360
|
his maiora aggressus britanniam, quo ad ea utilis erat, pulsis hostibus muro muniuit per transuersam insulam ducto utrimque ad finem oceani. |
‘On top of this, attacking Britain and repelling the enemy, he fortified it, insofar as it was useful to it, with a wall across the width of the island, to the bounds of the ocean on both sides.’ |
369
|
seuerus tamen praeter bellicam gloriam etiam civilibus studiis clarus fuit et litteris doctus, philosophiae scientiam ad plenum adeptus. nouissimum bellum in britannia habuit, utque receptas prouincias omni securitate muniret, uallum per cxxxii passuum milia a mari ad mare deduxit. decessit eboraci admodum senex, imperii anno sexto decimo, mense tertio. |
‘However, Severus was well known for his military glory and his civil studies as well, and was learned in literature, and practised in full knowledge of philosophy. He had his last war in Britain, and to fortify the conquered provinces with all security, he built a wall for 132 miles from sea to sea. He died at York, a reasonably old man, in the sixteenth year and third month of his reign.’ |
379×395
| brittanniam, quod maximum eius imperii decus est, muro per transuersam insulam ducto utrimque ad finem oceani muniuit. | ‘He fortified Britain, which is a great ornament of his reign, with a wall led across the breath of the island to the edge of the Ocean on both sides.’ |
c 400
|
seuerus in brittannos bellum transfert ubi ut receptas prouincias ab incursione barbarica faceret securiores uallum per cxxxii passuum milia a mari usque ad mare duxit. |
‘Severus took the war to the Britons where, to make the conquered provinces safer from barbarian incursion, he built a wall for 132 miles from sea to sea.’ |
Jerome’s Translation of the Chronicle of Eusebius contains what is evidently a quotation from Eutropius. Comparison of the two texts reveals a little embellishment by Jerome: seuerus in brittannos nouissimum bellum in britannia habuit, transfert ubi utque receptas prouincias ab incursione barbarica faceret securiores omni securitate muniret, uallum per cxxxii passuum milia a mari ad mare deduxit. The additions of Jerome are shown in yellow, while his omissions are shown in blue. His main thrust in making additions is that the Wall was built to reduce the dangers of barbarian invasion.
c 415
|
seuerus uictor in britannias defectu paene omnium sociorum trahitur. ubi magnis grauibusque proeliis saepe gestis receptam partem insulae a ceteris indomitis gentibus uallo distinguendam putauit. itaque magnam fossam firmissimumque uallum, crebris insuper turribus communitum, per centum triginta et duo milia passuum a mari usque ad mare duxit. ibique apud eboracum oppidum morbo obiit. |
‘The victor, Severus, was drawn to the Britains by the desertion of almost all the allies. There, having often waged great and severe battles, he sought to separate the conquered part of the island from the other untamed peoples with a rampart. So he built a great ditch and a most strong rampart, fortified with numerous towers on it, running for a hundred and thirty-two miles from sea to sea. He died from an illness there, at the town of York.’ |
Once again, the influence of Eutropius is clearly visible, although the mention of indomitis gentibus looks like a reflection of Jerome’s incursione barbarica. Clearly, barbarian invasion was part of the late fourth-/early fifth-century Zeitgeist.
470×540
| quos iussit construere inter duo maria trans insulam murum, ut esset arcendis hostibus turba instructus terrori ciuibusque tutamini; qui uulgo irrationabili absque rectore factus non tam lapidibus quam cespitibus non profuit. | ‘They ordered them to build a wall across the island between the two seas, so that it should be invested with a defensive host to frighten the enemies and protect the citizens. But it did not profit them, as it was not made not so much from stones as from turves by an irrational and leaderless mob.’ |
| murum non ut alterum, sumptu publico priuatoque adiunctis secum miserabilibus indigenis, solito structurae more, tramite a mari usque ad mare inter urbes, quae ibidem forte ob metum hostium collocatae fuerant, directo librant | ‘They built a wall, not like the other, but in the accustomed manner of structures, from public and private funds and with the help of the wretched locals. It ran straight from sea to sea, between the towns which had been gathered there by chance through fear of the enemies.’ |
Gildas marks a new departure in the story of the Wall. He knows nothing of any connection with Septimius Severus, despite an apparent familiarity with the work of Orosius (from whom he took details of the size of Britain), and instead places the construction of two walls after the fall of Magnus Maximus (in 388). This is almost certainly his own rationalisation (or deliberate twisting) of events; the phrase tramite a mari usque ad mare looks like an echo of Orosius (and ultimately of Eutropius), but ripped from its context. We should not expect him to be overly concerned with fact, when his purpose was largely rhetorical.
c 519
| his
conss seuerus in brittannos bellum mouit, ubi ut receptas provincias ab
incursione barbarica faceret securiores, uallum per cxxxii passuum milia a
mari ad mare duxit. |
‘In the year of these consuls, Severus took the war to the Britons where, to make the conquered provinces safer from barbarian incursion, he built a wall for 132 miles from sea to sea.’ |
Cassiodorus quotes Jerome almost verbatim, changing only transfert to mouit.
My thanks go to Scott Lloyd, one of the authors of The Keys to Avalon, for providing me with this text!
