The Limes Germanicus

Here come some swift views upon the 'Limes Germanicus,' a defensive system which allowed Rome, during less than 200 years, to mark its border with Germanic peoples as it never was able to subdue them. By the 4th century A.D. Germans crossed into the Roman empire and came to contribute to a synthesis which was to found Europe

click to a view of how the basics of a Roman legion's camp came to be extended to the limes system

Rome, like elsewhere in the Roman empire, fortified its borders with German peoples. That protective limit was called a 'limes,' a typically Roman defensive system. In that area, that was the 'Limes Germanicus,' or the limes of Germany which was extant from 83 to 260 A.D. At its height, it reached a length of 353 miles, 60 forts and 900 watchtowers. By 2005, the remains of the limes of Germany and Rhaetia (current Switzerland) were inscribed on the List of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The decision of a fortified line on the new border of Rome with Germans was taken by Augustus few after the famed, devastating defeat of Roman legions commanded by the legate Varus in the Teutoburg Forest by 9 A.D. ('Oh! Varus! Give me my legions back!'). The work of Augustus consisted mainly into linking between them varied fortification lines which had already been built. He thus formed, on a one hand, the Upper and Lower Germanic Limes, along the Rhine river and, on a other hand, the Rhaetian limes, along the Danube river. Rome thus had accepted like its borders with Germany the Rhine and the upper Danube. Beyond, it only controlled the fertile plaine of Frankfurt, the southern parts of the Black Forest and some bridgeheads. Between the Rhine and the upper Danube rivers, in the current Black Forest and Swabish Jura areas, a acute-angled wedge of German territory existed as the rivers few protected the Roman border there as easily crosseable. As some Romans had pushed eastwards, that brought a change in Roman policy as soon as with the dynasty of the Flavian Emperors, by the end of the 1st century, since 74 A.D. Current Baden country was conquered by Rome as a Roman road was built between Strasburg (France), the Roman base in the region, and about Ulm (Germany). The new limes was established in 83 A.D. by Emperor Domitian, who further confirmed the Roman advance from Mogontiacum (Mainz, Germany). The region between Mainz and Ulm was then enclosed behind a line of blockhouses, with larger ones installed in the rear, through the upper course of the Neckar river. Work likely continued under Hadrian, or his successor Antoninus the Pious, and the Antonines, as Romans moved further and eventually encompassed what is called the Decumates Fields, from the taxes which were raised there. From the Rhine river at Mainz, to the South, existed the 'Pfahlgraben' (German for 'stakes ditch'), a ditch with a mound and stakes, as the 'Teufelsmauer' (German for 'Devil's wall') was a stone wall which began where the previous ended and stretched West-East, parallel to the Danube river, down to the neighbourhood of Castra Regina (Regensburg, Germany). That limes, which eventually was a merger of the one of Germany and the one of Rhaetia, was to last a hundred years like the 'Germanic-Rhaetic Limes,' or the 'Limes Germanicus.' The Decumate Fields were a weak area in the the Roman defensive system hence it was heavily guarded. That region, of a length 185 miles might allow for a easy crossing of large Germanic groups, which would not have to cross large swaths of river. That part of the Limes Germanicus thus features a heavy concentration of towers and forts arranged in depth and multiple layers along waterways, fords, roads, and hilltops. North, the Limes Germanicus ran beyond Mainz, down to the North Sea, by Katwijk, Netherlands, as it followed the main Lower Rhine branches. During that hundred years, during the so-called 'Pax Romana,' or the height of the Roman empire, the limes of the Decumate Fields was improved. The limes, for example, was featured with manpitts and other special fortifications

Despite Roman efforts however, the Decumate Fields had to be abandoned as soon as by 250 A.D. as the pressure of Germanic peoples had began to exert itself since the end of the 2nd century, with lengthy fights ensuing. Rome thus abandoned what they called the Upper Rhaetian Limes as it withdrew on the Rhine river like the border. The Roman limes was nothing but the extension to a border of the empire of the technique used by the legions to build their daily camp, with a ditch digged, the earth of which turned into a mound and stakes planted at the top. The ditch, mound and stakes of the limes simply were larger as the palissade even might be replaced with a stone wall. Behind the ditch, wooden or stone towers were installed, within sight of each other. Some miles behind, forts were built with which watchtowers were also able to communicate with visual signals. The limes had as a main function to keep a control upon anyone crossing the border in either direction, like merchants heading in Germany, or Germans coming to work or settle into the Roman territory. The limes, during a while, was able to check raiders as it was not easy to make a plunder, under the form of livestock, for example, to cross back into Germany as it forbade too any crossing by a whole people. The Roman crisis of the 3rd century A.D. is finding one of its origins at the Limes Germanicus as the other ones resides into the usurpations of the imperial title and the threats of Persians at the eastern borders. The Limes Germanicus thus was brought back to the sole Rhine, the Iller (East of the Bodensee, Switzerland) and Danube rivers, or the 'Danube-Iller-Rhine limes.' A original tactics then was extant with swift river boats, or 'navis lusoria,' which could rapidly reach forts and any point posing problem. Heavily fortified fortresses had been built in front of the main passes like Castrum Rauracense, near Basel, Switzerland, or behind the limes, like Vindonissa, in Switzerland. During a long time, only one bridge was extant on the Rhine, the one in Mainz. Emperor Constantine later had one built at Köln as it was guarded, on the German bank, by a fortified camp. By the Late Empire, a estimation is that the whole Roman empire was secured through 360,000 sedentary troops along a 3,800-mile long limes, not taking in account foederati and gentiles, those soldiers-peasants of the Roman limes. That concept of a limes like a system meant to control the passage at the borders of Rome became faultive when Germanic peoples managed, during the Great Invasions, to enter massively into the Roman empire. As all legions of Rome were garrissoned along the miscellaneous limes, from Scotland to the Middle East, Germans, once into the empire, could freely travel without any resistance! Roman 'Germania' provinces, on the left bank of the Rhine river where places where Romans installed friendly German tribes and where a first populations mixing occurred. The most famed case what that of the Roman poet Ausonius, the last defender of the antique Roman religion by the mid-4th century A.D., who had married a freed German slave woman