古罗马历史：罗马人修建长城统治英格兰

Hadrian’s Wall, the ancient marvel that snakes through northern England, quite rightly steals the show when it comes to the frontiers of Roman Britain. It’s a spectacular sight, rolling poetically over hillsides and serving up ruins of fortifications for all to see.

哈德良长城环绕英格兰北部地区，堪称建筑史上的奇迹。说起古罗马在统治英国时设立的边境，大家肯定都会想到它。哈德良长城更象是形象工程，代表了罗马帝国的富庶和强大。当年为防御建造的这座城墙早已历史遗迹，供人们前来参观。

It once reached up to 5m in height and spanned an impressive 73 miles, and today boasts impressive remains with large portions of the original stone wall still intact. Its enduring presence, however, overshadows the true frontier that the Romans, those wily conquerors who built one of the world’s largest empires by the 2nd Century AD, constructed around 100 miles to the north.

哈德良长城最高时达到5米，长达73英里，气势恢宏。如今这里早已成为旅游胜地，许多城墙仍然保存完好。然而，雄伟的哈德良长城掩盖了帝国在英格兰的真正边界。公元3世纪，这群足智多谋的征服者在建立了世界最大的帝国之一，真正的边界位于哈德良长城以北100英里左右。

It’s easy to see why there’s a lingering misconception that the Romans never made it past Hadrian's Wall, let alone into Scotland: it’s much neater and tidier to think that they stopped their foray at the tangible, man-made line that meanders through Northumberland and Cumbria. After all, the Romans were resident at Hadrian’s Wall for close to 300 years, defending their empire’s boundary and embedding themselves in the region. But the story of Rome’s north-west frontier far from ends there, for it was the Antonine Wall that, albeit briefly, held the title of the wildest edge of the empire.

哈德良长城蜿蜒穿过诺森勃兰郡和坎卜里亚郡，许多人认为侵略止步于这条人造边境，这种想法更合理也更直接。因此可以理解，人们误以为罗马帝国的侵略从未突破这座长城,更别提苏格兰了。毕竟，罗马人在哈德良长城附近居住了近300年，保卫帝国的边界，并在这里扎下根来。但罗马西北边境的故事远不止于此，安东尼长城（Antonine Wall）才是帝国最远的边境，尽管时间并不长。

I grew up in Edinburgh, so this ancient monument rested right on my doorstep. But I had little awareness of its presence, which is mind-boggling when you consider that it was such a remarkable feat of engineering. It stretched some 37 miles from the Firth of Forth to the Firth of Clyde across central Scotland, and was built by the very legionnaires stationed there nearly 1,900 years ago. What’s more, today it’s one of Scotland’s six Unesco World Heritage sites, listed as part of its ‘Frontiers of Empire’ series, although arguably the least well known.

我在爱丁堡长大，这个历史遗迹就在家门口，但我却几乎不知道它的存在。对如此卓越的工程壮举竟然毫不知情简直令人难以置信。城墙横跨苏格兰中部，从福斯湾（Firth of Forth）一直延伸到克莱德湾（Firth of Clyde），全长约60公里，近1900年前由驻扎在那里的军团建造。不仅如此，如今它还是苏格兰6个联合国教科文组织世界遗产（Unesco World Heritage）中的一个，是“帝国边界”的一部分，应该也是最不出名的。

This could, in part, be down to the fact that, unlike its sibling to the south, there isn’t that much ‘wall’ to see. Originally one continuous barrier of earth and clay, it rose as high as 3m and was lined to the north by a great defensive ditch as much as 5m deep. Its layout was similar to Hadrian’s Wall, sprinkled with forts, gateways and watchtowers, but the Antonine Wall never benefitted from the addition of stone to the same extent, ensuring fewer remains. Today, unlike the solid sections found at Hadrian’s Wall, the remains comprise mainly of disjointed turf mounds and complex earthworks.

它不为人所知的一部分原因可能是，相比于南边那道相似的城墙，这里并看不到什么“墙”。它原本由泥巴和粘土建造，屏障连绵蜿蜒高达3米，北边是一条深达5米的巨大防御沟渠。它的结构与哈德良长城类似，沿途分布着堡垒、城门和瞭望塔。但安东尼长城没有使用那么多石材，所以留下的残迹寥寥无几。如今，不同于哈德良长城结实的遗迹，安东尼长城所剩的主要是些断断续续的草皮土墩和复杂的土方工事。

The Antonine Wall’s lack of celebrity status is also possibly due to its short lifespan. Although its year of completion remains debated (suggestions range from 142 AD to 150 AD), it’s generally accepted that this huge structure was abandoned within two decades.

