Roman Ramparts

(limites), a system of defensive fortifications on the borders of the Roman Empire, erected in the first and second centuries A.D. It consisted of a mound of earth and stone walls, a ditch, and watchtowers. About 15,000 to 25,000 soldiers were employed for its defense. The best-known sections of the ramparts are Trajan’s Wall between the Carpathians and the Black Sea, the remains of which have been preserved in Rumania; Hadrian’s Wall between Solway Firth and the mouth of the Tyne in England; and the Antonine Wall to the north of England on the isthmus between the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth. In Germany the ramparts began between Koblenz and Bonn at the right bank of the Rhine, crossed the Main near Frankfurt, and extended to the Danube. The Upper Germanic Wall stretched from the Taunus Mountains and Freiburg to the Main, then to Wörth and to Lorch on the Neckar; the Raetian Wall ran from Lorch to the Danube above Regensburg.