favoured it, whole provinces were shut off by defensive walls against hostile inroads. This was especially the case at the pass of Thermopylae, the isthmus of Corinth, and the entrance to the Thracian Chersonesus, where existing barriers were now restored to efficiency.[1] The Long Wall of Anastasius has already been mentioned,[2] but this bulwark proved less obstructive to the barbarians than had been anticipated, owing to its having been made permeable continuously from end to end. Justinian, therefore, divided it into sections, each of which he separately garrisoned, so that an enemy could not by the capture of one portion obtain the command of the whole, and thus win a free passage into the suburbs of the capital.[3]
- [Footnote: seven feet thick and from thirty to forty feet high, to which towers were
attached externally of nearly double the height. Most frequently the space enclosed was a quadrangle of about one hundred feet, but might be much larger and of irregular shape. They have been studied mostly in French Africa, where numbers are still found in good preservation. A large portion of Diehl's Afrique Byzantine is occupied with a minute description of them, accompanied by views, plans, etc.]
