by Stephen Dreyfus

Created on: July 08, 2008

Great Walls and Grand Delusions

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
"That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
"And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
"And makes gaps even two can pass abreast"
Robert Frost

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

The city of Troy was real and archeologists discovered that the walls that kept out the invading Greeks for ten years, were sixteen feet thick. But according to Homer, the Greeks were able to get in and burn the city by hiding inside a giant hollow Trojan Horse. The Trojans, who didn't heed the warning of Greeks bearing gifts, assumed the Horse was a tribute acknowledging defeat, and brought the deadly prize inside the "impenetrable" walls of Troy.

However, the first to try to wall off an entire country was the Emperor Hadrian, who displayed the power of the Romans in occupied England by building a wall across England from the west coast to the east coast. Supposedly Hadrian wanted to separate Roman occupied England from the barbarian tribes of Caledonia called the Picts. Hadrian's wall wasn't really about keeping out the Picts. For one thing, Hadrian wisely decided it was better not to pursue further conquest of the British Isle. But how do you impress the Roman population back home that you are an all-powerful Emperor, without conquering more territory? Hadrian's solution was to build an impressive, massive wall seventy-four miles long, up to ten feet thick, and fifteen feet high. It took three legions six years to build, but what else were the thousands of soldiers in occupied Britain supposed to do? Besides the many forts along the wall provided them with housing. The Picts proved more than once they could break though the wall, but unlike the Romans, they had little desire to conquer anyone; they just wanted to be left alone. In fact, although the wall was supposed to keep out the barbarians to the north, the Roman soldiers who manned the wall had to build extra fortifications on the south side of the wall, as the tribes south of the wall were more troublesome, than the Picts to the north! Of course, within a couple of hundred years the Roman Empire, fell anyway. Was it because the barbarians broke through Hadrian's Wall? No, it was because Rome was far more vulnerable to attack from the Vandals, Goths and other barbarian tribes who eventually sacked Rome. Hadrian's Wall then became a seventy-four mile long rock quarry.

Then, there is the longest wall of all, the Great Wall of

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