ABSTRACT
There had been trouble in the province at the outset of the reign, curtly referred to in the HA with the remark that 'the Britons could not be kept under Roman control.' Hadrian had sent Pompeius Falco from Lower Moesia to Britain and Falco had presumably restored the position - but only after heavy Roman losses. The figure of Britannia on coins datable to 119-20 can only allude to this fighting. A little over forty years later the orator Cornelius Fronto referred in passing to the great number of soldiers killed by the Britons when Hadrian was Emperor. It used to be thought that the entire Ninth Legion, IX Hispana, was wiped out.3 The last dated record of the Ninth in Britain shows
HADRIAN'S WALL
Plate 12 Hadrian on the move: EXPED. AVG. (BMCIII Hadrian no. 1313)
it building at its fortress Eburacum (York) in the year 108. But other evidence has come to light which suggests that the legion survived: the service in it of several officers can hardly be dated earlier than the 120s. It may have been operating away from Eburacum, at or near Luguvalium (Carlisle); and part of it may have been transferred to Noviomagus (Nijmegen) in Lower Germany.4
