Limes Germanicus

There is an old myth, still recounted in some of the historiography on Late Antiquity, according to which the Roman army was somewhat involved in the spread of Christianity, usually shortly after the conversion of Constantine. Proponents of that position generally rely on two points: 1- the testimony of the Church Fathers, who are constantly insisting on the receptivity of the soldiers to Christianity; 2- the fact that the Roman army promoted the spread of all kinds of oriental cults, which also implies Christianity.

By this logic, we should be able to observe a degree of Christianisation in the provinces of the Empire which would be proportional to their level of militarisation. The “limes” being theoretically the most militarised area in Late Antiquity, it should then be the most Christianised. Should we therefore see evidence of the military outposts as units of Christian propaganda around the Empire?
It is true that most of the episcopal sees of this part of the Roman world were founded in military camps. Compared to the importance of the militarisation of these territories, the episcopal network was, however, very modest even up to the middle/end of the 6th century, so that the contribution of the army to the spread of Christianity does not seem as obvious is sometimes assumed.

In order to propose elements of answers to that research question, presentations on all archaeological of Christianity on the border areas of the Roman Empire are welcome in this session. These papers can focus on new discoveries, as well as on the re-evaluation of material already studied, which dates, for most of it, from the 4th to 7th centuries AD.

This session is the second part of a first one on the same topic, organised in September 2019, at the 24. International Limes Congress (Belgrade/Viminacium, Serbia).

Archaeological analyses of Rome’s expansion in the Mediterranean and the creation of the provinces have traditionally highlighted a pattern of increased levels of urbanism and monumentality, the spread of Latin epigraphy and Roman law as a consequence of the settlement of Italic population and the integration into the Empire. Leaving aside pioneering publications by James (2012a, 2012b) or Roymans and Fernández-Götz (2015) on the archaeology of mass violence, Classical Archaeologists have often overlooked the fact that the first settlements and the earliest contact communities were not located in Roman towns, but in military establishments. Our interpretations of important military campaigns, battles, and sieges often rely heavily on the information provided by the ancient Roman sources. Yet new excavation and survey projects conducted in deceptively ‘well-known’ sites are both revolutionizing our understanding of the social processes involved in the creation of the empire and raising a series of questions: How does the most recent archaeological evidence complement, contradict or modify prevalent ideas about the internal structure and organization of Roman camps, the supply to the Roman army, or the role of frontiers in the empire? How did castrametation evolve from the earliest republican camps documented archaeologically in the western provinces (Numantia, Alésia), to imperial military enclaves (German-Raetian limes, Vindolanda)? What is the best way to incorporate in our current archaeo-logical interpretations different types of evidence provided by the ancient sources or, in some cases, 90-year old excavations of iconic sites?
In Europe, the LIMES congress serves as a platform for the presentation of new findings in the archaeology of the Roman army, but occasions to discuss recent developments in this field or, more broadly, in the western part of the Roman empire occur rarely in North America. We are bringing to the AIA a group of European and North American archaeologists with long-term engagement in important fieldwork projects to present new or in some cases even still unpublished materials. Our hope is to advance novel interpretations on the development of Roman camps and their internal layouts, the living conditions of the soldiers and the supply from Rome, the role of provincial population in the army and the creation of frontiers, based on new data available thanks to techniques of remote sensing (ALS and geophysical surveys, LiDAR-based site plans) and archaeological fieldwork conducted in the last ten years in important Roman military camps in Hispania, Gallia, Germania, and Britannia.