ANTONINUS, Titus AureliusFulvus Boronius Arrius, surnamed Pius, was the son of Aurelius Fulvus, a Roman consul, whose family had originally belonged to Nemausus (Nismes). He was born near Lanuvium, 86 a.d., and, having lost his father, was brought up under the care of Arrius Antoninus, his maternal grandfather, a man of integrity and culture, and on terms of friendship with the younger Pliny. Having filled with more than usual success the offices of quaestor and praetor, he obtained the consulship in 120 a.d.; was next chosen one of the four consulars for Italy; greatly increased his reputation by his conduct as proconsul of Asia; acquired much influence with the emperor Hadrian, by whom he was at length adopted as his son and successor in February 138 A.D.; and a few months afterwards, on Hadrian's death, was enthusiastically welcomed to the throne by the Roman people, who, for once, were not disappointed in their anticipation of a happy reign. For Antoninus came to his new office with simple tastes, kindly disposition, extensive experience, a well-trained intelligence, and the sincerest desire for the welfare of his subjects. Instead of plundering the provinces to support his prodigality, he emptied his private treasury to assist the provinces. Instead of exaggerating into treason whatever was susceptible of unfavourable interpretation, he turned the very conspiracies that were formed against him into opportunities of signalising his clemency. Instead of stirring up the persecution of the Christians, and gloating over the sufferings of their martyrs, he extended to them the strong hand of his protection through all the empire. Rather than give occasion to that oppression which he regarded as inseparable from an emperor’s progress through his dominions, he was content to spend all the years of his reign in Rome, or its neighbourhood. Under his patronage the science of jurisprudence was cultivated by men of high ability, and a number of enactments were passed in his name that are equally characteristic of his humanity and his justice. Of the public transactions of this period we have but scant information, but, to judge by what we possess, those twenty-two years were not remarkably eventful. No conquests of importance were attempted, and there were no very dangerous attacks to repel, though all round the frontiers a kind of simmering hostility produced a succession of minor invasions and revolts. The one military result which is of interest to us now is the building of the wall of Antoninus from the Forth to the Clyde. In his domestic relations Antoninus was not so fortunate. His wife, Faustina, has almost become a by-word for her lack of womanly virtue; though, either through his ignorance of her conduct, or in spite of his being aware of it, she seems to have kept her hold on his affections to the last. On her death he did honour to her memory in many ways; but in none more remarkable than by the foundation of a charity for orphan girls, who bore the title of Alimentariae Faustiniance. He had by her two sons and two daughters; but they all died before his elevation to the throne, except Annia Faustina, who became the wife of his successor, Marcus Aurelius, and deepened the infamy of the name she inherited from her mother. Antoninus died of fever on the 7th of March 161, giving, as we are told, the keynote to his life in the last word that he uttered when the tribune of the night-watch came to ask the password— Aequanimitas. The only account of his life handed down to us is that of Julius Capitolinus.

ANTONINUS, Wall of, called Graham’s Dyke by the natives of the district through which it passed, is the name given by historians to that series of defensive posts, connected by a rampart and a wall, which at one time extended across the island from the Frith of Clyde on the west to the Frith of Forth on the east. The former of these appellations it has received from the Roman emperor in whose reign it was erected; the origin of the latter is more doubtful, a probable opinion being that which regards it as a corruption of the Celtic greim, a place of strength, and diog, a trench or rampart.

We are informed by Tacitus that Agricola, during his fourth summer in Britain (81 a.d.), occupied himself in consolidating his previous conquests, and that for this purpose he caused a series of detached forts to be built on the isthmus that joins the two friths as a barrier against the still unconquered Caledonians of the north. It was along, or almost along, the same line, that one of his successors in the command of the Roman troops in Britain raised the more permanent military work known as Antonine’s wall.

The writer of the life of the emperor Antoninus Pius in the Historice Augustee Scriptores Sex, usually supposed to have been Julius Capitolinus, expressly states that Lollius Urbicus, a legate of that emperor, erected, after several victories over the Britons, “another rampart of turf” to check their inroads. No locality is specified, but a fragment of a stone, now in the museum of the university of Glasgow, has an inscription in which the name of this Lollius seems to occur. This fragment, and the numerous monumental records bearing the name of Antonine that have been discovered along its course, identify beyond all reasonable doubt the wall between the Forth and Clyde as that spoken of by the annalist, and furnish satisfactory proof of the correctness of its best-known name. And if a small pillar figured by Gordon, and at one time in the library of the university of Edinburgh, was found, as is probable, near the wall, it fixes the year 140 a.d. as the exact date at which the portion of the work connected with the pillar was executed.

