[65]Limes (from limus, across) is a technical expression foreign to the state of things under our [German] law, and hence not to be reproduced in our language, derived from the fact that the Roman division of land, which excludes all natural boundaries, separates the squares, into which the ground coming under the head of private property is divided, by intermediate paths of a definite breadth; these intermediate paths are the limites, and so far the word always denotes at once the boundary drawn by man’s hand, and the road constructed by man’s hand. The word retains this double signification even in application to the state (Rudorff, Grom. Inst. p. 289, puts the matter incorrectly); limes is not every imperial frontier, but only that which is marked out by human hands, and arranged at the same time for being patrolled and having posts stationed for frontier–defence (Vita Hadriani, 12; locis in quibus barbari non fluminibus, sed limitibus dividuntur), such as we find in Germany and in Africa. Therefore there are applied to the laying–out of this limes the terms that serve to designate the construction of roads, aperire (Velleius, ii. 121, which is not to be understood, as Müllenhoff, Zeitschr. f. d. Alterth., new series, ii. p. 32, would have it, like our opening of a turnpike), munire, agere (Frontinus, Strat. i. 3, 10: limitibus per CXX m. p. actis). Therefore the limes is not merely a longitudinal line, but also of a certain breadth (Tacitus, Ann. i. 50; castra in limite locat). Hence the construction of the limes is often combined with that of the agger—that is, of the road–embankment (Tacitus, Ann. ii. 7: cuncta novis limitibus aggeribusque permunita), and the shifting of it with the transference of frontier–posts (Tacitus, Germ. 29: limite acto promotisque praesidiis). The Limes is thus the imperial frontier–road, destined for the regulation of frontier–intercourse, inasmuch as the crossing of it was allowed only at certain points corresponding to the bridges of the river boundary, and elsewhere forbidden. This was doubtless effected in the first instance by patrolling the line, and, so long as this was done, the limes remained a boundary road. It remained so too, when it was fortified on both sides, as was done in Britain and at the mouth of the Danube; the Britannic wall is also termed limes ([p. 187], note 2). Posts might also be stationed at the allowed points of crossing, and the intervening spaces of the frontier–roads might be in some way rendered impassable. In this sense the biographer of Hadrian says in the above–quoted passage that at the limites he stipitibus magnis in modum muralis saepis funditus iactis atque conexis barbaros separavit. By this means the frontier–road was converted into a frontier–barricade provided with certain passages through it, and such was the limes of upper Germany in the developed shape to be set forth in the sequel. We may add that the word is not used with this special import in the time of the republic; and beyond doubt this conception of the limes only originated with the institution of the chain of posts enclosing the state, where natural boundaries were wanting—a protection of the imperial frontier, which was foreign to the republic, but was the foundation of the Augustan military system, and above all, of the Augustan system of tolls.
[66] The Sugambri transplanted to the left bank are not subsequently mentioned under this name, and are probably the Cugerni dwelling below Cologne on the Rhine. But that the Sugambri on the right bank, whom Strabo mentions, were at least still in existence in the time of Claudius, is shown by the cohort named after this emperor, and thus certainly formed under him, doubtless of Sugambri (C. I. L. iii. p. 877); and they, as well as the four other probably Augustan cohorts of this name, confirm what Strabo also in a strict sense says, that these Sugambri belonged to the Roman empire. They disappeared doubtless, like the Mattiaci, only amidst the tempests of the migration of nations.
[67] The fortress of Niederbiber, not far from the point at which the Wied falls into the Rhine, as well as that of Arzbach, near Montabaur, in the region of the Lahn, belong to upper Germany. The special significance of the former stronghold, the largest fortress in upper Germany, turned on the fact that it, in a military point of view, closed the Roman lines on the right bank of the Rhine.
