Note 65 — Chapter IV

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.