In addition to the annalist just mentioned, several other ancient historians are supposed to allude to Antonine’s wall; but their brief statements are so vague that further reference to what they say is unnecessary. Of mediaeval writers Bede is almost the only one who notices it, but he erroneously ascribes its erection to the natives of the south acting according to advice given them by the Romans. Timothy Pont, who early in the 16th century personally surveyed a large portion of Scotland while gathering materials for his projected Scottish Atlas, drew the attention of antiquaries to this memorial of Roman times, though to him, as well as to his successors in antiquarian research for nearly a century, it was known as “Agricola’s vallum, or Graham’s Dike.” It is to Gordon that the merit must be awarded of having been the first to give to the world a satisfactory account of the “wall of Antoninus Pius.” A chapter of the Itinerarium, Septentrionale is devoted to it, and plans are given of the principal forts, as well as engravings of the legionary tablets and other objects of interest that had, up to the author’s day, been dug out of its ruins. Gordon was followed by Horsley and Roy, the latter of whom made in 1755 a new survey of it, which enabled him to correct Gordon in some particulars. Lastly, in the Caledonia Romana of Stuart, we have a complete and, on the whole, accurate description of the wall, with figures of all the sculptured stones found near its course up to the date at which he wrote.

The nature and appearance of the wall when perfect have been described by all these writers in very similar terms, though they differ somewhat as to the. measurement of its several parts. “It consisted,” says Stuart, “in the first place, of an immense fosse or ditch—averaging about 40 feet in width, by some 20 in depth — which extended over hill and plain in one unbroken line from sea to sea. Behind this ditch on its southern side, and within a few feet of its edge, was raised a rampart of intermingled stone and earth, strengthened by sods of turf, which measured, it is supposed, about 20 feet in height, and 24 in thickness at the base. This rampart was surmounted by a parapet, behind which ran a level platform for the accommodation of its defenders. To the southward of the whole was situated the military way—a regular causewayed road about 20 feet wide—which kept by the course of the wall at irregular distances, approaching in some places to within a few yards, and in others receding to a considerable extent.” Along the entire line there were at least eighteen principal stations or forts, with smaller watchtowers in the intervening spaces. The rampart seems to have consisted for the most part of earth or turf, as stated by the annalist; but stone was, no doubt, employed in the building of the forts and watchtowers as well as in certain portions of the rampart itself.

Although in many parts of its course all traces of Antonine’s wall have long been obliterated, the line along which it stretched has been mapped out by Gordon and others with sufficient accuracy. Commencing in the west on a height called Chapel Hill, near the village of Old Kilpatrick in Dumbartonshire, and now distant from the River Clyde about 150 yards, it ran eastwards, passing in succession Kirkintilloch, Croy, Castlecary, and Falkirk, and terminated at Bridgeness, a rocky promontory that projects into the Frith of Forth south of Borrowstounness in Linlithgowshire. Its eastern termination was long supposed to have been near the kirk of Carriden. In 1869, however, a sculptured legionary tablet, since deposited in the museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, was found at Bridgeness, in such a position that it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the wall actually terminated there. Its entire length may be set down at about 36 English miles.

Of the sculptures found near or on the site of this wall a considerable number are records of the different portions of the work executed by the legionaries employed on it, and who mainly belonged to the second, sixth, and twentieth legions. Some of these tablets are in the museum of the university of Glasgow, and are of much interest, but the finest of them all is the Bridgeness one already referred to. From the number of Roman paces mentioned on the inscriptions, Horsley and others have attempted to determine the exact length of the work. Unfortunately for their purpose, the paces on the stones already discovered considerably exceed its w hole length, and as we cannot suppose that all the monuments of this kind that were erected by the legionaries have been preserved and brought to light, we must conclude with Stuart that they had raised more than one memorial of the same piece of work.

How many years Antonine’s wall continued to be the boundary of the Roman territories in Britain it is impossible to say, but there is every reason for believing that it was so for only a brief period.