Limes Sarmatiae

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The Pannonian Limes with the wall system of the Limes Sarmatiae
Wall systems in Pannonia and Dacia
Constantine I, bust in the Capitoline Museum, Rome
Trajan's Column : Roman cavalry attack Sarmatian armored riders .

The Limes Sarmatiae is a Roman embankment and ditch line system (Hungarian: Ördögárok = devil's ditch ) in what is now central Hungary east of the Danube. The origins of the widely structured barriers can possibly be traced back to the late 2nd century. However, the border fortifications did not experience their extensive expansion until the 4th century to protect and control the area of ​​the Sarmatians , an equestrian people allied with Rome and the Pannonian provinces against invaders from the east. The remains of the earthworks extend over the Hungarian Plain and parts of Romania and Serbia . They are also known under the name Csörsz árok (Csörsz = ditch) and were probably built during the reign of Constantine the Great (306–337) or Constantine II (337–340).

location

The barriers consist of several rows of earthen walls and ditches staggered one behind the other, which were supposed to shield the area of ​​the great Hungarian lowlands around the river Tisia (Tisza = Tisza ) from enemies. They once stretched from the Danube Bend to Aquincum , today's Budapest , eastwards along the elevations of the northern Carpathians to the vicinity of the city of Debrecen , and met again in the south, at the legion site Viminacium (near today's Stari Kostolac) on the Danube Limes .

Fortifications on the Danube Limes

The northern rampart system began at the Danube Bend near the Roman Verőcemaros-Dunamező bridgehead ; the Romans had secured this section of the Limes particularly well. At this distance was also - possibly Constantine II. - the storage of Visegrád (Pone Navata) created. The construction of the neighboring Pilismarot (Castra ad Herculem) camp may also have taken place at this time.

During the first reign of Valentinian I (364–375) it was possibly u. a. also built the fortress of Hideglelöskereszt . Between Visegrád and Esztergom , up to 24 new watchtowers and small forts were built over a distance of approx. 20 km. Their construction was closely related to the backfilling of the ramparts of the Limes Sarmatiae , as they were intended to direct the wedges of attacking barbarian peoples specifically onto this part of the Limes. A second such dense line of fortifications was again only on the lower Danube ( Moesia ) , between Viminiacum and Drobeta, at the southern end of the Sarmatian Wall Systems.

Fortifications east of the Danube

In this context, the numerous bridgeheads from late antiquity such as B. the Burgus Tahitótfalu-Balhavár and the Burgus Szentendre-Dera . The main tasks of their crews were probably monitoring and signaling. They were smaller, architecturally largely uniform, weir systems for which a large central core structure, mostly supported on two pillars and wing walls with smaller towers at the ends, extending to the banks of the Danube, were characteristic ( Ländeburgus ). Through them the larger Danube Islands ( Szentendre Island ), z. B. be secured by stationing patrol boats in each Burgus. In the event of a crisis, they served as safe landing sites for river crossings for the Roman army, but also to control the Sarmatian allies. Due to the large amounts of burned grain that were found sporadically in them, they could also have been used as supply stores. Retail and domestic trade could also have played a certain role, as a bronze weight appeared in one of the towers.

In addition to this tight locking bar, the Romans also set up outposts along the wall, such as the two days' march east of the Danube, Burgus Hatvan-Gombospuszta in Barbaricum , and the great fortress of Göd-Bócsaújtelep , which was built in the Valentine period but never completed , and often also was designated as the counterpart to the Danube fort Constantia, which was built on Roman imperial territory , but must actually be regarded as the westernmost border garrison of the Limes Sarmatiae . Their task may be related to the end of the Limes Sarmatiae shortly after Valentinian's death .