540s
| If anyone has the Greek of Prokopios’s de bello gothico that they are willing to send me, I'll willingly post it here. |
‘At this time, war and fighting broke out between the nation of the Varni and the islander soldiers who dwell in the island called Brittia… The island of Brittia lies in the Ocean, not far from the coast but about 200 stadia off and about opposite the mouths of the Rhine, and it is between Britannia and the island of Thule. While Britannia lies toward the setting sun opposite the farthest point of the land of the Spanish, distant not less than 400 stadia from the continent, Brittia is towards the back parts of Gaul, those which are turned towards the Ocean, that is to the north of Spain and Britannia… Three very numerous nations inhabit the island of Brittia, each having a king over it; and the names of these nations are the Angili and the Frissones and the Brittones, who have the same name as the island… In this island of Brittia, the men of old built a long wall, cutting off a large part of it, and the air and the soil and everything else is not alike on the two sides of it. For to the east of the wall, there is healthy air, changing with the seasons, moderately warm in summer and cool in winter, and many men dwell there, living in the same way as other men, and the trees are rich in fruit which ripens at the appropriate season and the crops flourish as well as any others and the land seems to boast of its abundance of waters. But on the west side, everything is the reverse of this, so that it is impossible for a man to live there for half an hour, but the viper and countless snakes and all kinds of other wild creatures occupy the place as their own. And, strangest of all, the inhabitants say that if any man crosses the wall and goes to the other side, he dies straight away, being quite unable to bear the pestilential nature of the air in that region, and likewise death meets and overtakes wild animals that go there. Now since I have reached this point in my story, I must relate a rather fabulous story, which did not seem at all trustworthy to me… They say that the souls of the dead are always conducted to this place.’ |
731
| seuerus… uictor ergo ciuilium bellorum, quae ei grauissima occurrerant, in brittanias defectu pene omnium sociorum trahitur. ubi magnis grauibusque proeliis saepe gestis receptam partem insulae a ceteris indomitis gentibus, non muro, ut quidam aestimant, sed uallo distinguendam putauit. murus etenim de lapidibus, uallum uero, quo ad repellendam uim hostium castra muniuntur, fit de cespitibus, quibus circumcises, e terra uelut murus exstruitur altus supra terram, ita ut in ante sit fossa, de qua leuati sunt cespites, supra quam sudes de lignis fortissimis praefiguntur. itaque seuerus magnam fossam firmissimumque uallum, crebris insuper turribus, communitum, a mari usque ad mare duxit. ibique apud eboracum oppidum morbo obiit… | ‘Severus… was thus the victor in the civil wars, which had happened most severely to him, he was drawn to the Britains by the desertion of almost all the allies. There, having often waged great and severe battles, he sought to separate the conquered part of the island from the other untamed peoples not with a wall, as some guess, but with a rampart. For a wall is built with stones, but a rampart, with which camps are fortified to repel the force of enemies, is made with turves. They are cut from the earth and raised high above the ground, just as a wall is built, so that in front there is a ditch, from which the turves have been raised, and on top of which are set stakes of the strongest wood. And so Severus built a great ditch and a most strong rampart, fortified with numerous towers on it, running for a hundred and thirty-two miles from sea to sea. He died from an illness there, at the town of York.’ |
| …murum a mari usque ad mare recto tramite inter urbes, quae ibidem ob metum hostium factae fuerant, ubi et seuerus quondam uallum fecerat, firmo de lapide conlocauerunt; quem uidelicet murum hactenus famosum atque conspicuum, sumtu puplico priuatoque, adiuncta secum brittanorum manu, construebant, viii pedes latum et xii altum, recta ab oriente in occasum linea, ut usque hodie intuentibus clarum est… | ‘…and so they put together a wall from sea to sea in a straight line between the towns which had been built there through fear of the enemy, and where Severus had previously made a rampart; this wall is still well known and conspicuous. They built it from public and private funds, helped by a band of Britons; it is eight feet broad and twelve feet high, in a straight line from east to west, as is clear to all observers up to the present day.’ |
Bede was in a difficult position when it came to the Wall of Severus. He knew that Orosius was well informed about Roman history, but he was also aware of Gildas and the evident historical framework set out by him. He worries that some ‘have guessed’ that Severus built a wall, but he knows that Orosius’s text refers to a ditch and a rampart and seeks to correct these writers who talk of a wall. The stone wall, which is plain to see for anyone who cares to visit the north, is the second wall of Gildas. We thus have Bede talking about three walls in Britain, but he is aware that the second wall of Gildas, the stone wall, was built on the line of Severus’s Wall.
829
|
tertius fuit seuerus, qui transfretauit ad brittannos; ubi, ut receptas prouincias ab incursione barbarica faceret tutiores, murum et aggerem a mari usque ad mare per latitudinem brittanniae, id est per cxxxii milia passuum deduxit, et uocatur brittannico sermone guaul. propterea iussit fieri inter brittones et pictos et scottos, quia scotti ab occidente et picti ab aquilone unanimiter pugnabant contra brittones, nam et ipsi pacem inter se habebant; et non multo post intra brittanniam seuerus moritur. |
‘The third was Severus, who sailed to the Britons, where, in order to make the conquered provinces safer from barbarian incursion, he built a wall and rampart from sea to sea across the width of Britain—that is, he took it across 132 miles—and it is known as Gwawl in British speech. Therefore he ordered it to be made between the Britons and the Picts and Scots, since the Scots from the west and the Picts from the north jointly fought against the Britons, for they had peace between themselves. Not long after this, Severus died in Britain.’ |
The Historia Brittonum goes back to Orosius or Jerome, as is shown by the statement of the length of the wall, ignoring the (semi-fictionalised) historical framework of Gildas. Perhaps the details came from Bede rather than directly from Orosius or Jerome, but the question of the author’s use of Bede is controversial.