William Dietrich: Hadrian's wall

"A wall."

"Yes, walls, ditches-"

"A wall, governor, across the entire island."

Pompeius blinked. "The entire island?" There'd been no warning of this.

"A single wall to settle the governance of Britannia once and for all. Rome on one side, the barbarians on the other. This province has the most tiresome rebels since the Jews were scattered from Judea. A wall, Pompeius, to control trade, migration, smuggling, alliance, and civilization. A wall eighty miles long, built by Britannia's three legions."

"Even up here?" The governor looked warily over the edge of a precipice no army could climb.

"Even up here." The party's cloaks fluttered in the bitter wind, but the rain was thinning to spatters, and the panorama was sharpening. "I want the tribes to see a wall unbroken, filling ravines, crowning cliffs, and bridging rivers." Hadrian turned to Pompeius's successor. "Can you do it, Nepos?"

"The engineers have made some preliminary calculations," the new governor said, having had more knowledge than Pompeius of this idea. "The volume of stone is prodigious. Imagine a legionary carrying his own weight in rock. He would have to do so at least fifty million times. I estimate thirty million facing stones alone, Caesar, with rubble, clay, and lime mortar filling the thickness between. Such a project will require many quarries, timber for scaffolding, and a squadron of cobblers just to replace worn boots-not to mention tanners to supply the cobblers! The water alone to mix the mortar will require five hundred jars a day, and at least double that to slake the thirst of the soldiers. Most of it will have to be hauled up hills like the one we just climbed. That means oxen, donkeys, and horses, and fodder for the herd. It will cost-"

"It will cost little." Hadrian was looking not at his governors but out across the northern landscape again. "It will be built by soldiers who have grown restless and need a project to organize their minds. And it will be done. Augustus said he found Rome in brick and left it in marble. I intend to defend that marble with stone."

"With all respect, Caesar, it has never been done," Pompeius had the courage to caution. "Not out of stone, for so long a distance. Not in all the empire."

Their commander turned. "Not in our empire. But when fighting the Parthians, governor, I heard stories of a wall far to the east, far beyond India, in the land where silk originates. The caravans say that wall separates barbarism from civilization, leaving both sides happier for it. I want that here."

The soldiers looked uncertain. Rome's army did not defend, it attacked. So the emperor caught the eye of the centurion who had muttered about Trajan, addressing the man as an equal. "Listen to me, centurion. Listen all of you, and listen well. Rome has been advancing outward for five hundred years, and all of us benefit from her glories. Yet conquest is losing its profit. I followed Trajan on his adventures in the East, and I know well how his battles were celebrated in every Roman city, from Alexandria to Londinium. What those who glorify my late cousin and guardian don't understand is that we conquered valleys but not the mountains above, nor the armies that still lurked there. We could not be defeated, but neither could we defeat. Is that not the case here in Britannia?"

There was no answer but the wind.

"I well know of the glorious victory two generations ago at Mount Graupius in distant Caledonia, far to the north," Hadrian continued. "I well know the courage of the Britannic legions that have never been defeated in standing battle. I know we've manned temporary turf and timber walls far into barbarian lands, ultimately beating every sally against them. But I also know that these barbarians don't submit like Carthage or Corinth or Judea. As they have nothing to lose, a loss means nothing to them. Having no honor, they run instead of die. Having no true nation, they have none to surrender. They hide behind rocks. They haunt the mountains. They charge on horse or foot, hurl a javelin or fire an arrow, and then flee before the issue is decided. They are as weak as fog, and just as hard to bag. And most important, they inhabit lands we have no interest in! Here in Britannia it is cold highlands and peat bogs. In Germania it is swamps and trackless forest. In Scythia it is a desert of grass, in Parthia a kingdom of stones, and in Africa a wilderness of sand. Every mile our empire stretches into such waste means costly transport and vulnerable garrisons. I'll tell you what I learned from the great Trajan, centurion: that senseless conquest is meaningless conquest, because it costs more than it gains. Did you know that I inherited not just an empire, but a debt of seven hundred million sesterces? We have marched to the edges of the world, and it is time to defend what we have. Do you agree, centurion? Answer truthfully, because pleasing lies are as useless as costly victories."

The man swallowed. It was not easy to talk to an emperor, and yet this one, his hair wet and bright eyes glistening with intensity, seemed genuinely to welcome it. "A wall doesn't just keep the barbarians out, Caesar. It keeps us in."

"Ah." Hadrian nodded. "You're a strategist too. And you have more courage than many of my courtiers, centurion, to offer such opinion, and I congratulate you for it. So I tell you this: Rome has never waited for her enemies, or when she did-when Hannibal came down out of his mountains-the result was terrible. So this wall will have gates, and Rome's soldiers will march northward from them. Or rather ride-we need more cavalry, my generals tell me, to run the cowards down!" The assembly laughed. "The chiefs will never be allowed to forget our power, or to stop fearing our revenge. But at the same time, every barbarian will know that their own territory stops here, where civilization begins. Every chief will know it is easier to make peace with Rome than make war."

The racing cloud was fragmenting in the wind, and sunlight began to pick out parts of the ridge, lighting it with shafts of gold. The party stirred. The shift in weather seemed an auspicious omen. They tried to picture a wall snaking along the ridge, dotted with towers, buttressed by forts. They tried to imagine their long and bloody march finally coming to an end.

"We've conquered that which is worth conquering," Hadrian said. "In Germania the wall will be of wood, because our boundary is in a forest, and construction clears lines of sight. Here in Britannia, where it's too miserable for even trees to grow, we'll build of rock. Or turf, where there's no rock. We'll build and build, a manifestation of Roman power, and when it's done…" He looked past them to the south, slowly being settled. "When it's done, there'll be no more battle, and the world will have entered a new age. Let the barbarians have their bogs. We will have what's worth having." He turned to his governors. "Pompeius, your ideas have gotten us started. Nepos, finishing will be your monument."

The new governor nodded solemnly. "It will take a generation-"

"It will take three years."

The assembly gasped.

"Three years, legion matched against legion to measure speed, and at its end we'll have our barrier." Hadrian smiled. "Improvements will follow, of course."

"Three years?" Nepos nodded uncertainly. "As you command, Caesar. But I need the legions as committed to this project as if on campaign."

"This is their campaign, Nepos."

"Three years." The new governor nodded, and swallowed. "And how long is this line to last, emperor?"

"How long?" Now Hadrian looked impatient-much more so than he had with the impudent centurion. "How long, governor? As long as all my projects and monuments are to last: as long as the rock they are built on. This wall, Aulus Platorius Nepos, is to be built to last forever."