[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
The Roman Lower Danube Frontier: Innovations in Theory and Practice is an edited volume presenting some of the most recent archaeological research coming out of this particular corner of the Roman borderlands. Ovid may have liked to complain about his boring exiled life in Tomis (one of the coastal cities within the ambit of this book), but judging by the studies presented here, the Romans were certainly not idle during their centuries of activity along and around the Lower Danube. This volume had its genesis in conversations held between the late Mihail Zahariade, to whom the volume is dedicated, and several of the book’s authors while excavating at the important site of Halmyris, located near the southern mouth of the Danube delta (1). The other impetus for publishing this book, which takes its place among a number of similar volumes focused on other stretches of the Roman frontier,[1] is the ongoing effort to establish official UNESCO recognition for the Roman remains along the Lower Danube as part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/430/).[2] While the volume is held together by a general interest in bringing up-to-date archaeological theory and practice to the study of the Lower Danube sites, each chapter stands as an independent report, dealing with specific sites and asking specific questions.
In the book’s preface, Ioana Oltean offers a succinct summary of the state of archaeology along the Lower Danube, the section of the river extending east from the Iron Gates gorge, forming, first, the boundary between Romania and Bulgaria, then turning north to separate the Romanian province of Dobrogea from the rest of the country, before finally flowing out into the Black Sea. Here, Oltean highlights both the important excavations of recent decades and also some key lacunae, most importantly the overrepresentation of Romanian sites within the region, a lack of women’s voices, both in excavation and publication, and the need to engage more meaningfully with the latest trends in archaeological theory and technological practice.
Chapter 1, “The Lower Danube Limes: Recentering a Roman Frontier Province” (John Karavas and Emily Hanscam), functions as a second introduction to the volume. This longer treatment explains the book’s genesis more fully and offers a useful summary of the history of the Lower Danube frontier as understood from the Roman source material.[3] The remainder of the chapter presents a summary of excavations in the region before moving to highlight some of the same problems introduced in the preface (overrepresentation of Romanian scholarship and a need for more multi-national cooperation).
The second chapter, “Modeling Forts and Landscapes in Scythia Minor” (Nathaniel Durant), begins with the premise that the fortification network here (and elsewhere) was coherent and directed. The author then employs predictive algorithms to plot likely locations for unknown fortifications based on spatial parameters gleaned from known forts (absolute and relative elevations, slope, and proximity to water). While the study was able to produce multiple maps illustrating probable fortifications, the author was less successful in explaining change over time. Hopefully, studies like this one will allow archaeologists to conduct more focused survey and excavation projects, but the data remains quite speculative, based, as it is, on determining salient spatial parameters from known sites and an assumption of rationality on the part of Roman decision makers and builders.
Chapter 3, “Roman Camps in the Lower Danube: From Remote Sensing to Provincial Contexts” (Ovidiu Ţentea and Florian Matei-Popescu) is a study of several temporary military camps within their geographic and historical contexts. These sites are frequently identified only through close analysis of satellite or arial photography and rarely offer more than the most ephemeral remains on the ground. For this reason, march camps have been underrepresented in our picture of how the Roman military operated, a deficiency this chapter aims to address. The bulk of the chapter is a discussion of four temporary camps located south of the Danube. The authors describe the sites in as much detail as possible, link them typologically to other known march camps, and attempt also to connect these fortifications to known historical movements of Roman troops within the region. This last effort is, by necessity, quite speculative since it is based entirely on general observations about the location, size, and shape of the camps measured against textually and epigraphically attested military events (e.g. 45).
In Chapter 4, “Roads and the Roman Landscape in Moesia Inferior,” Adriana Panaite offers a detailed survey of the road network in this borderland province. The chapter begins with a survey of current theoretical approaches to the Roman frontiers, emphasizing the commonly accepted idea that roads were more than mere military and/or economic conduits, but must be seen as visible manifestations of Roman imperial ideology within the provincial landscape. In the bulk of the chapter, Panaite describes the major roadways of the province, charting their routes based largely on milestones, and connecting them, when possible, to known historical events in the region. The chapter also includes a useful historical survey, with an emphasis on the migration/resettlement of transdanubian peoples within Moesia Inferior.[4] Towards the end, the author suggests—rightly—that the study of road networks needs to be paired with ongoing survey projects in order to more clearly assess how the establishment of roadways actually impacted the lifeways of provincial populations.
While most of the chapters in The Roman Lower Danube Frontier deal with the military in one form or another, Patrick Lowinger, in “Sanctified by the Blood of Martyrs: The Creation of New Sacred Loci in Scythia Minor During the Early Christian Period (4th Century AD)” looks, instead, at the archaeological remains of early Christian martyrs within the later Roman province of Scythia Minor (modern Dobrogea). Lowinger begins with a short, conventional overview of the empire’s conversion to Christianity, before turning to a more focused discussion of the role martyr shrines played in fostering the development of sacred loci and communal Christian feeling. Martyria, Lowinger argues, developed naturally out of polytheistic traditions of ancestor veneration and traditional worship of nameless genii locorum as minor supernatural entities which could intercede on behalf of the worshiper. The main contribution of this chapter, however, is an analysis of four martyria known from textual and archaeological sources to have existed at or near military sites in Scythia Minor. While this section offers detailed information about both the physical remains and their connection with martyrological texts, Lowinger’s concluding remarks are somewhat anticlimactic, if intriguing: “Singularly, each of these martyria tropaia served as sacred loci for their respective communities. Whereas the limes formed the Empire’s physical boundary, could these martyria have collectively formed a sacred one?” (105). This notion, that martyr shrines might have some meaningful connection to the edges of the developing Christian oikoumene, deserves more consideration, building from Lowinger’s beginnings here.
