The Fortification of the Roman Empire

Since prehistory, various structures have been built to defend against attacks by assailants, whether such attacks were incidental or organised.

In Jericho, the city walls date to 8,000 BCE. The walls of Troy, equipped with gates and towers described by Homer in the Iliad, date from the end of the second millennium BCE, as do those of Mycenae.

_{City walls of Mycenae}

Roman Walls

In the West, there is evidence of villages defended by walls going back to the Bronze Age, and even more often in the Iron Age, i.e. between the second and first millennium BCE.

In Italy, city walls of solid masonry defended the cities built by the Greeks in Southern Italy and Sicily in the seventh to sixth century BCE, by the Etruscans in Central Italy, as well as the cities of early Rome. Along the borders of their territory, the Romans created barriers that offered the illusion of being able to block invaders at the limits of the empire (e.g., Hadrian’s Wall between England and Scotland, built in the early second century CE).

_{Hadrian’s wall between England and Scotland}

This was similar (though on a smaller scale) in concept to that of the Great Wall of China. Built in its current form by Ming dynasty emperors (between 1300 and 1600) upon an earlier defensive system dating to the first millennium BCE, it was restored and reinforced numerous times to defend China from nomadic invaders.

This type of border system has been adopted throughout history, up to modern times with the Berlin Wall, that between Israel and the Palestinian territories or, more recently, between the United States and Mexico.

Defending the Roman Empire

_{Porta Borsari in Verona}

_{The Battle of Adrianople depicted in the Ludovisi sarcophagus, now displayed at the National Museum of Rome}

In just over 100 years (from the end of the third to the early fifth century), the structures of settlements in Northern Italy and their relationships were deeply altered, with long-lasting consequences.

Although this process occurred before the Early Middle Ages, it shaped its evolution, both because the investments necessary for defence gave certain cities and territories an advantage, and because it promoted intense militarization at the expense of city councils and traditional Roman aristocratic classes.