. - robert frost's poem, mending walls, starts with the line, "something there is doesn't love a wall." by that, he means that unless a wall serves a true purpose, there's no reason to build and maintain it. in nicole's uk ok report, she tells us about a wall that helped the ancient romans define their empire. ("rule britannia") - it stretches like a stone snake over the hills and fields of northern england. it was built by roman soldiers during the reign of emperor hadrian in the second century ce, and ever since, it's been known as hadrian's wall. it runs east to west for about 70 miles, starting almost at the north sea, and ending at the irish sea. the height of the wall varied. at its highest point, the wall rose up 20 feet above the grassy land. it took 16,000 romaan soldiers 10 years to build. historians argue over just why the wall was built. some believe it was a barrier to separate roman-controlled britain on this side from the wild barbarian tribes on the other side. another theory was that by building a wall with gates and checkpoints, it allowed the romans to collect taxes