Note 83 — Chapter IV

If, as is probable, the statement that Hadrian blocked the imperial frontier–roads by palisades against the barbarians (p. 122) relates in part and perhaps primarily to the upper Germanic, the wall, of which remains are extant, was not his work; whether this may have carried palisades or not, no report would mention these and pass over the wall itself. Dio. lxix. 9, says that Hadrian revised the defence of the frontier throughout the empire. The designation of the pale [Pfahl] or pale–ditch [Pfahlgraben] cannot be Roman; in Latin the stakes, which, driven into the wall of the camp, form a palisade–chain for it, are called not pali, but valli or sudes, just as the wall itself is never other than vallum. If the designation in use from of old for this purpose apparently along the whole line among the Germans was really borrowed from the palisades, it must have been of Germanic origin, and can only have proceeded from the time when this wall stood before their eyes in its integrity and significance. Whether the “region” Palas which Ammianus mentions (xviii. 2, 15) is connected with this is doubtful.