Adamklissi

Extract

The geographical position of the monument of Adamklissi is at first sight unimpressive. There is nothing dramatic about the low and rolling hills of the southern Dobrudja, but in a wider setting its northern end looms large. Physically, it blocks the direct eastward flow of the Danube, causing the formation of the wellknown double bend by which the great river reaches the Black Sea. In fact, in relation to human movement, the Dobrudja and it alone provides a natural land bridge, from 25 to 30 miles wide, between Bessarabia and the Balkans, by which it is possible to avoid the numerous flat and marshy valleys which furrow the Wallachian plain and made it in ancient times an unwelcome spot. It is as the principal gateway to the Eastern Balkans from the teeming Scythian plains and from Eastern Germany that these hills became of importance, for this is a door which any power desiring mastery of Southern Europe must bolt and bar. In the narrow confines of the gate itself no deployment is at first possible : but at Adamklissi come the cross-roads. Here the invader makes his choice: shall he fare southwards to Turkey and Greece or westwards to Bulgaria or Serbia ? If this, then, is the stage, what of its furnishings ?