Professor Rob Collins

Is his knowledge firsthand?

Is it

Is it secondhand accounts?

Has he spoken to any eyewitnesses?

And the other aspect is he's writing a polemic, a sermon.

It's almost tabloid in terms of what he's saying.

So teasing out his agenda and sermonizing from fact can sometimes be challenging too.

Yeah, so the fourth century is a great place to start.

One of the things which is most interesting is that if we look at our historical sources in the Roman period, we actually have the most evidence for conflict in the fourth century.

So as much as Hadrian's Wall is built around 120, and we think there's a war that's part of the process of building it, and we know that there are these other big events, actually, when we actually tally up those lists of some sort of conflict,

it's mostly what's recorded is in the fourth century.

So we know of events in the first half of the fourth century where

For example, the emperor Constantius Chlorus is campaigning in Caledonia and fighting against the Picts at the start of the fourth century.

He dies in York and his death is what spurs on his son Constantine on that path to becoming the sole emperor of the Roman Empire.

And Christianity then gets introduced.

So the northern frontier has a place in big Roman history.

And we see this pattern of emperors or generals being sent to the north to kind of put the Picts in their place or to deal with, you know, some uprisings.

It's not always clear why, but there's definitely, it's not a peaceful frontier in the fourth century.

So we know there's lots of conflict, and not just in the first half of the fourth century, but through the fourth century.

It's really telling that Hadrian's Wall