Abstract:

This publication – Living and Dying on the Roman Frontiers and Beyond – is the third volume of the LIMES XXV’s congress proceedings and deals with a variety of themes, including the iconography of victory; aspects of frontier societies; mobility and the place of children; funerary archaeology; the significance of Roman imports beyond the frontiers. The proceedings are mostly arranged around the original sessions, creating coherent thematical collections that make the vast output more accessible to generalists and specialists alike.

Frontiers are zones, or lines, of contact and coercion, of exchange and exclusion. As such they often express some of the most typical elements of the socio-political spaces that are defined by them. Spanning some 6,000 km along rivers, mountain ranges, artificial barriers and fringes of semi-desert, the frontiers of the Roman empire offer a wide variety of avenues and topics for a very diverse community of scholars. They are the central subject of the International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies (or just Limes Congress after the Latin word for ‘border’), organised every three years since 1949. This four-volume publication contains most of the papers presented at the 25th edition which was hosted by the municipality of Nijmegen in August 2022.

Find all four volumes of the LIMES XXV Proceedings here.

About the editors

Dr. Harry van Enckevort has been researching the (Roman) past of Nijmegen as an archaeologist since 1990. The first years he worked for the State Service for Archaeological Investigations in the Netherlands (ROB), then for the municipality of Nijmegen, and since the end of 2022 as an independent researcher.

Dr.ir. Mark Driessen, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Archaeology – Leiden University (2011-now); Udhruh Archaeological Project (2011-now).

Erik P. Graafstal (MA), Municipal archaeologist and Director of Museum Hoge Woerd, Utrecht.

Tom Hazenberg (MA), independent archeologist for Hazenberg Archeologie & Coordinator Research and Preservation for the Dutch Limes Association; Project Restoration Collection Roman Ships of Zwammerdam and development of the National Roman Maritime Museum at Museumpark Archeon (2010 – now).

Dr. Tatiana Ivleva is Visiting Research Fellow at Newcastle University (UK).

Dr. Carol van Driel-Murray, Formerly lecturer Provincial Roman Archaeology, Faculty of Archaeology, University of Leiden (retired).

Contents

Preface

Part 1. Tales of Glory. Narratives of Roman Victory

Narratives of Roman victory between Imperial propaganda and war crimes
Martina Meyr and Christof Flügel

Das sogenannte Ubiermonument in Köln. Versuch einer Deutung
Tilmann Bechert

Commemorating the dead in ancient Rome and modern Europe
David J. Breeze

The Vynen monument and commemorating a greater victory. Flavian propaganda and reconstruction along the limes
Michael den Hartog

Visions of victory in Roman Dacia
Monica Gui

Mere propaganda? Victoria and Mars representations and inscriptions on the Upper German-Raetian Limes
Martin Kemkes

Le programme iconographique peint de Deir el-Atrash. Contrôle romain, protection et présence militaire dans le désert Oriental
Julie Marchand and Joachim Le Bomin

My face and the wolf song. A Roman facemask and a ‘draco’ from Carnuntum
Eva Steigberger

Römische Staats- und Siegesdenkmäler in den Provinzen
Kai M. Töpfer

Part 2. Home away from home. Roman frontiers as movers and mixers of people

Evidence for child migration at Vindolanda on the northern frontier of Roman Britain. An osteobiography of a clandestine burial
Trudi J. Buck

I am going on a trip, what am I going to pack? A comparative approach to the pottery of Batavians at home and abroad
Cristina Crizbasan and Roderick C.A. Geerts

Mainz-Mogontiacum, ein ethnischer Schmelzpunkt an der Rheingrenze des Imperium Romanum im 1. Jahrhundert n. Chr.
Michael Johannes Klein

Soldiers, slaves, priests, administrative servants(?). Persons with Greek/oriental names in Rhaetia
Julia Kopf

Challenges for auxilia veterans in going home
Jared H. Kreiner

Ex toto Orbe Romano. Ethnical diversity at the western frontier of Roman Dacia
Eduard Nemeth

Part 3. Childhood on the Roman frontiers

Gendered futures. Children’s lives remembered on Rome’s northern frontiers
Maureen Carroll

Vulnerable victims. ‘Barbarian’ captive children in Roman Imperial conflict iconography
Kelsey Shawn Madden

Onomastics, children and identity on Roman military diplomas
Alexander Meyer and Elizabeth M. Greene

Part 4. Everyday life in the vicinity of the forts

Introduction to the session ‘The military vicus. Everyday life in the vicinity of the forts’
Julia P. Chorus and Monica K. Dütting

