MeyerBros

Today Charletta and I followed in Hannah and Jonny’s footsteps and went to check out Hadrian’s wall. Turns out its pretty much like Jonny described it, complete with latrines, infloor heating and gorgeous scenery. Since he’s pretty much described the construction and posted photos, I thought I’d digress along some related bunny trails.

Our guide for our trip today was Colin, Charletta’s colleague at Bridge Builders. He’s a local and enjoyed tearing along the local roads which he was quick to point out are distinctively Roman with their determination to go straight over any obstacle rather than around them as most other local roads do. We mused about the way this fit with the Roman ethos in general. I pointed out that roads in the American midwest also have this tendancy.

Along the same lines we speculated a bit about the impetous for building the wall. As Jonny explained, Hadrian claimed that the wall was to keep out Scottish barbarians. But that might not have been its only purpose. Colin pointed out that the wall was also probably a handy way to keep farmers from heading north to escape Roman taxation. Furthermore, upon reading many of the helpful plaques installed by English Heritage sites, we discovered that everyone passing through the gates in the wall were required to pay a poll or tax.

Does this sound familiar? Powerful imperial leader uses fear of violent attacks against citizens to justify clampdown on local citizens and building a really long wall?

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 10th, 2006 at 7:55 pm by tim and is filed under border, personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.