安东尼长城之所以名气不大，可能也与它的短命有关。尽管其建成年份仍有争议（应该在公元142年到公元150年之间），但人们普遍认为，这个庞大的建筑不到20年就被废弃了。
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What is certain, as Dr Louisa Campbell, postdoctoral fellow in archaeology at the University of Glasgow told me, is that the wall was a show of force, “a massive and labour-intensive physical presence”.

格拉斯哥大学考古学博士后坎贝尔博士（Louisa Campbell）告诉我，可以肯定安东尼长城展示了国力，是“一个体量巨大、凝结了大量劳动的实体存在”。

“The wall would most likely have been perceived as an intimidating structure and a hostile imposition to the cultural landscape, separating groups stretching back many generations,” she said, concluding that it was “unlikely to have been particularly welcomed by the locals”.

她说：“人们可能认为这道城墙令人生畏，也有损于当地的文化形态，将不知多少代的族群分隔开来，”她的结论是它“可能不太受当地人欢迎”。

Unsurprising, really, when you consider that these locals resided in a land ruled by warriors and tribes deemed to be beyond the grasp of Rome. Despite various incursions, encampments and even some mutually beneficial trading relations, Caledonia, the Roman term for the unconquered lands to the north, remained a thorn in the side of many an emperor. The Antonine Wall marked the outer limits of what Rome saw as civilisation. What’s more, it was an uncommon one at that.

这么说也不奇怪。你想想看，这些当地人居住的地方被罗马士兵和部落统治，可这片土地本来被认为是超出了罗马的势力范围。尽管出现了各种入侵和安营扎寨之举，甚至形成了互惠互利的贸易关系，但喀里多尼亚（Caledonia，罗马人对北方未被征服土地的称呼）仍然是许多皇帝心头的刺。在罗马看来，安东尼长城标志着文明的边界。不仅如此，它还具有非同寻常的意义。

“Built frontiers were quite unusual in the Roman world as the army typically relied on natural boundaries such as rivers or mountains,” said Dr Fraser Hunter, principal curator of Roman Collections at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. “The Antonine Wall, therefore, gives us rare insights into the Roman Empire’s attempts to control the edges of its world.”

“罗马帝国人工建造边界的举动相当罕见，军队通常依靠河流或者山脉这样的自然边界，”爱丁堡苏格兰国家博物馆（National Museum of Scotland）罗马藏品的负责人亨特博士（Fraser Hunter）说：“安东尼长城给了我们一个难得的机会，让我们看到罗马帝国为了控制帝国边疆所做的努力。”

Speculation continues about precisely why it was abandoned. “This was a difficult edge of the empire,” Hunter stated, “partly from the landscape, partly the hostility which they encountered in places, but also from the logistical point of view, meaning that extended supply lines were needed.”

关于它被遗弃的确切原因一直存在种种揣测。“这里是帝国难以驾驭的边界，”亨特说：“部分是因为地势的缘故，部分是因为他们在某些地方受到敌意，而且从后勤的角度来看，将这里定为边界意味着需要延长补给线。”

Campbell agrees. “A combination of pressures elsewhere in the empire, less receptive locals, challenging terrain and environmental conditions probably contributed to Rome’s decision to withdraw from the Antonine Wall and re-garrison the previous frontier at Hadrian’s Wall,” she said.

坎贝尔同意这种说法。她说：“帝国在本国以外所承受的压力、当地人的反抗、艰难的地形和环境条件，种种因素组合到一起，可能促使罗马决定放弃安东尼长城，重新驻扎在之前的边界——哈德良长城。”

The story of the Antonine Wall has not been completely lost. The Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow, Scotland’s first public museum, hosts a permanent exhibition on the Antonine Wall, displaying treasures from everyday items, such as ancient leather shoes, jewellery and coins, to carved distance stones, which marked the completion of sections as it was built. Campbell, who’s worked closely on many of the Roman exhibits here, hails it as “an outstanding collection of obxts”.

但安东尼长城的故事并没有灰飞烟灭。苏格兰第一家公共博物馆——格拉斯哥大学的亨特利亚博物馆（Hunterian Museum）设有一个关于它的永久性展览，展出了古代的皮鞋、珠宝和硬币等日常用品，以及精雕细琢的距离石（用于标志某一部分工程完工）等各种珍宝。坎贝尔在这里亲手布置过许多罗马展览，称博物馆是“一个极为出色的收藏”

In addition, there are 47 named sites along the route for travellers to explore, although unsurprisingly not all of them were created equal given the wall’s lack of solid stone credentials. I planned a route westwards by car from Edinburgh to take in some of the must-see sections.

