Frontier?

[Onasander]

Did the Romans maintain any forts ahead of static defensive lines like Hadrians wall? The more I think about it, the dumber it seems. They had to of maintained forts north of their walls.

[FLavius Valerius Constantinus]

They use to be forts far furthur from Hadrian's wall when the Romans were successively subduing the Picts but because the Picts stopped coming out into open battle, which they decided to continue the fighting throught the hit and run tactics in the forests, the Roman could hold out any longer in part of Scotland and so then Hadrian's wall happened.(Correct me if I'm way off, I remembered watching the Discovery Channel's documentary on this.)

[Germanicus]

The Antonine wall is beyong Hadrians wall

[Pertinax]

considerably further! I suppose the big problem with Caledonia was other than stopping the natives causing trouble by raiding there were no useful resources to make a push northward of any real use.A roman fleet checked out the Hebrides but I have no source saying they found anything to write home about. (except picts).

The real issues in Britannia were I believe the metal resources and grain.

[Favonius Cornelius]

Building walls and forts on the fly was not as huge a deal for the Roman legions. Remember that they rebuilt their fortified camp every time they moved from location to location in enemy territory, and the commanders were always eager to give their men something to do to keep them out of trouble.

 

I guess it largely depends on the situations really. The Antonine wall for instance was built after campaigns in the north, and clearly its weak composition did not mark it as a defensive point worth worrying too much about. In the remote areas in Africa you probably saw disposable borderland forts for the purpose of keeping an eye out for nomadic raiding parties. For a time Agri Decumates was controlled by Roman forces; which probably mostly means there were forts located at various areas through this rough area, much more disposable than the Rhine forts. Beyond Arabia Petra, there have been found Roman forts deep into the desert beyond, probably as outposts to keep an eye on the desert nomads and provide assistance to caravans coming from the east.

 

As time went on, I believe the later empire seems to have pulled back the area it considered indispensable, with a network of forts populated with limitani in the border areas like Germania Superior/Inferior, Noricum, Rhaeta, Pannonia, Moesia and so on. So I suppose these areas sort of fall into the category of your question. The Romans were if anything practical! They could be remarkably flexible for all sorts of military situations.

[Onasander]

Wouldn't it make more sense to have a series of outposts ahead of the walls? Like stables or a few dozen infantrymen holding ground valued to the enemy's operation or a roman offensive? A bend in a local waterway ahead of the wall, a naturally fortified hill, occupying the enemies traditional lines of communications, ect.

[FLavius Valerius Constantinus]

At the point of Hadrian's reign, the point is to no longer conquer but to defend the current empire at hand because of financial difficulties and resources. So there would be no point in making forts with the purpose of conquering the enemy.

That's what I think.

[Favonius Cornelius]

Wouldn't it make more sense to have a series of outposts ahead of the walls? Like stables or a few dozen infantrymen holding ground valued to the enemy's operation or a roman offensive? A bend in a local waterway ahead of the wall, a naturally fortified hill, occupying the enemies traditional lines of communications, ect.

 

Perhaps in some particular circumstances, but usually such a thing means isolating a group of men in territory that can be used by the natives. At night even imposing fortifications can seem small. The risk was probably the likelihood of these small outposts disappearing and not being sure which people to massacre or village to burn in reprisal.

[Onasander]

Ya, that's true. What a tough decision to make, which town to raze.

[Pertinax]

On that note I wil post a small review of "Rome's Northern frontier ad 70 -235 " very soon.

[FLavius Valerius Constantinus]

Not really, it might work if you just send some legatos to ask which town did it because then the innocent town wouldn't want to get razed. Back then, the fear tactic still worked with true results.

[Felix Marcellus]

Wouldn't it make more sense to have a series of outposts ahead of the walls? Like stables or a few dozen infantrymen holding ground valued to the enemy's operation or a roman offensive? A bend in a local waterway ahead of the wall, a naturally fortified hill, occupying the enemies traditional lines of communications, ect.

 

I don't really know anything about Rome's frontiers. But from a military point of view in general I'd say it would not make sense to build outposts north of the wall in enemy territory.

 

1. You've already built an obstacle to keep them out. A substantial one at that.

 

2. An outpost is a static creation easily targeted by the enemy. The men occupying it wouldn't last long.

 

3. You could patrol north of the wall with an armed and ready force, using different routes each time you patrol. This would achieve the same intent as an outpost (Provide early warning of an appoaching enemy) and increase force protection for those conducting the recon. If you alternate routes the enemy can't get a pattern on you and therefore makes it more difficult for them to attack. Whereas an outpost they can attack over and over and over again until the other side learns, "Hey, maybe we shouldn't continue to man this outpost".

[Tobias]

A thought that just hit me was defense at the Rhine and Danube river frontiers; these are fairly integral defenses the Romans had for a fair portion of their empire. Sources state that Roman or dependant tribes did river patrols; and these were a pretty effective way of guarding at least those areas of the Empire, and as was mentioned above, there was a series of fortresses placed every amount of distance.

A hypothesis a history buff friend of mine had was that the Romans may have had a sort of signalling system similar to semaphore; in which case, messages could be transported over a long distance in very quick time (but i don't assert that the romans had this signal system).

Later on, after Hadrian, i know another tactic for frontier defense was encouraging "buffer" tribes to settle between the frontier and the potential enemies. This, although seen as a good idea at the time, is particularly capable of causing more damage then harm, especially with examples of many of these buffer tribes invading Roman territory having been displaced by enemy tribes.

I think a point raised in another thread is right; Rome was far too big to effectively defend it's borders for long.

As far as the outposts are concerned; I understand the effect a Roman outpost may have had on surrounding tribes, especially with that fear that was still widely held of this super-race, the romans, among the tribes who bordered or were near Rome. These outposts would be symbols of authority and dominance, and most tribes initially would not dare to go against Rome's authority, embodied in these outposts. However, after gauging the strength of the outposts, as well as experiencing the news of Rome's defeats and realising that Rome was not invincible, they would build up the courage to attack and destroy the outposts. The subsequent problems have already been mentioned by you fellows

[Onasander]

I don't think the Romans viewed thier walls as the extent of thier territory, but rather as a internal defence, and I'm placing this on a hunch from my own frontier sense having live and studied tactics in West Virginia and seeing the real frontier of Alaska.

 

The walls in England seemed highly inadequate for anything cept keeping the sheep in, think it was more psychological than anything else, and cost the taxpayers nothing, since there would be a couple of legions just standing around not doing much other than eating. The real defence of the boarders must of taken place north of the wall, and the lack of urbanization would be understandable since the communities would of be more open to attack. If I'm correct, many of the Roman forts should still be out there undisturbed in underpopulated areas of England, under the fields or heck, under castles even.

 

The diagrams of European walls I have seen seem much more ferocious though, my hunch doesn't extend as strongly to them.