Moesian Limes
The Moesian Limes (
Characteristics
The Moesian Limes[3] includes essentially the linked forts and stations along the Danube from Singidunum (Belgrade) to the mouth of the Danube on the Black Sea.[4] It was not fortified with palisades or a boundary wall but the forts were linked by a road and included eight legionary fortresses, many forts for auxiliary troops and watch/signal towers.[5] Forts along the Danube are 10 to 30 km apart and inter-visibility does not often exist.
The legionary fortresses included:
- Singidunum (Belgrade)
- Viminatium
- Aquae (Prahovo)
- Ratiaria (near the town of Artschar)
- Oescus
- Novae (near the town of Svishtov)
- Dorostorum(near the town of Silistra)
- Troesmis
Other forts on the Danube limes included:[6]
- Augustae (near the village of Hurlets)
- Valeriana (near the village of Dolni Vadin)
- Variana (near the village of Leskowez)
- Almus (near the town of Lom)
- Regianum (near the town of Kozloduy)
- Dimum near Belene
- Nikopol
- Dorticum (Vrav)
- Sexaginta Prista(near the town of Ruse)
- Scaidava near the town of Batin
- Bononia in Vidin
- Ad mare Castrum near Koshava town[7]
The frontier was divided into two major sections by the river Iskar at Oescus which also marked the border between the provinces of Moesia Superior and Inferior.
The gorge of the river at
History
Establishment
Augustus was the first to advance the empire's south-eastern European border from Macedonia to the line of the Danube to increase strategic depth between the border and Italy and also to provide a major river supply route between the Roman armies in the region.[8] The lower Danube was given priority and Marcus Licinius Crassus, proconsul of Macedonia from 29 BC,[9] drove the Bastarnae back toward the Danube. Legion IV Scythica was initially stationed in Moesia (probably at Viminacium) to counter threats from neighbouring Thrace and aggressive peoples north of the Danube. But as a result of the Dacians constant looting that occurred whenever the Danube froze, Augustus decided to send against them some of his proven generals such as Sextus Aelius Catus and Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Augur (sometime between 1-11 AD[10]). Lentulus pushed them back across the Danube and placed numerous garrisons on the right bank of the river to defend against possible and future incursions.[11] These became the Moesian Limes. At this stage forts on the frontier consisted of earth walls with wooden palisades.
Moesia became a separate province in 6 AD. Roman military excursions across the Danube continued over 100 km to the north of the Danube delta.[12]
The
Expansion beyond
In the winter of 98/99 AD Trajan arrived on the Danube, quartered at the Diana Fort near Kladovo,[citation needed] and started Dacian war preparations on the Iron Gates gorges. He extended the road in the gorge for 30 miles, as he stated on the well-known inscription of 100 AD. In 101 he also cut a canal nearby, as he also recorded on a marble plaque near Diana Fort which reads:
“because of the dangerous cataracts he diverted the river and made the whole Danube navigable”: (ob periculum cataractarum, derivato flumine, tutam Danuvii navigationem facit).
Trajan restored stone defences in the area and rebuilt all earthworks in stone. Just below the
Between the first and second Dacian wars, from 103 to 105, the imperial architect Apollodorus of Damascus constructed Trajan's Bridge, one of the greatest achievements in Roman architecture.
Full military occupation of the plain between the Carpathian foothills and the Danube may already have occurred by the end of
The abandonment of Moldova and the creation of the Limes Transalutanus can both be tentatively dated to the reign of Hadrian.
After a long period of peace Septimius Severus reconstructed the Moesia Superior defences and under Caracalla more reconstruction was done as can be seen at Pontes where, as with many other Iron Gates forts, the original layout was supplemented with the gates and towers. A new fort was built on an island at the Porečka river.
Retreat to the Danube
The Roman abandonment of Dacia probably occurred during the reign of Gallienus (260-68), before the traditional date of around 275 when Aurelian established the new province of Dacia south of the Danube.[16]
In the Late Roman period, the extent of control and military occupation over territory north of the Danube remains controversial. One Roman fort (
The "
Similarly, although considered 1st century and believed to predate the Limes Transalutanus, the function and origins of a shorter section of bank and ditch known as the "Brazda lui Novac de Sud" remain uncertain. The absence of any evidence for Late
See also
- Trajan's Wall
- Limes Transalutanus
- Lower Trajan's Wall
- Tyras
- Pietroasele
Notes
- ^ Frontiers of the Roman Empire – The Danube Limes (Bulgaria) https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/6474/
- ^ Frontiers of the Roman Empire - The Danube Limes (Romania) https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/6446/
- ^ ROMAN FRONTIER WITHIN THE CROSS-BORDER REGION ROMANIA-BULGARIA https://danubelimes-robg.eu/index.php/en/
- ^ R. Ployer, M. Polak, R. Schmidt, The Frontiers of the Roman Empire. A Thematic Study and proposed World Heritage Nomination Strategy, Vienna/Nijmegen/Munich, 2017, p. 41, 75-6
- ^ Emil Jęczmienowski, The Fortifications of the Upper Moesian Limes. Topography, Forms, Garrison Sizes, Światowit: annual oF the institute oF archaeology of the university of warsaw, Vol. X (li) (2012)
- ^ Jęczmienowski, Emil. “The Fortifications of the Upper Moesian Limes on the Eve of Trajan’s Dacian Wars.” Ad Fines Imperii Romani. Studia Thaddaeo Sarnowski Ab Amicis, Collegis Discipulisque Dedicata, 2015.
- ^ https://vici.org/vici/36068/
- ^ Res Gestae 30
- ^ Dio LI.23.2
- ^ R. Syme, Danubian Papers, London 1971, p. 40 and Addenda p. 69 ff
- Florus, Epitome of Roman History, II, 28, 18-19.
- ^ Frontiers of the Roman Empire - The Danube Limes (Romania) https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/6446/
- ^ Tacitus, Historiae, III, 46.
- ^ Mócsy (1974), p82.
- ^ Gudea N., Die nordgrenze der römischen provinz obermoesien. Materialien zu ihrer Geschichte (86–275 n. Chr.), “Jahrbuch des Römisch-Germanischen zentralmuseums Mainz” 48, 1–118.
- ^ I.B. Cătăniciu, Evolution of the system of defence works in Roman Dacia, BAR International series 116, Oxford, 1981 pp 53-55
- ^ Sucidava photos
- ^ Archeological research about Romans in Romania during the 3rd and 4th centuries (in Romanian)
- ^ Wacher. The Roman world p.189
- ^ Map showing the Roman fortifications in the 4th century
Bibliography
- Mócsy, András (2014) [1974]. Pannonia and Upper Moesia: A History of the Middle Danube Provinces of the Roman Empire. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-75425-1.
- Heather, Peter. The Goths. Blackwell ed. Malden, 1998.
- Mommsen, Theodore. The Provinces of the Roman Empire. Barnes & Noble Books. New York, 1996 ISBN 0-7607-0145-8
- Wacher, J.S. The Roman world. Routledge Publisher. New York, 2002. ISBN 0-415-26314-X
External links
- Roman presence north of the lower Danube delta
- Romanian Limes Project https://limesromania.ro/