Trajan's Wall

ancient defensive fortifications in the southern forest-steppe region of Eastern Europe. Remains of the wall still stand in Vinnitsa, Khmel’nitskii, and Ternopol’ oblasts of the Ukrainian SSR and in the Moldavian SSR. The wall is named for the Roman emperor Trajan, conqueror of Dacia. Archaeological research conducted in Moldavia on one of the wall’s sections revealed that Trajan’s Wall was built by the Romans at the turn of the second century A.D. In the third and fourth centuries the wall was used against the Romans by local tribes, who filled in a trench on the north side of the wall and dug another on the south side. Similar walls exist in the Dnieper region (seeZMIEVY VALY).