此外，安东尼长城遗迹沿途还有47个有名字的景点供游客探索，鉴于它并非坚实的石头长城，所以景点的保存情况参差有别，这一点倒并不令人意外。我计划从爱丁堡开车向西，参观一些必看的地方。
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It was always going to be an interesting recce: for starters, the wall’s route through Scotland's central belt covers much lowland territory that was at the heart of the Scottish Industrial Revolution. This takes anyone on a quest to follow the Antonine Wall through areas scarred by heavy industry, such as former coal and oil shale mines and past old ironworks. Interestingly, the ruins run parallel to some of the region’s major arteries including the Forth and Clyde canal, walker’s paradise The John Muir Way, and the main railway line between Edinburgh and Glasgow, proving that this stretch continues to be as important today as it was to the Romans.

这个旅程一定很有意思。整个长城穿过苏格兰的中部地带，有许多低地，曾是苏格兰工业革命的中心。如果你之前没来过，只要跟着安东尼长城走，就能穿过那些留有重工业疤痕的地区，像是从前的煤矿、油页岩矿，以及旧钢铁厂。有意思的是，城墙遗迹与这里许多主要线路走向相同，包括福斯—克莱德运河、被称为徒步者天堂的“约翰·缪尔之路”（The John Muir Way），以及连接爱丁堡和格拉斯哥之间的主要铁路线，说明这段路在今天仍然像当年对罗马人一样重要。

My first stop was the town of Falkirk, around 26 miles west of Edinburgh, which stood out as a hotbed of remains with a number of different sites in quick succession. “I have a soft spot for the wall in Callendar Park, as it survived the urban sprawl of Falkirk,” Hunter had confided to me. Indeed, the park, which surrounds the museum at Callendar House, hosts a generous portion of the rampart and ditch, and provided me with my first excitable glimpse of the Antonine Wall. Inside Callendar House, there’s also a small exhibition detailing the history of the Antonine Wall under the expert eye of local archaeologist Geoff Bailey.

我的第一站是爱丁堡以西约42公里的法尔柯克（Falkirk），许多遗址都集中在这里。“我对卡伦德公园（Callendar Park）里的那段长城情有独钟，因为它在法尔柯克的城市扩张中得以幸存，”亨特向我吐露。的确，环绕着卡伦德宫（Callendar House）博物馆的公园里有大片的城墙和沟渠，让我第一次兴奋地一窥安东尼长城的样貌。在卡伦德宫还有一个小展览，详细介绍了安东尼长城的历史，有当地考古专家贝利（Geoff Bailey）为展览提供专业指导。

Less than three miles from Callendar House is Watling Lodge, where along a rather unprepossessing B-road, the tell-tale rise and fall of the ditch crawling over a low-lying hill was clear to see. Also in the area is Rough Castle. The remains of this once-upon-a-time fort are widely lauded as the jewel in the crown of the Antonine Wall, easily accessed by a path from the Falkirk Wheel (another, more contemporary, engineering success story).

距离卡伦德宫不到5公里的地方就是沃特林小舍（Watling Lodge），它位于一条不起眼的路上，从那里可以清楚地看到低矮丘陵上蜿蜒起伏的沟渠。拉夫城堡（Rough Castle）也在这个地区。这座曾经存在的堡垒，其遗迹被广泛誉为安东尼长城王冠上的明珠，从法尔柯克轮（Falkirk Wheel，一个更为现代的成功工程案例）有一条路很方便就过来了。

Although Rough Castle was the second smallest fort along the wall, Bailey said, “it has everything to give the impression of what a fort looked like.” And it’s instantly obvious why it’s so revered. Whether walking along the boggy bottom of the ditch or high on the ridge of the rampart, the sheer scale is overwhelming. Standing on a damp mossy section of rampart looking across to the west of Scotland, I couldn’t help but wonder how far from home those legionnaires must have felt in this savage outpost prone to bouts of bad weather and hostility from ill-tempered natives.

