In around 108AD, the Legio IX Hispania, or the Ninth Legion, a unit of just over 5,000 men, was last recorded at York in Britannia, and possibly heading north towards Caledonia, modern day Scotland. What happened next no one knows for sure, and the Ninth disappeared from historical record. The loss would have been a stunning humiliation for the Rome, but what would be the response of Hadrian, the emperor who took power a few years later in 117AD?

Within a few years a new wall dividing Britannia from the wild Novantae and Selgovae tribes would be constructed, a wall that still stands today and is named after the emperor under which it was built. Joining the pod today is writer Alistair Tosh, author of Edge of Empire: Siege, and we chat Hadrian’s Wall in this bonus pod.

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Edge of Empire: Siege, by Alistair Tosh

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