There is a lime stone block in my woods, probly 2 tons. I just want to tip it over in order to use its flat surface as a table. It won't budge with 5 people. There's no way i can get a truck or any machinery back there. How could i tip it?
first of all, by the time the limetenai were around there were no more of the glorios legions. and the limes were way better for they atualy stopped armies
Both were bad for the nations lacking dedicated patriotic soldiers and resorting to using walls to protect their borders. Same goes for the Maginot Line failing to protected France and Bar Lev Line failing to protect Israel. They were very expensive band-aids which provided false sense of security, caused deterioration of the national fighting spirit and combat-readiness of the troops and were breached by the dedicated enemies anyway. It looks like huge fortifications on the border destroy moral of the troops. Byzantine did not build wall in Asia Minor and weathered the storms as major power over there for another 700 years compared to Western Roman Empire. @ Jack Walls are build when there are no glorious legions and by building walls nation gives up guaranteeing that glorious legions will never be restored. Walls are both - the indicator of decline and factor inducing that decline.
The main significance of both was to mark and manage the boundary between civilization and barbarism. Both were quite successful at this symbolic task - perhaps the Great Wall more so, since it was a much more tangible object. The limes were just a string of forts and watchtowers. Neither EVER had the purpose of acting like some sort of impermeable force field that would keep all outsiders away. They were lines of frontier management - tripwires to warn of, and delay, attacking forces, discourage casual small-scale raiding and smuggling, to channel trade through approved checkpoints, and to serve as an advance line for imperial military, diplomatic, and economic intervention in barbarian lands. I don't think there's any way to objectively assess if one was more effective at these tasks than the other.
The great wall of China as it is known today was actually a series of forts and walls that were finally connected. The original length is not know because for a while after the fall of the last dynasty peasents would cut out pieces for their houses. The original purpose was not to repel invaders but to provide a signal system that would allow the army to meet and destroy the raiders. As was previously stated yes there were instances of the gate keepers being bribed by the mongols and other raiders. This is partly because since the emperors wouldn't send enough grain and other supplies to the defenders at the wall they would be forced to get them from the nomads outside the wall.
Roman limes, since usually a standard infantry division (usually Principates at around that time I think, not too sure) were not far behind them. The roman limes whole purpose was to slow down and tire the enemy for the standard infantry. The great wall of china, did in fact fail miserably at it's task as the mongols found it, they simply bypassed it. Also your going to have to be more specific, is this the Ming version of the Great Wall of China or the Han version?