[68] The levies (Eph. Epigr. v. p. 274) require us to assume this, while the Frisians, as they come forward in the year 58 (Tacitus, Ann. xiii. 54) rather appear independent; the elder Pliny also (H. N. xxv. 3, 22) under Vespasian names them, looking back to the time of Germanicus, as gens tum fida. Probably this is connected with the distinction between the Frisii and Frisiavones in Pliny, H. N. iv. 15, 101, and between the Frisii maiores and minores in Tacitus, Germ. 34. The Frisians that remained Roman would be the western; the free, the eastern; if the Frisians generally reach as far as the Ems (Ptolem. iii. 11, 7), those subsequently Roman may have settled perhaps to the westward of the Yssel. We may not put them elsewhere than on the coast that still bears their name; the designation in Pliny, iv. 17, 106, stands isolated, and is beyond doubt incorrect.
[69] The fourth upper German legion was sent in the year 58 to Asia Minor on account of the Armeno–Parthian war (Tacitus, Ann. xiii. 35).
[70] Frontinus, Strat. iv. 3, 14. In their territory the advancing troops must have constructed a reserve station and a depot; according to tiles recently found near Mirabeau–sur–Bèze, about fourteen miles north–east of Dijon, men of at least five of the advancing legions had executed buildings here (Hermes, xix. 437).
[71] Under the legate Q. Acutius Nerva, who was probably the consul of the year 100, and so administered lower Germany after that year, there were stationed, according to inscriptions of Brohl (Brambach, 660, 662, 679, 680), in this province four legions, the 1st Minervia, 6th Victrix, 10th Gemina, 22d Primigenia. As each of these inscriptions names only two or three, the garrison may then have consisted only of three legions, if during the governorship of Acutius the 1st Minervia came in place of the 22d Primigenia drafted off elsewhere. But it is far more probable—seeing that all the legions were not always taking part in the detachments to the stone quarries at Brohl—that these four legions were doing garrison–duty at the same time in lower Germany. These four legions are probably just those that came to lower Germany on the reorganisation of the Germanic armies by Vespasian ([p. 159] note), only that the 1st Minervia was put by Domitian in the place of the 21st, probably broken up by him.
[72] According to the ingenious decipherings of Zangemeister (Westdeutsche Zeitschrift, iii. 307 ff), it is established that a military road was already laid out under Claudius on the left bank of the Rhine from Mentz as far as the frontier of the upper German province.
[73] The full name c(ivitas) M(attiacorum) Ta(unensium) appears on the inscription of Castel in Brambach, C. I. Rh. 1330; it occurs frequently as civitas Mattiacorum or civitas Taunensium, with Duoviri, Aediles, Decuriones, Sacerdotales, Seviri; peculiar and characteristic of a frontier town are the hastiferi civitatis Mattiacorum, probably to be taken as a municipal militia (Brambach, 1336). The oldest dated document of this community is of the year 198 (Brambach, 956).
[74] The accounts of this war have been lost; its time and place admit of being determined. As the coins give to Domitian the title Germanicus after the beginning of the year 84 (Eckhel, vi. 378, 397), the campaign falls in the year 83. Accordant with this is the levy of the Usipes, which falls on this same year, and their desperate attempt at flight (Tacitus, Agr. 28; comp. Martialis, vi. 60). It was an aggressive war (Suetonius, Dom. 6: expeditio sponte suscepta; Zonaras, xi. 19; λεηλατήσας τινὰ τῶν πέραν Ῥήνου τῶν ἐνσπόνδων). The shifting of the line of posts is attested by Frontinus, who took part in the war, Strat. ii. 11, 7: cum in finibus Cubiorum (name unknown and probably corrupt) castella poneret, and i. 3, 10: limitibus per cxx. m. p. actis, which is here brought into immediate connection with the military operations, and hence may not be separated from the Chattan war itself and referred to the agri decumates, which had for long been in the Roman power. The measure of 108 miles is very conceivable for the military line which Domitian planned at the Taunus (according to Cohausen’s estimates, Röm. Grenzwall, p. 8, the later Limes from the Rhine round the Taunus as far as the Main is set down at 137 miles), but is much too small to admit of its being referred to the line of connection from thence to Ratisbon.