In the hinterland of the Roman fortress at Novae. A new contribution to the rural settlement pattern in Moesia inferior
Petya A. Andreeva

The prison in the fortress of Apulum (Alba Iulia)
George Cupcea

Leisure facilities in the Tingitanian frontier. The baths in the roman castellum of Tamuda (Tetouan, Morocco)
José A. Expósito, Darío Bernal-Casasola and Tarik Moujoud

The integration of public baths into post-military colonia and civitas capitals in Roman Britain
Amanda A. Hardman

From Caesar to Late Antiquity. Roman settlement in the vicinity of the Hermeskeil fortress
Sabine Hornung, Lars Blöck, Marvin Seferi, Patrick Mertl and Arno Braun

Spuma Batava. Experimental research into a Germanic fad in 1st century Rome
Hans D.J. Huisman and Dorothee M. Olthof

One thing leads to another. Settlement development in the Stein-Lauriacum/Enns region (Austria)
Barbara Kainrath and Eva Thysell

The Arnsburg tumulus and the imagined underworld. Bathing and hunting in the meadows of the river Wetter
Julia M. Koch

From Imperial guardians to local patriots. The defenders of Novae (Moesia inferior) in Late Antiquity and their relationship to state, church and neighborhood
Martin Lemke

Game as cultural bridging. The case of the Batavians of Vindolanda
Alessandro Pace

Alchester. Life in a fortress of the AD 40’s
Eberhard W. Sauer

How were milestone texts transmitted to the stonecutters?
Dé C. Steures

The Birdoswald Extra-Mural Settlement Project
Tony Wilmott and Ian Haynes

Part 5. Cult and religious practices

Sub-Roman and post-Roman Christianity on Hadrian’s Wall. The remarkable new evidence from Vindolanda
Marta Alberti and Andrew Robin Birley

Merkur, Vulkan, Neptun und Herkules. Die Götter der Arbeitswelt und ihre Verehrung im Vicus
Dorit C. Engster

The marble bust of Mithraic tauroctony from Olbia Pontica
Roman Kozlenko

Of pigs and gods. An altar to Jupiter Heliopolitanus from Siscia (Sisak) revisited
Ljubica Perinić and Anton Ye. Baryshnikov

A puzzling votive inscription by a decurion of the cohors I Belgarum
Ivan Radman-Livaja

Principia or monasteries? Two fortified basilicas in the North African frontier zone
Alan Rushworth

Ein großes lararium… oder ein kleiner Tempel. Ein privater Schrein im Nordvicus von Krefeld-Gellep
Eric Sponville

Part 6. Speaking of the dead. Funerary customs and grave goods

Across Rome’s Southern Frontier. The Meroitic cemetery at Faras in Sudanese Nubia
Henry C. Bishop-Wright

A group of unusual burials under the CUT by-pass, Xanten
Clive Bridger

Relecture chronologique de la tombe des enfants du triérarque Domitianus à Boulogne-sur-Mer
Julie Flahaut, Olivier Blamangin, Alexia Morel, Angélique Demon, Christine Hoët-Van Cauwenberghe, Aurore Louis and Annick Thuet

The rural burial landscape in the northern hinterland of Roman Nijmegen
Joep Hendriks

Life and death at the Danube Limes. The cemeteries of Lauriacum/Enns (Austria)
Lisa Huber, Felix Lang, Maria Marschler, Andrea Stadlmayr and Stefan Traxler

Challenging late antique chronology. Graves as continuity indicators along the Rhine frontier of Germania prima
Rebecca Nashan

Buried with the dead. Grave goods from twelve Roman cemeteries in the Dutch eastern river area
W. Frederique Reigersman-van Lidth de Jeude

Roman funerary archaeology in Slovenia. The known, the new, and the missing
Kaja Stemberger Flegar

Deviant burials in late antique Atuatuca Tungrorum (Tongeren, Belgium)
Steven Vandewal

Dying outside the gates. The Brooklyn House, Norton, Yorkshire, bustum burial and busta in Roman Britain
Pete Wilson

Part 7. Revisiting Roman imports beyond the frontier. Investigating processes of movement

Roman-barbarian interaction. Revisiting Roman imports beyond the frontier; investigating processes of movement. Introductory remarks
Thomas Schierl, Fraser Hunter and Thomas Grane

Luxury, resources, or both? Roman objects in Germanic settlements on the example of Ostwestfalen-Lippe
Hannes Buchmann

Asking ‘Why’. Seeking indigenous motivations behind the movement of Roman material into Ireland
Karen Murad