The Meaning of the Terms Limes and Limitanei

Abstract

It is a commonplace of modern scholarship that the Roman Imperial Army in the frontier areas was organized in limes-systems: fortifications linked by roads along a fixed boundary, marked in many, but not all, parts of the empire by a river or an artificial obstacle: indeed, the term limes is often used as though it were self-explanatory. The term is certainly used in ancient sources; thus while the literature may furnish only fragmentary information on the army and its activities along the border, it does at least apparently provide us with a name to which to link the material remains. Over the past four decades conferences on Roman frontier studies have regularly been held, often under the title ‘Limes Congress’.