Beginnings英国起源(22)

This is the sort of wall the Romans built at Dover.

This is Portchester, a Roman shore fort, a truly colossal structure that makes all too clear the scale of threat the Romans felt the barbarians posed.

Inside it, lies a Norman castle, built a thousand years later and now completely dwarfed by it.

It was one of several such forts strung out along the southern and eastern coasts.

But not even fortifications like those of Portchester or Hadrian's Wall in the north, could work without adequate troops.

As more and more legionaries were sucked back to fight for Rome on the continent,

and as Picts and Saxons spotting the weakness, started raids of their own from the north and east,

Britannia couldn't help but feel the chill of vulnerability.