A Lone Bronze Leg Suggests Romans Carefully Dismantled an Emperor’s Statue Before Leaving Scotland

All that survives of a monumental statue of the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius once erected in Scotland is the lower right leg. Researchers have now reconstructed the appearance of the full sculpture, but they still do not know why it was deliberately taken apart more than 1,800 years ago.

The gold-covered bronze foot and calf, known as the Milsington leg, was found in a bog in 1820, according to a statement from National Museums Scotland. It is the only monumental Roman emperor statue ever discovered in Scotland and was likely created around A.D. 140.

At first, experts believed the bronze statue had been looted from York, England, which the Romans founded in A.D. 71 as Eboracum. As research into the Roman frontier progressed, however, it became clear that equestrian statues were often erected in forts along the empire’s border.

Experts now believe the lower leg originally belonged to an equestrian statue of Antoninus Pius similar to the famous statue of Marcus Aurelius in Rome.

Antoninus Pius ruled from A.D. 138 to 161, succeeding Hadrian, who had built a vast wall to protect the northernmost limit of the Roman Empire. Seeking to expand Rome’s territory, Antoninus Pius ordered the imperial governor of Roman Britain to move north, invade southern Scotland and construct a second barrier known as the Antonine Wall. After the emperor died, the wall was left undefended and the Romans withdrew from Scotland.

During that retreat, the Romans may have dismantled valuable statues they had installed, according to the statement. An examination of the Milsington leg before a new exhibition found no cut marks on the bronze, indicating that it had been removed carefully rather than “brutally hacked off.”

“This contrasts with examples of statues being deliberately destroyed after a battle, when an emperor’s memory was condemned, or when they were chopped up for scrap,” National Museums Scotland said.

With the Scottish origin firmly established, curators at National Museums Scotland were able to learn more about Antoninus Pius and his approach to imperial expansion.

“This really turns on its head our understanding of Rome’s second attempt at conquering Scotland,” Fraser Hunter, principal curator of prehistoric art and Roman archaeology at National Museums Scotland, said in the statement. “This was a big deal for the Emperor, something which was worth celebrating.”

Although the boot-clad bronze leg offers a glimpse of the monuments that may once have stood in southern Scotland nearly two millennia ago, it raises a major question for Hunter: Where is the rest of the statue?

The Milsington leg, the Inveresk Mithras altars and other Roman-period finds will be on display starting Nov. 14 in the exhibition “Roman Scotland: Life on the Edge of Empire” at the National Museum of Scotland.

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