Chapter 6, “Ratiaria: The Focal Point in the Western Part of Lower Danube Frontier [sic]” (Zdravko Dimitrov), is another focused archaeological study designed, in this case, to collate and summarize many decades of research at an important urban site in eastern Moesia Superior. Ratiaria was one of the province’s major population centers since the 1st century CE, and eventually served as the capital of Dacia Ripensis: a new province carved out of the juncture between the two Moesias after Aurelian’s abandonment of transdanubian Dacia in the later 3rd century. Despite this history, the city has received less attention than the nearby Bononia/Vidin. The chapter provides a concise overview of the site’s 20th century excavation history before turning in more depth to research conducted since 2013. As such, the chapter will serve as a useful reference for anyone interested in Ratiaria or the history of the region more generally.
In the final chapter, “Reflections on the Importance of Studies on the Lower Danubian Limes,” Piotr Dyczek begins from the premise that we poorly understand how the Romans actually conceived of the thing we conventionally call the limes. What follows is, essentially, a case study for how archaeologists might approach this question within a focused section of the limes. Dyczek centers his study on the site of Novae, paying particular attention to its architectural history, where he employs the term manus legionis to signify specific building trends identifiable to the particular military units stationed at Novae. By identifying this “fingerprint,” Dyczek is able to tentatively connect particular periods of construction/renovation with military oversight, while excluding others. The author also expands his analysis to account for all of the known military installations in the vicinity of the main site. In doing so, he identifies three types of site: advance towers/forts north of the Danube, riverine forts and towers, and hinterland installations located south of the river. Together, Dyczek refers to these sites as the “limes network.” The author’s conclusions suggest that the network served mainly to manage human movement: interdicting passage across the riverine line, protecting lateral movement along the river, and controlling civilian mobility inside the province. These conclusions are reasonable and much in line with those proposed by well-known scholars of the Roman frontier like Whittaker (1994)[5] and Isaac (1990).[6]
As an edited volume, it is somewhat difficult to assess this book holistically. That said, there are many strengths found within its chapters. Archaeological data is presented in careful detail throughout, and in many places has the great advantage of bringing to the Anglophone scholar less accessible material from the Romanian and Bulgarian academies. The authors also take seriously the volume’s stated goal of bringing the Lower Danube frontier into dialog with current archaeological technologies and theoretical constructs. While there is solid scholarship at the heart of each chapter, not every study is equally successful. Some conclusions feel a bit underwhelming (although this is often just a result of the data) and some of the historical summaries could have benefitted from more nuanced and critical readings of the ancient sources, most especially as they pertain to population numbers. That said, such moments are relatively few and far between and do little to detract from the volume’s valuable contributions to our archaeological understanding of one of Rome’s most important—and underappreciated—borderlands.
Authors and Titles
Preface: Researching the Romans on the Roman Lower Danube: Challenges and Opportunities, Ioana A. Oltean
Introduction: The Lower Danube Limes: Recentring a Roman Frontier Province, John Karavas and Emily Hanscam
Modelling Forts and Landscapes in Scythia Minor, Nathaniel Durant
Roman Camps in the Lower Danube: From Remote Sensing to Provincial Contexts, Ovidiu Țentea and Florian Matei-Popescu
Roads and the Roman Landscape in Moesia Inferior, Adriana Panaite
Sanctified by the Blood of Martyrs: The Creation of New Sacred Loci in Scythia Minor During the Early Christian Period (4th Century AD), Patrick Lowinger
Ratiaria: The Focal Point in the Western Part of Lower Danube Frontier, Zdravko Dimitrov
Reflections on the Importance of Studies on the Lower Danubian Limes, Piotr Dyczek
Notes
[1] This volume is something of a specialized companion piece to the larger Archaeopress series on the Frontiers of the Roman Empire (https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/Collection/Frontiers-of-the-Roman-Empire).
[2] This multi-national initiative began with the UNESCO registration of stretches of the Roman Limes in the United Kingdom (Hadrian’s Wall and the Antonine Wall) and Germany (the Upper German-Rhaetian Limes) in 1987. In the last few years, sites along the remainder of the Rhine (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1631) and Upper Danube frontiers (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1608) have been inscribed on the list. Most recently, in July 2024, Dacian frontier sites in Romania were officially recognized (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1718).
[3] Overall, the treatment of the primary sources here is conventional, which is to say, a bit too literal. Most glaringly, the authors appear to take at face-value claims made by Silvanus Aelianus on his epitaph to have settled 10,000 transdanuvii south of the Danube (4). This number is, almost certainly, highly exaggerated.
[4] Of particular interest is the author’s analysis of a papyrus describing the dispositions of the Cohors I Hispanorum when stationed in Moesia Inferior. The author notes how detachments are located on both sides of the Danube, suggesting, they argue, a Roman perception of the transdanubian littoral as part of the Roman province (65). While I agree that this document shows clear evidence for a general lack of concern about any non-Roman sovereignty (i.e.: the imperium sine fine argument), I am not sure I would go so far as to argue that it identifies the lands beyond the river as part of Moesia itself.
[5] Whittaker, C. R. 1994. Frontiers of the Roman Empire: A Social and Economic Study. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
[6] Isaac, B. 1990. The Limits of Empire: The Roman Army in the East. Oxford: Clarendon Press.