King Alfred of England | Page 5

that
the Romans held possession of the island of Britain was the visit of one
of the emperors to this northern extremity of his dominions. The name
of this emperor was Severus. He was powerful and prosperous at home,

but his life was embittered by one great calamity, the dissolute
character and the perpetual quarrels of his sons. To remove them from
Rome, where they disgraced both themselves and their father by their
vicious lives, and the ferocious rivalry and hatred they bore to each
other, Severus planned an excursion to Britain, taking them with him,
in the hope of turning their minds into new channels of thought, and
awakening in them some new and nobler ambition.
At the time when Severus undertook this expedition, he was advanced
in age and very infirm. He suffered much from the gout, so that he was
unable to travel by any ordinary conveyance, and was borne,
accordingly, almost all the way upon a litter. He crossed the Channel
with his army, and, leaving one of his sons in command in the south
part of the island, he advanced with the other, at the head of an
enormous force, determined to push boldly forward into the heart of
Scotland, and to bring the war with the Picts and Scots to an effectual
end.
He met, however, with very partial success. His soldiers became
entangled in bogs and morasses; they fell into ambuscades; they
suffered every degree of privation and hardship for want of water and
of food, and were continually entrapped by their enemies in situations
where they had to fight in small numbers and at a great disadvantage.
Then, too, the aged and feeble general was kept in a continual fever of
anxiety and trouble by Bassianus, the son whom he had brought with
him to the north. The dissoluteness and violence of his character were
not changed by the change of scene. He formed plots and conspiracies
against his father's authority; he raised mutinies in the army; he headed
riots; and he was finally detected in a plan for actually assassinating his
father. Severus, when he discovered this last enormity of wickedness,
sent for his son to come to his imperial tent. He laid a naked sword
before him, and then, after bitterly reproaching him with his undutiful
and ungrateful conduct, he said, "If you wish to kill me, do it now. Here
I stand, old, infirm, and helpless. You are young and strong, and can do
it easily. I am ready. Strike the blow."
Of course Bassianus shrunk from his father's reproaches, and went

away without committing the crime to which he was thus reproachfully
invited; but his character remained unchanged; and this constant
trouble, added to all the other difficulties which Severus encountered,
prevented his accomplishing his object of thoroughly conquering his
northern foes. He made a sort of peace with them, and retiring south to
the line of fortified posts which had been previously established, he
determined to make it a fixed and certain boundary by building upon it
a permanent wall. He put the whole force of his army upon the work,
and in one or two years, as is said, he completed the structure. It is
known in history as the Wall of Severus; and so solid, substantial, and
permanent was the work, that the traces of it have not entirely
disappeared to the present day.
The wall extended across the island, from the mouth of the Tyne, on
the German Ocean, to the Solway Frith--nearly seventy miles. It was
twelve feet high, and eight feet wide. It was faced with substantial
masonry on both sides, the intermediate space being likewise filled in
with stone. When it crossed bays or morasses, piles were driven to
serve as a foundation. Of course, such a wall as this, by itself, would be
no defense. It was to be garrisoned by soldiers, being intended, in fact,
only as a means to enable a smaller number of troops than would
otherwise be necessary to guard the line. For these soldiers there were
built great fortresses at intervals along the wall, wherever a situation
was found favorable for such structures. These were called stations.
The stations were occupied by garrisons of troops, and small towns of
artificers and laborers soon sprung up around them. Between the
stations, at smaller intervals, were other smaller fortresses called castles,
intended as places of defense, and rallying points in case of an attack,
but not for garrisons of any considerable number of men. Then,
between the castles, at smaller intervals still, were turrets, used as
watch-towers and posts for sentinels. Thus the whole line of the wall
was every where defended by armed men. The whole number thus
employed in the defense of this extraordinary rampart was said