Gourt Home::Gourt :: Limes Germanicus
The Limes Germanicus (Latin for Germanic frontier) was a remarkable line of frontier (limes) forts that bounded the ancient Roman provinces of Germania Superior and Raetia, and divided the Roman Empire and the unsubdued Germanic tribes, from the years 83 to 260. At its height, the limes stretched from near Bonn on the Rhine to near Regensburg on the Danube.
The Limes Germanicus was divided into:
- The Lower (Northern) Germanic Limes, which extended from the North Sea at Katwijk in the Netherlands along the Rhine;
- The Upper Germanic Limes (just to be confusing, also called the Rhaetian Limes or simply "the Limes") started from the Rhine at Rheinbrohl (Neuwied (district)) across the Taunus mountains to the Main river (East of Hanau), then along the Main River to Miltenberg, and from Osterburken (Neckar-Odenwald-Kreis) south to Lorch (Ostalbkreis) in a nearly perfect straight line of more than 70 km;
- The proper Rhaetian Limes extended east from Lorch to Eining (close to Kelheim) on the Danube. The total length was 568 km (353 miles). It included at least 60 castles and 900 watchtowers.
History
Roman border defenses have become much better known through systematic excavations financed by Germany and through other researches connected to them. In 2005, the remnants of the Upper Germanic & Rhaetian Limes were inscribed on the List of UNESCO World Heritage Sites as Frontiers of the Roman Empire. The Saalburg is a reconstructed fortification and museum of the Limes near Frankfurt.
Augustus
The first emperor who began to build fortifications along the border was Augustus, shortly after the devastating Roman defeat in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD. Originally there were numerous Limes walls, which were then connected to form the Upper Germanic Limes along the Rhine and the Rhaetian Limes along the Danube. Later these two walls were linked to form a common borderline.14 to c. 73
From the death of Augustus (14 AD) until after 70 AD, Rome accepted as her German frontier the water-boundary of the Rhine and upper Danube. Beyond these rivers she held only the fertile plain of Frankfurt, opposite the Roman border fortress of Moguntiacum (Mainz), the southernmost slopes of the Black Forest and a few scattered bridge-heads. The northern section of this frontier, where the Rhine is deep and broad, remained the Roman boundary until the empire fell. The southern part was different. The upper Rhine and upper Danube are easily crossed. The frontier which they form is inconveniently long, enclosing an acute-angled wedge of foreign territory between the modern Baden and Württemberg. The German populations of these lands seem in Roman times to have been scanty, and Roman subjects from the modern Alsace-Lorraine had drifted across the river eastwards. The motives alike of geographical convenience and of the advantages to be gained by recognizing these movements of Roman subjects combined to urge a forward policy at Rome, and when the vigorous Vespasian had succeeded Nero, a series of advances began which gradually closed up the acute angle, or at least rendered it obtuse.Flavian dynasty
The first advance came about 74 AD, when what is now Baden was invaded and in part annexed and a road carried from the Roman base on the upper Rhine, Strassburg, to the Danube just above Ulm. The point of the angle was broken off.The second advance was made by Domitian about 83 AD. He pushed out from Moguntiacum, extended the Roman territory east of it and enclosed the whole within a systematically delimited and defended frontier with numerous blockhouses along it and larger forts in the rear. Among the blockhouses was one which by various enlargements and refoundations grew into the well-known Saalburg fort on the Taunus near Bad Homburg. This advance necessitated a third movement, the construction of a frontier connecting the annexations of AD 74 and AD 83 . We know the line of this frontier which ran from the Main across the upland Odenwald to the upper waters of the Neckar and was defended by a chain of forts. We do not, however, know its date, save that, if not Domitian's work, it was carried out soon after his death, and the whole frontier thus constituted was reorganized, probably by Hadrian, with a continuous wooden palisade reaching from Rhine to Danube.
Hadrian and the Antonines
The angle between the rivers was now almost full. But there remained further advance and further fortification. Either Hadrian or, more probably, his successor Antoninus Pius pushed out from the Odenwald and the Danube, and marked out a new frontier roughly parallel to, but in advance of these two lines, though sometimes, as on the Taunus, coinciding with the older line. This is the frontier which is now visible and visited by the curious. It consists, as we see it today, of two distinct frontier works, one, known as the Pfahlgraben, is an earthen mound and ditch, best seen in the neighborhood of the Saalburg but once extending from the Rhine southwards into southern Germany. The other, which begins where the earthwork stops, is a wall, though not a very formidable wall, of stone, the Teufelsmauer; it runs roughly east and west parallel to the Danube, which it finally joins at Heinheim near Regensburg. The Pfahlgraben is remarkable for the extraordinary directness of its southern part, which for over 50 metres runs mathematically straight and points almost absolutely true for the Polar star. It is a clear case of an ancient frontier laid out in American fashion. This frontier remained for about 100 years, and no doubt in that long period much was done to it to which precise dates are difficult to fix. It cannot even be absolutely certain when the frontier laid out by Pius was equipped with the Pfahlgraben and Teufelsmauer. But we know that the pressure of the barbarians began to be felt seriously in the later part of the 2nd century, and after long struggles the whole or almost the whole district east of the Rhine and north of the Danube was lost, seemingly all within one short period, about 250.Late Roman empire
Germanic invasions in the late 3rd century led to the abandonment of the so-called "Obergermanisch-Rätischer-Limes" in favour of a Roman defense line along the rivers Rhine, Iller and Danube (Donau-Iller-Rhine-Limes) with watch towers in sight contact and heavily fortified castra at important trespasses (e.g. castrum Rauracense instead of the previously unwalled Augusta Raurica near to Basel) and in the hinterland of the frontier (e.g. Vindonissa in today Switzerland).Towns and cities along the limes
Germany:
- Rheinbrohl - Bad Ems - Miltenberg - Lorch - Weißenburg - Eining
Lower Germanic Limes: Germany
The NetherlandsReferences
- A good English account can be found in H. F. Pelham's essay in Trans. of the Royal Hist. Soc. vol. 20, reprinted in his Collected Papers, pp. 178-211 (Oxford, 1910), where the German authorities are fully cited.
External links
Roman military history | Ancient Roman military technology | World Heritage Sites in Germany | Walls | Hesse | Bavaria | Separation barriers | Roman frontiers | German cultural icons
"Limes Germanicus"