A burgus (Latin, plural burgi ) or turris ("tower") [1] is a small, tower-like fort of the Late Antiquity, which was sometimes protected by an outwork and surrounding ditches. Darvill defines it as "a small fortified position or watch-tower usually controlling a main routeway." [2]
Burgus was a term used in the later period of the Roman Empire, and particularly in the Germanic provinces. [3]
Burgus is a Latin word, used from the end of the second century [4] but more common in late antiquity, and derived from the Germanic languages; it is cognate with the Greek pyrgos. It refers to a fortified tower, sometimes designed for observation. [5]
From 369 AD, under Valentinian, an extensive fortress building programme was set under way on the borders of the Empire. This entailed the construction of two-storey, rectangular towers (on average 8–12 m wide and 10–12 m high), so-called residual forts (German: Restkastelle) in limes camps that had already been largely denuded of their complements, and granaries ( horrea ) envisaged for border troops. These burgi were essentially a development of the limes towers of the middle imperial period and consisted, in the case of the larger examples, of a tower-like central structure and outer fortifications (a rampart, defensive wall or palisade, surrounded by several ditches). A conspicuous feature of buildings of this type of the Late Antiquity is the significant increase in size of the central tower. Most of these new fortifications were abandoned or destroyed by about the middle of the 5th century.
Burgi were erected along border rivers and along major roads, where they are likely to have been used for observation, as forward positions or for signalling. Buildings such as smaller watchtowers, fortlets ( castella ), civilian refuges at estates and fortified docks for riverboats, especially on the Upper Rhine and Danube, were also called burgi. In the coastal cities of the Roman Empire and early Byzantium, local defensive complexes (burgi) were also built to protect important harbours.
Troops at these posts carried out policing duties on the roads and looked after the maintenance of law and order in the villages. [6] Burgi might control movement on roads or rivers, or serve in emergencies as a places of retreat. Larger towers, such as one at Asperden, probably served as refuges for the surrounding population and as granaries.
A special type of burgus contained a river landing. In addition to a rectangular building near the river bank, these had crenellated walls that extended up to or into the river like pincers, thus protecting a landing stage or berthing bay for cargo ships and river patrol boats.
In Celtic polytheism, Sirona was a goddess worshipped predominantly in East Central Gaul and along the Danubian limes. A healing deity, she was associated with healing springs; her attributes were snakes and eggs. She was sometimes depicted with Apollo Grannus or Apollo Borvo. She was particularly worshipped by the Treveri in the Moselle Valley.
Līmes is a modern term used primarily for the Germanic border defence or delimiting system of Ancient Rome marking the borders of the Roman Empire, but it was not used by the Romans for that purpose. The term has been extended to refer to the frontier defences in other parts of the empire, such as in the east and in Africa.
The Saalburg is a Roman fort located on the main ridge of the Taunus, northwest of Bad Homburg, Hesse, Germany. It is a cohort fort, part of the Limes Germanicus, the Roman linear border fortification of the German provinces. The Saalburg, located just off the main road roughly halfway between Bad Homburg and Wehrheim is the most completely reconstructed Roman fort in Germany. Since 2005, as part of the Upper German limes, it forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage site. In the modern numbering system for the limes, it is ORL 11.
The Limes Germanicus is the name given in modern times to a line of frontier fortifications that bounded the ancient Roman provinces of Germania Inferior, Germania Superior and Raetia, dividing the Roman Empire and the unsubdued Germanic tribes from the years 83 to about 260 AD. The Limes used either a natural boundary such as a river or typically an earth bank and ditch with a wooden palisade and watchtowers at intervals. A system of linked forts was built behind the Limes.
The Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes, or ORL, is a 550-kilometre-long section of the former external frontier of the Roman Empire between the rivers Rhine and Danube. It runs from Rheinbrohl to Eining on the Danube. The Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes is an archaeological site and, since 2005, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Together with the Lower Germanic Limes it forms part of the Limes Germanicus.
The Roman fort at Weissenburg, called Biriciana in ancient times, is a former Roman ala castellum, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located near the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes. It lies in the borough of Weißenburg in the Middle Franconian county of Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen in Germany. Today the castellum is one of the most important sites of research in the Roman limes in Germany. The site contains partly subterranean building remains, a reconstructed north gateway, large thermal baths and a Roman Museum with an integrated Limes Information Centre.
The Lower Germanic Limes is the former frontier between the Roman province of Germania Inferior and Germania Magna. The Lower Germanic Limes separated that part of the Rhineland left of the Rhine as well as the Netherlands, which was part of the Roman Empire, from the less tightly controlled regions east of the Rhine.
The Danubian Limes, or Danube Limes, refers to the Roman military frontier or limes which lies along the River Danube in the present-day German state of Bavaria, in Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania.