虽然拉夫城堡是城墙沿线第二小的堡垒，但贝利说：“你对堡垒的印象在它身上都能找到”，它如此受人敬仰的原因也就显而易见了。无论是沿着泥泞的沟底行走，还是沿着城墙的脊背走在高处，单是体量就令人叹为观止。站在长满青苔的潮湿城墙上眺望苏格兰西部，我不禁在想，在这个天气恶劣、当地人脾气不好还怀有敌意的荒蛮边境上，在那些军团士兵的心中，故乡该是多么遥远的存在。

A couple of miles further west, I came to the site at Seabegs Wood, which reared up around a bend in the road leaving little time to pull into the parking space. Here, it’s all about the Military Way, the wide, arrow-straight service road that ran behind the wall, whose remains can still be seen.

继续西行几公里，我来到了希伯格斯林地（Seabegs Wood），路上拐了个弯后突然就是遗址了，害我差点错过停车点。这里都是军事道路，是一条位于城墙后面，笔直宽阔的供补给道，遗迹仍然可觅。

Eight miles on, a short walk up a sharp, steep hill revealed why Bailey asserted that the site at Croy Hill was “visually the most attractive section where you’ve got the crags”. As well as splendid views over the valley to the west, these dramatic crags show where the ditch was sheared through the rock – no mean feat nearly two millennia ago.

再开13公里，然后爬上一个陡峭的小山坡，就明白贝利为何坚持认为克罗伊山（Croy Hill）“有峭壁所以最为引人入胜”。除了向西俯瞰山谷的壮丽景色外，这些险峻的峭壁还显示出沟渠在岩石中凿砌的位置——这在将近两千年前绝非易事。

Things got higher still at nearby Bar Hill Fort. “Bar Hill is a place of exceptional beauty,” Campbell said, “as it’s the highest point along the Antonine Wall and provides amazing panoramic views across the surrounding landscape.” That it does, as well as a brief, thigh-burning hike up to its ruins, which include the stone remains of a well and the outline of a bathhouse.

附近的巴丘堡（Bar Hill Fort）地势更高。“巴丘特别美，”坎贝尔说，“是安东尼长城沿线的最高点，可以将周围壮丽的景色尽收眼底。”的确如此，经过短暂的燃脂之旅，徒步登上它的废墟，你会看到一口石井的遗迹，以及一间澡堂的大致轮廓。

The highlight, however, resided in the grounds of a small park tucked along a busy main road in the well-to-do neighbourhood of Bearsden, just a few miles north-west of Glasgow. Behind a low wall sits the more substantial remains of a Roman bathhouse, a somewhat surreal thought when you consider legionnaires once relaxed in the steam in this spot now enveloped by a 1970’s housing estate.

然而，此行最大的亮点是在一个小公园里，公园就在格拉斯哥西北几公里处，位于富裕的贝尔斯登区（Bearsden）一条繁忙的主干道旁。在一堵矮墙后面，是一处更大的罗马澡堂遗迹，周围都是上世纪70年代兴建的住宅，想象罗马军团的军人曾经在这里的蒸汽中泡澡放松，难免有一种超现实之感。

Of course, this cherry-picked approach to experiencing the Antonine Wall was only ever going to be an introduction. It gave me a flavour of what to look for and showed how addictive hunting down sections can be; no wonder there are experts and enthusiasts championing this forgotten frontier as a major attraction.

当然，这种经过挑选的安东尼长城之旅只是一个开始，让我知道应该看些什么，也知道了寻找遗迹是多么令人上瘾，难怪会有专家和爱好者把这片被遗忘的边疆地带当成重要的景点。

The story of the Antonine Wall may be more of a short read than a full-length feature, but it’s one that should be spoken of in harmony with its peer, Hadrian’s Wall. It has left a legacy of intrigue, archaeology, history, walks and activities – proof enough that it was, for a time, a pivotal frontier of the mighty Roman Empire.

安东尼长城的故事更像是篇精干短文，而非鸿篇巨制，但它足以与哈德良长城相提并论。它给我们留下了大量阴谋、考古与历史信息，还有徒步和各种活动，林林总总足以证明，它曾一度是强大的罗马帝国一段重要的边境。

“The wall is a lovely example of Rome’s endeavours to control what is now Scotland and the challenges the empire faced,” Hunter said. “It was an experiment – a massive-scale engineering exercise to try to separate Roman from non-Roman worlds.”

“这道城墙是很好的例证，证明了罗马当年为控制现今的苏格兰所做的努力，也体现了帝国所面临的种种挑战，”亨特说：“建造长城是一次实验，是一个规模浩大的工程，试图将罗马人与非罗马人的世界分隔开。”