Many people think that Hadrian’s Wall marks the limit of the Roman Empire, but the Roman world stretched much further north than that. For almost 400 years, much of what is now Scotland was either inside the empire or an uncomfortably close neighbour.

These pages explore the people of Roman Scotland, from the soldiers who came here from all over the empire, to their families, and the traders and craftworkers who lived off them. It also looks at the local people and their reaction to this invasion. Objects surviving in museums and sites still visible in the landscape tell a dramatic story of this time of turmoil and change.