The Great Wall of Roma

What if the Roman Empire, throughout its history, built a great wall like the Chinese EMpire did throughout its history. AFAIK, the actual Great Wall that we know of today is a product of the Ming Dynasty, but it was built on top of and added to pre-existing walls that had been worked on by previous dynstaies, as early as the Ch'in. What if the Romans did something similar - perhaps initially they would build temporary fortification as their boundaries expanded and their borders moved futher out, but eventually these may become more solidified and at the point when the Romans are no longer pushing the empire but trying to maintain it, they move on to actually linking them up into a single contiguous line.

Hadrian did this in the British Isles - don't know how well it worked.

WHat effect would the Great Wall of Roma (or in later times, the Great Wall of Europa) have on Roman history and later European history? Where would be the most geographically feasible and advantageous place for the Romans to have done this? When would be the best time for these things to be implemented?

I would suspect that no wall is ever going to work forever, so eventually the Roman EMpire will fall, but perhaps the actual timetable may be changed. Or the partitioning of the empire (East v West) may be effected? What about for later European countries, where some will be inside or outside the walls, some will have the wall running through them and into neighboring nations - will the walls be cannibalized too much and be too decrepit to have much affect? What about the culturual and psychological impact such a wall will have on the Europeans?
 
Well, the Romans had a very good natural barrier anyway, the Rhine and Danube. An actual wall might not be feasible, but an increase in the fortifications along the rivers might be.
 
Perhaps a wall along the Roman border in West Asia. This might keep those pesky Persians and Arabs out.
 
Gedca said:
Perhaps a wall along the Roman border in West Asia. This might keep those pesky Persians and Arabs out.
Well, I figure that they wouldn't try to build a wall to keep out another advance civilization, it wouldn't be very practical.
 
kek said:
. What if the Romans did something similar - perhaps initially they would build temporary fortification as their boundaries expanded and their borders moved futher out, but eventually these may become more solidified and at the point when the Romans are no longer pushing the empire but trying to maintain it, they move on to actually linking them up into a single contiguous line.

Hadrian did this in the British Isles - don't know how well it worked.

I would suspect that no wall is ever going to work forever, so eventually the Roman EMpire will fall, but perhaps the actual timetable may be changed. Or the partitioning of the empire (East v West) may be effected? What about for later European countries, where some will be inside or outside the walls, some will have the wall running through them and into neighboring nations - will the walls be cannibalized too much and be too decrepit to have much affect? What about the culturual and psychological impact such a wall will have on the Europeans?

1. the romans had their wall, the limes.

2. A long wall around the empire would surely cost to much to build it, and definitively would be a HUGE problem to maintain.

3. If we give one of the emperors this idea and give him a lifespan to push it forward, well, I would see barbarian hordes being unable to conquer the land because they can´t stop laughing.

Did the Great Wall ever stop major raids or conquests?

The system the romans applied was able to give flexible responses to different threats. Just guarding a huge wall with small squads once every mile means that you use huge quantities of troops to no result, and have to push together many sectors to form a convincing defense force once you are confronted with more than 3 guys trying to steal cattle.

Greets,
Steffen
 
kek said:
What if the Roman Empire, throughout its history, built a great wall like the Chinese EMpire did throughout its history.

This reminds me of that great Far Side cartoon showing two Chinese soldiers standing atop the Great Wall - one says to the other "NOW let's see that dog get in here."
 
*Sigh* This wasn't meant to propose that the Wall would actually work to keep the babrabrians out or to protect the empire indefinitely. I'm pretty sure that the Wall would have been too expensive to build and mantain - just lkike it was for the Chinese. The question was IF it had been pushed forward and built, what would be the consequences of simply having this massive thing running across Europe, as well as all the associated histories leading up to the building of it. For example, the Ch'in Emperor started the first real integration of the various walls in teh north of CHina into one Great Wall, and this process was so long and difficult that nearly a 10th of the population was essentially enslaved to do it. Caused lots of social and political and economic problems that contributed to the decline of his Empire after his death. COuld it have done anything analogous to Rome? Also, it is surmised by some scholars that the CHinese Great Wall was a methaphor for, and perhaps in some cases actually helped to foster a mentality of the feeling of the Middle Kingdom-ness of China - that all that was good and worthy was inside the walls and everything outside was barbarian and worthless. Not that the Romans needed any help in differentiating between the civlized Rome and everything else. But the intresting thing to me is that where as in CHina the Wall belonged to a still contguous and single nation/empire throughout its history, with Europe, after the fall of Rome you'd have multiple nations throughout the Continent but with this massive edifice running straight through and across some of them. WOuld that impact European history any?
 
kek said:
*Sigh* This wasn't meant to propose that the Wall would actually work to keep the babrabrians out or to protect the empire indefinitely. I'm pretty sure that the Wall would have been too expensive to build and mantain - just lkike it was for the Chinese. The question was IF it had been pushed forward and built, what would be the consequences of simply having this massive thing running across Europe, as well as all the associated histories leading up to the building of it. For example, the Ch'in Emperor started the first real integration of the various walls in teh north of CHina into one Great Wall, and this process was so long and difficult that nearly a 10th of the population was essentially enslaved to do it. Caused lots of social and political and economic problems that contributed to the decline of his Empire after his death. COuld it have done anything analogous to Rome? Also, it is surmised by some scholars that the CHinese Great Wall was a methaphor for, and perhaps in some cases actually helped to foster a mentality of the feeling of the Middle Kingdom-ness of China - that all that was good and worthy was inside the walls and everything outside was barbarian and worthless. Not that the Romans needed any help in differentiating between the civlized Rome and everything else. But the intresting thing to me is that where as in CHina the Wall belonged to a still contguous and single nation/empire throughout its history, with Europe, after the fall of Rome you'd have multiple nations throughout the Continent but with this massive edifice running straight through and across some of them. WOuld that impact European history any?

It would probably had affected the territories claimed by various states and thus greatly impacted European history. For instance, if there is a France, they will likely claim that everyting on the Roman side of the wall is theirs.
 
Say, the Great Wall was essentially useless, wasn't it? I dimly recall that early Han China had constant problems with the Hsing-Nu, who had set up shop SOUTH of the wall, and throughout Chinese history barbarians (and Turks) seemed to come and go quite easily.

By the way, why did Hadrian have that wall built anyway? I've heard that it was actually about 2 or so meters high when completed, so it wouldn't be that useful against the Scots and Picts.
 
Alasdair Czyrnyj said:
Say, the Great Wall was essentially useless, wasn't it? I dimly recall that early Han China had constant problems with the Hsing-Nu, who had set up shop SOUTH of the wall, and throughout Chinese history barbarians (and Turks) seemed to come and go quite easily.

By the way, why did Hadrian have that wall built anyway? I've heard that it was actually about 2 or so meters high when completed, so it wouldn't be that useful against the Scots and Picts.
Well, Hadrian's wall was much shorter. Its main purpose was to keep the Legions busy, in all likelyhood. Hadrian wasn't much of a conquerer, and idle armies aren't something you want to have around. Also, Hadrian's Wall had many standard Roman forts built along it, so it also served to connect all this forts together, into a cohesive unit.
 
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