Hadrian spent more time the provinces of the Empire than in Rome. Many of their names still survive today. Travellers throughout the Empire used a vast network of roads and rivers to move around. A legion could march 25 miles a day. A horse-drawn cart could travel 40 miles in a day. Using a relay of men and horses the official postal service could cover 500 miles in 24 hours.

Britain, the largest of the islands which Roman geography includes, is so situated that it faces Germany on the east, Spain on the west; on the south it is even within sight of Gaul; its northern extremities, which have no shores opposite to them, are beaten by the waves of vast open sea. Round these coasts of remotest ocean the Roman fleet then for then for the first time sailed, ascertained that Britain is an island.