The Neckar-Odenwald Limes is a collective term for two, very different early sections of the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes, a Roman defensive frontier line that may have been utilised during slightly different periods in history. The Neckar-Odenwald Limes consists of the northern Odenwald Limes (Odenwaldlimes), a cross-country limes with camps, watchtowers and palisades, which linked the River Main with the Neckar, and the adjoining southern Neckar Limes (Neckarlimes), which in earlier research was seen as a typical 'riverine limes', whereby the river replaced the function of the palisade as an approach obstacle. More recent research has thrown a different light on this way of viewing things that means may have to be relativized in future. The resulting research is ongoing.
The Alb Limes is a Roman frontier fortification or limes of the late 1st century AD in the Swabian Jura, also known as the Swabian Alb. The Alb Limes runs for just under 135 kilometres from Rottweil in the southwest to Heidenheim an der Brenz in the northeast.
The Pannonian Limes is that part of the old Roman fortified frontier known as the Danubian Limes that runs for approximately 420 km (260 mi) from the Roman camp of Klosterneuburg in the Vienna Basin in Austria to the castrum in Singidunum (Belgrade) in present-day Serbia. The garrisons of these camps protected the Pannonian provinces against attacks from the north from the time of Augustus (31 BC–14 AD) to the beginning of the 5th century. In places this section of the Roman limes also crossed the river into the territory of the barbarians (Barbaricum).
The frontier of the Roman Empire in Britain is sometimes styled Limes Britannicus by authors for the boundaries, including fortifications and defensive ramparts, that were built to protect Roman Britain. These defences existed from the 1st to the 5th centuries AD and ran through the territory of present-day England, Scotland and Wales.
The Altenburg fortification near Heroldsbach is a levelled early medieval fortified position at a height of 362 m above sea level (NHN), about 850 metres northwest of the church in Heroldsbach in the Upper Franconian county of Forchheim in the south German state of Bavaria. No historical or archaeological information is available for this sector fortification, but pottery finds from the interior of the site date to the Early Middle Ages. All that has survived is a double rampart system with a ditch. The site is protected by the state of Bavaria as monument number D-4-6331-0001: Frühmittelalterliche Abschnittsbefestigung "Altenburg".
Pfünz Roman Fort, Castra Vetoniana or Vetonianae, was a Roman cohort camp near Pfünz, a village in the municipality of Walting in the county of Eichstätt, Bavaria. It was built in about 90 A. D. on a 42-metre-high Jurassic hillspur between the valley of the Altmühl and that of the Pfünzer Bach stream. it is a component of the Rhaetian Limes which was elevated in 2005 to the status of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Of historical importance are the remains of the double V-shaped ditches hewn out of the rock in front of the position, the one on the western rampart being the best preserved. In 1998, as part of the construction of a high pressure water system, the Bavarian State Office for Monument Protection carried out further test excavations. The archaeological record and rich finds from Pfünz, some of which are very rare, are seen as reasons for further studies in the future.
The Main Limes, also called the Nasser Limes, was built around 90 AD and, as part of the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes, formed the frontier of the Roman Empire in the area between the present day villages of Großkrotzenburg and Bürgstadt. In this section the limes adjoined the River Main (Moenus), which forms a natural boundary for about 50 kilometres here, so "Main" refers to the river.
The Wetterau Limes is the name given in the field of historical research to that part of the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes which enclosed the region that became known later as the Wetterau in the German state of Hesse.
The Lautertal Limes is a Roman limes section of the early 2nd century which is located between the River Neckar and the Swabian Jura. It extends for a distance of 23 kilometres (14 mi), running, straight as a die, from the present-day municipality of Köngen on the Neckar in the northwest to Donnstetten in the Swabian Jura to the southeast.
The Danube–Iller–Rhine Limes or DIRL was a large-scale defensive system of the Roman Empire that was built after the project for the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes in the late 3rd century AD. In a narrower sense the term refers only to the fortifications between Lake Constance and the River Danube (Danubius); in a broader sense it also includes the other Late Roman fortifications along the river Rhine (Rhenus) on the High Rhine and on the Upper Rhine as well as the Upper Danube.
The Limesfall is the name given to the abandonment of the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes in the mid-3rd century AD by the Romans and the withdrawal of imperial troops from the provinces on the far side of the rivers Rhine and Danube to the line of those rivers. It is sometimes called the fall of the limes.
Kastell Wörth was a Roman limes numerus fort located on the north-western edge of today's Wörth am Main in the German state of Bavaria. The fort was probably part of the defenses of the Main Limes, and also, as part of the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes, but also of the older Odenwald Limes section of the Neckar-Odenwald Limes, but this has not been definitively proven archaeologically.
