The Antonine Wall is much less well known than Hadrian’s Wall, and for good reasons. Constructed in the early 140s CE, it stretched across northern Britannia roughly between modern Clydebank by Glasgow to modern Bo’ness, west of Edinburgh. It therefore ran from coast to coast, and was built of turf blocks with a timber palisade along the top and wooden or stone forts and towers at intervals. It was more of a demarcation line and customs post than a defence against direct attack, and signalled the Roman desire to push their empire further north than the existing wall built by Hadrian. However, it lasted only around 20 years before it was abandoned, and the Romans reoccupied and strengthened the older Hadrian’s Wall, apparently deciding the more northern wall was untenable or not worth the expense and effort. Today little survives except some earthworks and ditches, and both it and the men who garrisoned it during its short life are little remembered.
Like other Roman walls and fortifications, the Antonine Wall was probably garrisoned by auxiliary troops. The Romans always placed far more importance on field armies than on static defences, so patrolling walls was usually the duty of the lesser troops. The first figure in this set, however, does have the look of a legionary. He wears the segmented armour classically associated with the legions, the military belt with ‘apron’ straps down the front, and a typical style of legionary helmet. He also holds a rectangular shield, so fits with many people’s idea of a typical Roman soldier. However he also wears trousers and has interesting greaves on both legs – not typical features of a legionary. During the mid 2nd century it is thought that Romans started wearing trousers in northerly latitudes, despite the scorn they attracted from traditionalists, but greaves were still not a Roman custom until later centuries. Debate continues to rage as to whether the appearance of legionaries or auxiliaries can be sharply defined, or even differentiated at all, so while this looks like a legionary that has decided to adopt trousers and greaves, we can’t rule out the possibility that he is an auxiliary that has obtain certain items more typical of the legionary.
The rest of the men match the assumed image of the auxiliary much more easily. They wear the same legionary imperial helmet, but have a mail corselet, trousers, some sort of bindings around the ankles and boots or sandals. Again, this does not absolutely identify these men as auxiliaries, but they are probably much more typical than the first man. One odd feature of all the helmets is that, while the design is very typical, none of them have the brow reinforcement bar that was usually a little above the lower rim of the bowl. All these men wear a cloak, which obviously seems appropriate for such a northerly posting, at least during the winter months.
The first man has no weapon drawn, but like his comrades wears his sword on his right hip and his dagger on the left. Three of the men hold a spear of simple design, again suggesting they are auxiliaries as they do not have the pilum usually linked with the legionary. The shield puzzled us somewhat. If you are manning the wall, whether on the wall or in one of the forts and towers, we are not sure why you would be carrying a shield around with you. Shields are great for fighting in the open, but stationed high on a palisade where only missiles could realistically reach you, we wondered if they were commonly carried. Doubtless they would be close at hand should they be needed, but perhaps more of a hindrance than anything useful on a quiet day on guard duty.
There is not much to say about the poses here; clearly not much is happening at the moment as everyone is just standing around. This represents the 99% of a soldiers time spent doing nothing and getting very bored, and so a perfectly acceptable posture, but one small detail did attract our attention. The first man is resting his shield on his foot. Quite why he would do this we cannot guess; perhaps to keep it from the dirt? The obvious stand-out pose here is the last man crouching next to a brazier to get a little warmth. All the poses are fine, but this one is somehow particularly appealing, perhaps because everyone can relate to the desire to keep warm on a cold day when you have to be outside. It is a pity then that the brazier is really tiny, and we would have thought would not give a lot of heat, nor lasted very long. Better than nothing perhaps. This small article has four short legs, when most examples of the breed have three, since this is much more stable on uneven ground or guardhouse floors.
As always, the sculpting is really lovely here. Everything is perfectly natural, and the head of the bare-headed man is particularly well done (though we were not sure of the modern-looking hairstyle). 3D printing means no flash and no excess plastic behind weapons or shields, so top marks for the sculpting.
The Romans tended to post auxiliaries in locations a very long way from their own homelands (though replacements might be recruited locally). This minimised the temptation to desert, or to side with the locals in a fight, and it meant that the soldiers patrolling the northern edges of the Empire could come from anywhere. Those manning the Antonine Wall were probably a long way from home, in a climate that was colder and wetter than they were used to, and undoubtedly amongst a native population that was at best reluctantly accepting of their presence, and at worst openly hostile. It cannot have been a highly-prized posting, but as the saying goes, ‘someone’s got to do it’, and this small set gives us some nice and beautifully made auxiliary soldiers in relaxed mood who could have been seen anywhere in the Roman territories around the middle of the second century.