Die letzten Jahrzehnte des pannonischen Limes

Abstract

Most British readers with an interest in the closing decades of Roman rule in Pannonia and elsewhere will have been able to read Professor Mocsy's lucid treatment of the subject in his Pannonia and Upper Moesia (1974), notably Chapters 8 and 10, dealing with the Danube frontier in the late Roman period, and the beginning of the Dark Age; they will be familiar with his account of the 'Devil's Dyke', the remarkable series of running mounds which delimited the northern and eastern boundaries of Sarmatian territory across the Danube for some time in the fourth century in some sort of treaty relationship with Rome (p. 271, fig. 43), and with the close spacing of late fortifications in part of the Danube bend (p. 292, fig. 48). Mocsy's view is basically that of an ancient historian, with special attention to the evidence of the literary, epigraphic and numismatic material. Thanks to the initiative of Joachim Werner, the present study by a long-serving Hungarian field archaeologist and excavator has been made available to German readers, as comparative material for study of the late Roman situation in Raetia; and it should also have something to offer for the student of the closing years of Roman Britain. Soproni's approach is based on many years' activity, notably in the frontier sector north of Aquincum, and eastwards across the Alfold, where he has found a Roman post 60 km into the Sarmatian heartlands; and his fieldwork and trial excavations have demonstrated that the 'Devil's Dyke' system is indeed to be dated to the fourth century. His interpretation of the dating of the system differs from that adopted by Mocsy: he states a persuasive case for attributing it, and a new treaty relationship with Rome, to Constantine, in the 320s, rather than to Diocletian. His other main concern has been with the series of burgi and watch-towers in the Danube bend, where meticulous observation has shown, with particular reference to the appearance of a new and distinctive category of pottery (with 'Einglattmuster') at a stage when the close-spacing of the observation posts erected under Valentinian in the 370s was rigorously modified, that most of the watch-towers were being abandoned. The pottery evidence is discussed in considerable detail, with text-figures and the 21 plates of drawings by the author's daughter. But what is the significance of the book for the student of Roman Britain? Perhaps the most striking point that has occurred to me is Soproni's emphasis on the contrast between Diocletian's essentially conservative policy of strengthening the existing frontier, particularly in the sector which screened Sirmium-here he accepts the reading contra Acumincum for the contra Acinco of Hydatius (p. 15 f.)-as against Constantine's bold solution of the Sarmatian problem, by establishing cooperation with a protectorate that shared Rome's interest in guarding against waves of intruders from the East. One might wonder whether the abandonment of the outpost forts beyond Hadrian's Wall, by Constantine as John Casey has demonstrated, m...