The Forgotten Ancient Warriors That Defended Hadrian's Wall

Professor Alice Roberts reveals the forgotten story of the Roman Empire's secret weapon in Britain: their cavalry. These fearsome horsemen were the key to defending Britain's most famous Roman monument fortification, Hadrian's Wall.

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#DiggingForBritain

[HAMMER_.]

I actually bought this episode several years ago, "The Horsemen of Hadrians Wall", because i loved the subject matter so much.
Its cool to see it uploaded for free now!

[riccardomulazzani]

As an Italian in love with the Roman History a big thanks to all of you for all the passion you put into discovering, preserving and bringing back to life the fascinating Roman history which is a treasure of humanity shared by the peoples of half of Europe and part of Asia and Africa.

[lw]

It's great there's people out there so passionate about history

[IronMan-ifke]

My mum is from Normandy, northwestern France from a small city called Mortain. Post WW2, her family moved south not far from a small village called Jublains. Jublains was home to a Roman army garrison with a strategic height over a valley stretching miles. Town has a small but wonderful museum dedicated to the Roman military base with its weapons and a small outdoor theatre to entertain the Roman troops. As for mixing of Romans with the local Celtic population per the video, that happens when conquerors settle and become accepted by the locals. Not unusual at all. Mum’s recent DNA test revealed: she is 32%+ ‘Latin’ (Roman), some Scandinavian (Normandy was much later settled by large Danish Viking tribes/raiders in the 9th century) but mostly Celtic (60%). History is also alive in our bloodline.

[smontone]

When is the person who puts the history hit ads in the middle going to figure out that we don’t need them BLASTED IN OUR EARS!!!

[DavidfL]

Thanks for your work and time making this happen for me, peace and love to all ❤

[johnwright]

Horses take a lot of care and work. A cavalryman had to lay out a considerable sum for saddelry, harness and his own gear, quite apart from stabling, grooming, grazing and fodder.

[danpferguson]

Since the Romans had the Auxiliary forces here in Britain they had to place them somewhere useful. Generally they would work in concert with the Legions, & presumably come under the command of the nearest Legionary Legate, in northern Britain this would have been that of the 6th Legion at Eboracum, York.
The prime role of the Auxiliary Cohorts, & Cavalry Allae, would be to provide a protective screen for the Legion, between it & any threat from the northern tribes.
The Romans had learnt not to brigade too many troops together, to prevent mutiny, & to lessen the temptation to revolt by Military commanders from attempting to try for self promotion, using large numbers of men, & the large amounts of money held in their pay-chests. By spreading the troops around in Cohorts of between 500 & 1000 men, they had useful units able to defend & police an area around each fort, which allowed for local support in supplies of foodstuffs, for both men & horses, resources like timber for building & fuel, & other useable resources. This reduced the need to carry large amounts of stuff to bigger bases, easing the logistics of supply. These forts were close enough to each other to be able to conduct joint operations, & the Legion if it was called in to cover any emergency. The broad occupation across a large 'Frontier zone' also allowed for relationships to develop with local people, eventually leading to integration with the native population, especially with the sons of unions between soldiers & local women following their fathers into the army, for generations. The concentration of a number of such units along the line of Hadrian's Wall made sense in that it meant the soldiers could patrol & control the land on both sides of it & instead of being restricted to filtering through the Milecastle gates, with cavalry units sited directly on the Wall, with three gates opening on it's northern side, larger units could get to the north more rapidly. Permanent Roman forts were not sited in 'enemy' held territory, only temporary campaign camps would be located in hazardous situations. Forts for 'winter' occupation, which might become long term bases, would only be able to be built in Roman controlled areas. The same goes for things like Hadrian's Wall itself. It would have been impossible to construct such a thing in an active war zone, but it must have been well behind any region where serious threats might come from. I would suggest this means that the Romans always aimed to control the whole of the area up to the Forth-Clyde river line, & treated it as a, semi-detached, part of the Empire. It is clear that Hadrian's Wall was never intended as an impassable barrier or solid line demarking the very limit of the Empire. It was merely a frontier control point & baseline for the military, a backstop if under threat, & a springboard for advances & patrols to the north, especially with the so called 'outpost' forts well to the north. Antoninus Pius attempted to shift the whole situation to the the narrow strip between the 2 rivers, but after him it was soon returned to Hadrian's line. Presumably it was too much trouble, with too little extra to be gained, the area further north not being amenable to the exploitation of resources, or easy disposition of troops as the original Frontier. Still I think the Romans continued to claim control over the north as far as they could, either by massive long range punitive campaigns, as under Severus, or by the installation of a sort of 'client' state, as seems to have happened later.

[MrBatraaf]

Fantastic video! These are exactly some of the subjects that I have wondered about when reading about the use of Roman auxiliaries.

[richardmarshall]

A lovely commentary and commentator indeed👩🏻‍🦰

[divinadecosio]

I enjoy so much learning about the Roman Empire. This video is great.

[mickdriver]

'We need you to do a wedge formation to see if it's actually a thing'. Yeah right. You wanted the wedge because it's awesome. I'm all for that. Nothing wrong with enjoying the history. Really interesting archaeology and awesome work by the riders. Also, it always rains when I visit Vindolander.

[alistairborland]

It is a shame that Rome ever fell, brilliant engineers and soldiers

[MsSteelphoenix]

I love seeing this kind of experimental archaeology! It brings such intimate and specific information.

[ulpiotraiano]

Very nice program, they only thing that the conductor is wrong is, that those cavalry troopers where not only submitting yours ancestors but they are your ancestors too. They married and in most cases lived the rest of their life settling there after retirement. By the time the roman authority left Britain, it was a different world, everyone was citizen, , the roman army was different, the mobile force was deployed somewhere else, but the soldiers on the border remained . Thanks

[kingkenny]

Rather underwhelming in comparison to how they would have been i think. Still, fair play to all involved trying their very best to recreate it.

[thesnapperlapper]

I wish there were sources mentioned. I don't think I heard the word Equite, Picts, 'hippika gymnasia' or mention regarding the ratio of calvary to legionnaires

[lw]

Experimental archeology is one way of testing things.

[christophercripps]

IMO 2 possible minor inaccuracies in the animation:
1) the antitank gun shown on Cormorant loos like a 5 cm PaK 38 or 7.5 cm PaK 40. The 3.7 cm PaK had no muzzle brake.
2) the 2 cm illustrated look more like a 20/70 Oerlikon than a 2 cm FlaK C-30 or similar.

[AnnaAnna-ucff]

It's sad to see the Sycamore Gap Tree.