development

After the Goths invaded the Carpathian Basin in the years from 269 to 270, under Aurelian the too exposed Dacia was abandoned and evacuated by the army and administration. The waves of attack by the barbarian peoples now collided directly with the Danube Limes . In the event of a breakthrough, as happened in 258 to 260, the gates of entry into the heart of the empire, Italy, would have been wide open. So the interests of the Sarmatians and the Romans were the same in this case. The attacks of the Goths and Gepids either had to be repulsed at a “pre-limes” or their advance had to be weakened and diverted. In 289 Vandals and Gepids attacked the Goths and Taifals in northern Transylvania (Dacia), who in turn passed the pressure on to the Sarmatians and slowly pushed them against the Limes . Emperor Diocletian (284–305) had to appear in person on the Danube and opened his headquarters in Sirmium . At first he fought them alone, later, in 294, with the support of his co-regent Galerius . In the course of these defensive battles, the Sarmatians, who were now harassed on all sides, suffered heavy losses, many of them were resettled in the Reich after their surrender, after which there was again a tense calm on the Pannonian border for a few years.

In 322 the Danube front had to be defended again. During these years Constantine I fought the Jazyans who invaded Lower Pannonia, who attacked in the area of the Campona fort and set the fortifications on fire. The same year, or 323, the Goths Prince Rausimodus used for a raid across the Danube. Another danger that Constantine knew how to banish. The weakened Jazygen now had to come to an agreement with the Romans within the framework of an alliance treaty. From this point on, the wall system was expanded considerably. At the same time, Constantine had the camps on the lower and middle Danube Limes expanded or rebuilt in order to further strengthen border protection. In 332 the Sarmatians, who were hard pressed for help, started another campaign against the Goths. Constantine appointed his son, the later Emperor Constantius II, as general. Constantius II successfully fought the advancing Goths and brought them a heavy defeat on the Maros - near the Limes Sarmatiae . The war was ended that same year by means of a Goth foedus . His degree is one of the highlights of Constantinian foreign policy. Now some of the Visigoths were contractually in a fixed alliance system with Rome. This contributed to the pacification of the border section between the Carpathian Mountains and the Black Sea and assured the Romans on the lower Danube against payment of annual subsidies also military support from the new ally.

However, some regions of the Sarmatian territories remained uneasy. In order to be able to assert itself against the Goths, the Sarmatian tribe of the Argaraganten, who settled in the Banat, had armed the brother people of the Limiganten , which they had subjugated . But they used the opportunity to free themselves from their oppressors. The result was a long-lasting civil war in which the Romans did not intervene, as they viewed it as an inner-Armenian affair. Later, in AD 334, they offered some of the argaragants who had become homeless as a result of the fighting new homes on Roman territory. The emperor personally supervised their relocation.

The reinforcement of the Pannonian Danube Limes, possibly already begun under Constantine, with forts, Burgi and fortified shipyards in the Barbaricum , was, as the extensive stamped brick material from the military facilities there shows, under Valentinian I by the commanders in chief of the province, Terentius and especially Frigeridus , until around 373 still significantly accelerated. With the help of the numerous new military posts, an even closer-knit defense network was established within a very short time. In an emergency, the Schiffsländen guaranteed a secure crossing of the Danube for the Roman troops. However, all these activities soon aroused the displeasure of the Quaden tribe , who settled on the east bank of the Danube and felt challenged by Valentinian's wide-ranging security measures. When their King Gabinius got into a dispute with Rome over these border fortifications, he received an invitation to the Pannonian Danube province of Valeria . During a banquet held there, the king was treacherously murdered by his hosts. Depending on the source ( Zosimos and Ammianus Marcellinus ) was for this act a certain Celestius or Marcellian , who has been in the 373 Valeria reigning dux responsible. This led to a campaign of revenge by the Quadi who were angry about this betrayal. They crossed the Danube and, together with the Jazygen, devastated the Pannonian provinces. Valentinian then marched into Pannonia in June 374 with a powerful army. The troops under the leadership of the dux Moesia , the younger Theodosius , succeeded in driving out the invaders again in the same year and re-establishing the fortifications on the Pannonian Limes. Valentinian, in turn, crossed the Danube with his units at Aquincum , penetrated deep into the quadic tribal areas and forced them to conclude a treaty ( foedus ). During an audience for the envoys of the Jazygen and Quads in the Brigetio camp , however, he died of a stroke on November 17, 375. Soon after his death and in the wake of the Roman defeat at the Battle of Adrianople (378), the Limes Sarmatiae also had to be abandoned.

