A limes (or the Limes Romanus) was a border defense or delimiting system of Ancient Rome. It marked the boundaries of the Roman Empire.

The Latin noun limes had a number of different meanings: a path or balk delimiting fields, a boundary line or marker, any road or path, any channel, such as a stream channel, or any distinction or difference. In Latin, the plural form of limes is limites. The word limes, hence, was utilized by Latin writers to denote a marked or fortified frontier. This latter sense has been adapted and extended by modern historians concerned with the frontiers of the Roman Empire; e.g., Hadrian's wall in north England is sometimes styled the Limes Britannicus, the frontier of the Roman province of Arabia facing the desert is called the Limes Arabicus and so forth.

Some limites

The most notable examples of Roman limites are:

• Hadrian's Wall - Limes Britannicus (UNESCO World Heritage ID 430bis-001)
• Antonine Wall - (UNESCO World Heritage Site]].^[1][2]
• Upper Germanic & Rhaetian Limes (UNESCO World Heritage ID 430bis-002), part of the Limes Germanicus
• Limes Arabicus, the frontier of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea facing the desert
• Limes Tripolitanus, the frontier in modern Libya facing the Sahara

A mediaeval limes is the Limes Saxoniae in Holstein.

Etymology and sentiment

The stem of limes: limit-, which can be seen in the genitive case, limitis, marks it as the ancestor of an entire group of important words in many languages; for example, English limit and eliminate, "remove over the border." Modern languages have multiplied its abstract formulations. For example, from limit- comes the abbreviation lim, used in mathematics to designate the limit of a sequence or a function: see limit (mathematics). In metaphysics, material objects are limited by matter and therefore are delimited from each other. In ethics, men must know their limitations and are wise if they do.

An etymology was given in some detail by Julius Pokorny, Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch. According to him it comes from Indo-European el-, elei-, lei-, "to bow, bend; elbow."

The sense is that a limit bends across one in some way. The limes was a cross-path or a cross-wall, which the Romans meant to throw across the path of invaders to hinder them. It is a defensive strategy. The Romans never built limites where they considered themselves free to attack. As the emperor had ordered the army to stay within the limites except for punitive expeditions, they were as much a mental barrier as material. The groups of Germanic warriors harrying the limes during summer used the concept to full advantage, knowing that they could concentrate and supply themselves outside the limes without fear of preemptive strikes.

In a few cases they were wrong. The limit concept engendered a sentiment among the soldiers that they were being provoked by the Germanic raiders and were held back from just retaliation by a weak and incompetent administration; i.e., they were being sold out. They therefore mutinied. The best remedy for a mutiny was an expedition across the limes. Toward the later empire, the soldiers assassinated emperors who preferred diplomacy and put their own most popular officers into the vacant office.

Reconstructed Praetorian gate at Welzheim

Roman writers and subsequent authors who depended on them presented the limes as some sort of sacred border beyond which human beings did not transgress, and if they did, it was evidence that they had passed the bounds of reason and civilization. To cross the border was the mark of a savage. They wrote of the Alemanni disrespecting it as though they had passed the final limitation of character and had committed themselves to perdition.

Reconstructed Limes watch tower, near Rheinbrohl, Germany

According to Pokorny, Latin limen, "threshold", is related to limes, being the stone over which one enters or leaves the house, and some have gone so far as to view the frontier as a threshold. The Merriam-Webster dictionaries take this view, as does J. B. Hofmann in Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Griechischen under leimon. The White Latin Dictionary denies any connection, deriving limen from *ligmen, as in lien from *leig- "tie". The threshold ties together the doorway. The American Heritage Dictionary refuses to go further than Latin limes.

Notes

See also

• The Pale

External links

• Official website of the ''Verein Deutsche Limes-Straße'' (in German)
• Livius.org: Limes
• Livius.org: Limes Tripolitanus
• Antikefan: Roman Limes (German)

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