Digging a Ditch at the Border
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Building a ditch to exclude “undesirables” is not a new idea. For example, the Romans often constructed an elaborate ditch and rampant ( vallum ) even going so far to ring a whole city (circumvallation) in order to starve its inhabitants. Hadrian’s Wall, crossing Britain for 70 miles to connect the current sites of Carlisle and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was intended to stop incursions by the Picts and the Scots. That wall was usually paralleled on its “friendly” side by a substantial vallum .
Does that strategy work? I recently spent a year in Durham, 20 miles south of Hadrian’s Wall. Never during that time was I molested by a marauding Pict.
NATHANIEL GROSSMAN
Los Angeles
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