Dating and strategic importance

Some parts of the earth walls date from the late 2nd century and were probably created as a locking bolt under Emperor Mark Aurel (161-180). After the Marcomannic Wars, Roman troops established themselves in the area of ​​the defeated Jazygens, among other things, in order to deprive them of their livelihood and to prevent them from fleeing. For this purpose, some sections along the Yazygian settlement borders could have been secured with earth walls. The fact that Marcus Aurelius intended to establish two new provinces - Marcomannia and Sarmatia - as it was subsequently presented by ancient historians, is still controversial today. During research in the vicinity of Mezökövesd and Kötegyan, the archaeologist Sándor Soproni (1926–1995) found a few pits from the 2nd to 3rd centuries under the dams and a Sarmatian grave (near Tarnazsadany) that was created around 220–300. Stratigraphic research clearly showed that the first ramparts were built in the 2nd half of the 3rd century.

The erection of such walls was not unusual in the Roman Empire. They were used to mark the imperial border in regions where the same was not clearly recognizable from topographical features such as rivers or mountain ranges. So z. B. in Germania, Britain or Dacia . The Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes in particular shows great similarities to the Limes Sarmatiae . The construction of the Sarmatian wall system also shows that its construction was planned and managed by Roman engineers.

The type of construction of the earth dams suggests that they were intended to make it more difficult for the nomadic horsemen of the Migration Period , who mostly traveled by horse and cart, to penetrate the areas surrounded by the ramparts, but they were probably not a serious obstacle. The earthworks were also raised to protect the Jazygens , a sub-tribe of the Sarmatians who had to pay tribute to Rome, who also settled in the Tisza plain and were supposed to protect Pannonia in advance against the incursions of the Goths and the Gepids who lived on the upper Tisza . The Limes Sarmatiae thus served primarily as a buffer zone and to relieve the Danube Limes , as did the so-called Constantinian Wall in today's Wallachia , which in turn joined the Limes in Moesia . However, the Constantine Wall was overrun at the end of the 4th century and abandoned by the Romans.

See also

Web links

literature

  • Eszter Istvanovits: The history and perspectives of the research of the Csörsz Ditch . XVIIIth International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies. Amman , 2000,
  • Éva Garam : Information on the stratigraphy of the longitudinal walls of the lowlands. In: A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve 2/1969. Szeged 1969. pp. 113-116.
  • Pál Patay : Recent results in the topographical study of the earth walls in the Hungarian lowlands. In: A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve 2/1969. Szeged, 1969, pp. 105-112.
  • Sándor Soproni , Éva Garam, Pál Patay: Sarmatian wall system in the Carpathian Basin , In: Régészeti Füzetek Ser. II. No. 23. , Hungarian National Museum , Budapest , 1983, 2003,
  • Sándor Soproni: Limes Sarmatiae. In: A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve 2/1969. Szeged, 1969, pp. 117-133.
  • Sándor Soproni: A late Roman military station on Sarmatian territory. In: Actes du Congrès International d'Etudes sur les Frontières Romaines, 8th 1969, pp. 131-143.
  • Sándor Soproni: Limes sarmatiae . In: Archeológia Értesítő 96 , Budapest 1996, pp. 43–52.
  • Penguin: Atlas of the Roman World (1995),
  • Martin Kemkes (Ed.): From Augustus to Attila. Life on the Hungarian Danube Limes, (Writings of the Limes Museum Aalen 53). Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2000. ISBN 978-3-8062-1541-0 .
  • Ingemar König: Die Spätantike , series history compact, WBG Verlag, Darmstadt 2007, p. 47, ISBN 978-3-534-16740-1 .
  • Hartmut Leppin: Theodosius the Great, On the Way to the Christian Empire , Primus Verlag, Darmstadt 2003, p. 31, ISBN 3-89678-471-4 .
  • Jacob Burckhart: The time of Constantine the Great , 2nd revised edition, Athenaion Verlag 1990, p. 71, ISBN 3-88851-136-4 .

