The Limes Africanus – The Southern Borders of the Roman Empire

Heritage Daily ^ | September 17, 2021 | editors

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The Limes Africanus refers to a series of fortifications and defensive lines that delineated the southern border of the Roman Empire in Northern Africa. There is no supporting text to propose that each of the Limes operated as a singular or coordinated defensive line, nor was the North African Limes ever referred to as Limes Africanus by the Romans (modern invention).

The Limes served to protect the coastal provinces from raids by the native peoples of the Sahara, and to control trade through taxation of goods that came from Sub-Saharan Africa.

Unlike the Limes in other parts of the Empire that had continuous border fortifications, the Limes Africanus consisted of several independent sections from different periods in Roman history, including the Fossa regia, the proposed Fossatum Africae, the Limes Mauretaniae, the Limes Tripolitanus, and a fossatum located in Tunisia...

The Limes Tripolitanus was built sometime after the reign of Caesar Augustus in the south of what is now Tunisia and the northwest of Libya, to defend the Roman cities of Tripolitania (Oea, Sabratha and Leptis Magna) against raiding Garamantes.

During Diocletian’s reign (from AD 284 to 305), the Limes Tripolitanus was partially abandoned, and the defence of the area was delegated to the Limitanei soldiers in frontier districts. The Limes Tripolitanus survived as an effective defence though to the Byzantine period, where it was restructured in AD 533 by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian.

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Gheriat el-Garbia on the Limes Tripolitanus –

Image Credit : Marco Prins – CC BY-SA 3.0

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[dfwgator]

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Through the travail of ages...

[blueunicorn6]

I think I like the Limes Margaritus better.

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Plenty of salt in the nearby fields of Carthage to use on the rim.

[dfwgator]

My favorite scene in the movie.