Antonine Wall was constructed further north (in c. 142 CE by Emperor Antoninus Pius ) the Vallum appears to have been partially filled in for easier passage. 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. The Antonine Wall was perhaps constructed to serve the same purpose as Hadrian's Wall but is thought to have functioned more pragmatically than the earlier construct. Hadrian's Wall is thought to have been plastered and white washed so that it would be a shining beacon of the might of Rome, visible from considerable distances. The Antonine Wall does not suggest this same grandeur nor, in spite of the many fortifications along its route, the same intent in design and construction. Emperor Marcus Aurelius (ruled 161-180 CE) drew the Roman legions back from the Antonine Wall to Hadrian's Wall under his reign and fortified the garrisons in his efforts to maintain the boundaries of the Empire. Hadrian's great monument to Rome's might continued as an impressive affirmation until 410 CE when the Roman legions left Britain. Activity around and along the wall seems to have continued as evidenced by archaeological finds but a disciplined Roman presence after 410 is not signified.
Following the Roman withdrawal, large portions of the wall were carried off for personal building projects by the local inhabitants. Huge sections were removed to provide paving for British troops heading north on muddy tracks to quell the Jacobite Uprising of 1745 CE. Hadrian's Wall may have disappeared entirely were it not for the efforts of one man, the antiquarian John Clayton (1792-1890 CE) who, in 1834 CE, began buying the land around the wall in an effort to preserve it.Clayton's excavations and enthusiasm for the site kept what remains of Hadrian's Wall intact and, in 1987 CE, it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Today it is under the care of English Heritage commission and is cared for largely by volunteers who recognize its immense historical significance.
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