There’s an interesting blog entry on the Times Literary Supplement site, from regular columnist Mary Beard, on the subject of Hadrian’s Wall. Beard gives a quick history lesson to George W. Bush, and the Knesset, regarding their proposed and actual defensive barriers*.

Beard deconstructs the conservative-comforting image of Hadrian’s wall, that of an impressive barrier separating civilisation from the barbarians. It would seem, points out Beard, though, that whatever Hadrian’s wall served as, it certainly did not serve as an effective military barrier.

Theories now abound as to its use, though, interestingly given that it is usually fertile ground for ‘non-official’ theories, an internet search will dig up hundreds of sites all sticking to the barbarian-barrier line established, according to Beard, by an unreliable late Roman biographer of Hadrian. Was it a structure to facilitate the imposition of levies on goods passing to-and-from the empire? A giant toll-booth, as it were. Was it a communications channel running from east to west?

One thing is relatively certain, the wall was built by Roman legions, and thus by taxpayers money.

Lessons have been learned, but, as usual, all the wrong ones. The proposed bridge connecting Sicily to the mainland; the high-speed rail lines that will shave transit time for merchandise travelling in and out of Italy; Grand public works that will provide jobs (for the boys).

Meanwhile, a European Union paper on the progress of nation states towards reaching Renewable Energy targets says of Italy:
“No progress has been made towards reaching the RES-E target. While Italy’s RES-E shareamounted to 16% in 1997, it had fallen back to 15.43% seven years later (in 2004).Progress in the biofuels field is equally slow, with a share of 0.51% in 2005, compared to thetarget of 1%.”

*It’s worth pointing out, as an aside, that the Berlin wall was commonly refered to as the ‘anti-fascist protection barrier’ by East German ‘news’ journalists.