Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
Many a traveller sailing up the Rhine gorge must have wondered what lies beyond the noble cliffs on either hand. Not all perhaps have realized that if they could scale the heights on their left, leave the ruined castles and flourishing vineyards behind them, and walk some ten or fifteen miles to the north-east, they would cross the great earthen mound and ditch which still remain to mark the boudary of the Roman Empire. This barrier, part of a system more than three hundred miles in length, stretching from Rhine to Danube, is well worth the attention of those who are interested in the British frontier walls.
1 This sketch is mainly topographical. The chief English accounts of the history of the German Limes are those of Pelham (‘The Roman Frontier in Germany’, in Essays, collected and edited by Haverfield, 1911) and Henderson (in Five Roman Emperors, 1927). The best summary of the whole subject is the article ‘Limes’ (in Pauly-Wissowa's Real-Encyclopädie, vol. xiii, 1926) by Fabricius. Detailed descriptions of the whole Limes, by Fabricius, are being published by the Reichs-Limes Kommission. More than half has been dealt with, in six Lieferungen, and, in addition, in the same series over eighty Limes forts have been described since 1894. A good introduction to Roman Germany is Germania Romana, ein Bilder-Atlas, 2nd edition, 1924–1930.