Remarks

  1. ^ Sándor Soproni: Limes Sarmatiae In: A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve 2/1969. Szeged, 1969, pp. 117-133.
  2. ^ Zsolt Mráv : Castellum contra Tautantum. To identify a late Roman fortress. In: Ádám Szabó , Endre Tóth (ed.): Bölcske. Roman inscriptions and finds - In memoriam Sándor Soproni (1926-1995) . Hungarian National Museum, Budapest 2003, (Libelli archaeologici Ser. Nov. No. II), ISBN 963-9046-83-9 , p. 331.
  3. ↑ Endre Tóth: The late Roman military architecture in Transdanubia . In Archaeologiai Értesitő 134 . Budapest 2009. p. 42.
  4. ↑ Endre Tóth: The late Roman military architecture in Transdanubia . In Archaeologiai Értesitő 134 . Budapest 2009. p. 43.
  5. ^ Zsolt Mráv: Roman military installations in the Barbaricum. In: From Augustus to Attila. Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2000. ISBN 3806215413 . Pp. 49-50.
  6. ↑ Zsolt Mráv: Archaeological research 2000–2001 in the area of ​​the late Roman fortress of Göd-Bócsaújtelep (preliminary report) 2002. In: Communicationes archeologicae Hungariae 2003. Népművelési Propaganda Iroda. Budapest 2003. pp. 83-114; here: p. 103.
  7. ^ Ádám Szabó, Endre Tóth: Bölcske. Roman inscriptions and finds - In memoriam Sándor Soproni (1926-1995) . Hungarian National Museum, Budapest 2003, (Libelli archaeologici Ser. Nov. No. II), ISBN 963-9046-83-9 , p. 40.
  8. ↑ Endre Tóth : The late Roman military architecture in Transdanubia . In Archaeologiai Értesitő 134, Budapest 2009, p. 33
  9. ↑ Oliver Schmitt: Constantine the Great (275-337). Life and domination. Kohlhammer. Stuttgart 2007. ISBN 978-3-17-018307-0 , pp. 195-196.
  10. ↑ Hartwin Brandt : The end of antiquity. History of the late Roman Empire. 4th edition, Beck, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-51918-5 , p. 28.
  11. ↑ a b c Pedro Barceló : Constantius II and his time. The beginnings of the state church. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-608-94046-4 , p. 40.
  12. ^ Martin Eggers, Ion Ioniţă: Sarmaten . In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde . Volume 26, 2nd edition, de Gruyter, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-11-017734-X . Pp. 503-512; here: p. 506.
  13. ^ Barnabás Lőrincz : A későrómai hídfőállások bélyeges téglái Valeriában. In: Attila Gaál (Ed.): Pannoniai kutatások. A Soproni Sándor emlékkonferencia előadásai (Bölcske, 1998. October 7th) . Szekszárd 1999, pp. 53-68.
  14. ^ Konrad Bund: overthrow and deposition of rulers in the early Middle Ages. Bonn Historical Research 44. Bonn 1979. ISBN 3792804174 . P. 127.
  15. ↑ Jörg Scheuerbrandt : On life and death. The war against the Teutons. Harc életre-halálra. Háború a germánok ellen. In: On behalf of the eagle. A római sas szolgálatában. Publius Ferrasius Avitus. Book accompanying the German-Hungarian special exhibition 2012. ISBN 978-3-00-037759-4 . Pp. 57-75; here: p. 74.
  16. ^ Zsolt Mráv: Roman military installations in the Barbaricum. In: From Augustus to Attila. Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2000. ISBN 3806215413 . P. 51.