vallus

There is no occasion to describe the rows of ditches, dry and wet; the staked pitfalls; the cervi, pronged instruments like the branching horns of a stag; the stimuli, barbed spikes treacherously concealed to impale the unwary and hold him fast when caught, with which the ground was sown in irregular rows; the vallus and the lorica, and all the varied contrivances of Roman engineering genius.

Caesar: a Sketch James Anthony Froude 1856

It is derived from ‘vallus,’ ‘a stake;’ and properly means the palisade which ran along the outer edge of the ‘agger,’ or ‘mound:’ but it frequently includes the

The Metamorphoses of Ovid Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes and Explanations 43 BC-18? Ovid 1847