On the Meaning of City Walls in Late Roman Spain

During three or four decades of the late 3rd and early 4th century, a number of cities across the Empire were refortified in a pattern that cannot be explained in defensive terms alone. Regional and especially local authorities seem to have played a decisive role in the process, and Lusitania is a clear case of non-military initiative. About a dozen sites, a minority that is, did invest in these new structures, which were highly disruptive to daily life, private property, and public resources. These same cities would find a relevance in the post-Roman world, as bishoprics and as military structures, an argument probably absent in their original builders’ purpose

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