“We Will Build a Wall...

and make the Barbarians pay for it.” 

was a quote attributed to the Roman Emperor Hadrian in 122 AD. Mr. Emperor went onto say, “Those Barbarians are nothing more than murderers and rapists. They eat haggis and carry diseases too. We’ll build a very, very BIGLY Wall. We’ll hire the best people to build it. We will conveniently place the Wall near airports, train stations and highways so all can access this UNESCO World Heritage Site. We will Make Rome Great Again!” 

Hadrian might not have said those exact words even in Latin, but as I walk his legacy through a narrow waistband of mainland U.K., I wonder. Why did Emperor Hadrian order the Wall built?

The answer is, no scholar knows for sure. Somehow, Hadrian’s Tweets were lost in the fog of history. 

Here’s what we think we know.

Hadrian was a hands on Emperor. There’s more than speculation that he designed the 73 mile Wall. His creation took about six years to build with 15,000 Roman legionnaires doing the heavy lifting. Once it was constructed, the Romans couldn’t just walk away from it. The Wall was manned by Calvary and Legionnaires brought in from across Rome’s far flung Empire. (Some from as far away as Syria.) There were forts, milecastles and turrets for the soldiers to live and work at. The members of the Roman Border Patrol slept eight to a tiny room. They spent a lot of time gazing north along a stark, barebones windswept landscape keeping a leery eye out for possible Barbarian intrusions. It wouldn’t have been a gig I’d want to have.

Photo below: That’s me pretending to be a Roman Legionnaire. 

Back to the question that’s on every wondering person’s mind. Why a Wall?  

Those in-the-know scholars have a Chinese take away menu’s worth of options to believe in. 

Here’s a few: 

It served as a defensive deterrent against those uncouth Barbarians. 

Hadrian might have been consolidating his Empire. He was setting limits on Rome’s expansion. The Wall is the Rome’s northern most boundary. Or as Hadrian claimed to say keep “intact the Empire.” Under Hadrian’s rein, physical borders were constructed in other regions too. The British version just happened to be Rome’s most ambitious and expensive project. 

Since there were gates, it might have have been a customs post monitoring the comings and goings of citizens and non-citizens. Maybe the Wall was an ancient toll and taxation booth. 

Another speculation is the Wall represented Rome’s might. Was Hadrian on an autocratic ego trip? Was the Emperor saying, “Dude! Could you do this?” to the rest of the World? 

No one knows for certain.

So... Did the Wall work?

From a military standpoint probably not. There were too many unmanned gaps. There were incursions from those Scotch Whisky guzzlers from the north. Another Wall (the Antonine) was built further north 20 years later. It’s primary building material was turf. (A nice way of saying grassy dirt.) . It didn’t work either. The Romans fell back to the comfort of Hadrian’s Wall, at least it was made of stone. 

Which brings up my final point. 

Walls don’t work. It’s human nature to figure out ways around them, through them or over or under them. These unnatural physical impediments cost a lot of dinarii (an ancient Roman silver coin, originally worth ten asses) to construct and maintain. In the long run, it’s more cost effective to build bridges of diplomacy between people and nations. 

Presently Hadrian’s Wall is a major U.K. tourist attraction, despite the fact only about 10% of the original Roman Wall is intact. (The rest was reconstructed). I believe the Wall is generating more wealth now than it did as a border. I know I’ve been dropping the £s since I began walking it! 

I still don’t think it’s a good idea to build a Wall though.

Last photo: An authentic high tech Barbarian device once used to overcome Hadrian’s Wall. 

From Carlisle, UK

Iubentium!

Cheers in Latin

Jeff