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Trajan's Canal at the Iron Gate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Jaroslav Šašel
Jaroslav Šašel
Affiliation:
The Slovenian Academy, Ljubljana
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Extract

‘Magnum est stare in Danubii ripa’, wrote Pliny in his panegyric to Trajan. The significance of his words can only be appreciated by the sight of the Danube's gorges: Struden, Wachau, Devin, Esztergom, Iron Gate, either fairytale-like in their beauty or gloomy and menacing, through which the movements of European prehistory forced their way. The prestige of the great river can be felt in Augustus's proud words protulique fines Illyrici ad r[ip]am fluminis Dan [u]i.

Trajan spent the winter of 98 and the whole of 99 with the Moesian armies. He paid special attention to military discipline; together with the army leaders he worked out careful plans for a preventive attack on the Dacians. Some of the measures he undertook, then and later, are in process of being recovered. Relevant items are: 1: The construction of the famous fortified bridge at the old fording-point at Kostol. 2: the mobilization on a war-footing of the military river flotilla. 3: the reorganization of military bases on the northern bank of the Danube. 4: the creation of an intelligence-espionage service. 5: co-ordination and organization of the troops to be used in the assault. 6: a large-scale building programme to provide accommodation for the invasion force and to increase the capacity of ports in the winter months. 7: the modernization and reconstruction of the towing-path along the river, especially the rock-cut sections in defiles. 8: the engineering of navigable canals beside sections of the river with rapids.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 63 , November 1973 , pp. 80 - 85
Copyright
Copyright ©Jaroslav Šašel 1973. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Pliny, , paneg. 18, 1.Google Scholar

2 For item (1), Dio 68, 13 and Procopius, de aedif. 4, 6, 13; for other sources, see Aschbach, J., ‘Über Trajans steinerne Donaubrücke’, Mittheilungen der Zentralkommission (Vienna) iii, 1858, 197–220Google Scholar, and Tudor, D., Podurile romane de la Dunarea de jos (1971), 53 f.Google Scholar; it was finished in 103/4, cf. BMC iii, no. 847 (also H. Mattingly, ibid. p.ci). On item (4), cf. Speidel, M., JRS lx, 1970, 148.Google Scholar On item (5), cf. R. Hanslik, RE Suppl. x, 1059 and Beneš, J., ‘Die römischen Auxiliarformationen im unteren Donauraum’, Sborník praci Filosofické fakulty, brněnské University, E–15 (1970), 159 ff.Google Scholar A valuable glimpse is furnished by the pridianum of cohors I Hispanorum veterana stationed at Stobi. The pridianum was dated to August, 99 by Fink, R. O., JRS xlviii (1958), 102 ff.Google Scholar, but to 105 by Syme, R., JRS xlix (1959), 26 ff.Google Scholar (= Danubian Papers (Bucharest, 1971), 122 ff.); cf. Gilliam, J. F., Hommages à Albert Grenier (1962), 747 ff.Google Scholar, and most recently to 100 by Fink, R. O., Roman Military Records on Papyrus (1971), 217 f.Google Scholar For item (6), cf. Procopius, de aedif. 4, 6, 6, (the forts of Kaputboes and Zanes), and CIL iii, 1642 (building-inscription from the fort at Prahovo); cf. also the results of new excavations quoted by Petrović, P.; in Archaeologia Iugoslavica ix (1968), 88, n. 2Google Scholar (forts at Taliata, Boljetin, Saldum, Gospodjin Vir, Cezava and so on, all in the Iron Gate). For item (7), cf. ILJug. 63 = Smallwood, Documents Illustrating the Principates of Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian no. 413.

3 Procopius, de aedif. 4, 6, 8 ff. cf. Kanitz, F., ‘Römische Studien in Serbien’, Denkschriften, Akad. Wien (Philos.-hist. Kl.) xlii (1892), 50.Google ScholarMócsy, A., Gesellschaft und Romanisation in der römischen Provinz Moesia superior (1970), 116.Google Scholar

4 The auxiliary fort near Karataš measured 172 by 100 m. with semicircular towers, cf. F. Kanitz, op. cit. p. 49, fig. 31; 150 m. west of it was a civilian settlement, and on the eastern side an ancient cemetery; an aqueduct has also been discovered, cf. Janković, I. in Aŕheološki pregled vi (1964), 53.Google Scholar

5 Saopštenja (Republički zavod za zaštitu spomenika kulture, Belgrade) viii (1969), 51 ff., with photo (this is noted by Rossi, L., Trajan's Column and the Dacian Wars (1971), 32)Google Scholar; Starinar xxi (1970), 31 ff. with photo; Archaeologia Iugoslavica ix (1971), 83 ff. with drawing.

6 ILJug 63; Smallwood, Documents 413.

7 See F. Kanitz, ‘Römische Studien in Serbien’, cit. (above, n. 3) 50, flg. 32; new facts introduced by Petrović, P. in Starinar xxi (1970), 33 f.Google Scholar

8 See Jovanović, P., Arheološki pregled vi (1964), 57Google Scholar; P. Milošević, ib. vii (1965), 102 and in Stare kulture u Djerdapu (Belgrade, 1969), 150; TIR-Aquincum (1968), 103.

9 P. Petrović, op. cit. 34 f.

10 op. cit. p. 51.

11 de aedif. 4, 6, 8.

12 For an inscription, now lost, which was found there, see Cermanović-Kuzmanović, A. in Arheološki pregled x (1968), 59Google Scholar; sulphur springs and Roman baths are also known, F. Kanitz, op. cit., 51.

13 CIL iii 726 = ILS 1419.

14 Pflaum, H.-G., Les carrières procuratoriennes équestres i (1960), 147Google Scholar, no. 64 with the arguments. Dobson, B., ‘The Praefectus Fabrum in the Early Principate’ in Jarrett, M. G. and Dobson, B. (eds.), Britain and Rome (1965), 75 f.Google Scholar; cf. Sander, E., ‘Der praefectus fabrum und die Legionsfabriken’, Bonn. Jahrb. clxii (1962), 139 f.Google Scholar

15 On these, see G. Oddone, Diz. ep. iv, 965. For instance, the rock-cut tow-path at the old Tabula Traiana was executed by lapidarii of both Moesian legions: see the new inscription dedicated to Hercules mentioned above in the commentary on lines 1–3, to be published in Arheološki vestnik xxiii (1972). For lapidarii, see Diz. epig. iv, 385; RE xii, 774.

16 ep. 10, 41.

17 ep. 10, 42.

18 On the chronological problem, cf. Vidman, L., Etude sur la correspondance de Pline le Jeune avec Trajan (Prague 1960), 26.Google Scholar

19 4, 6, 5, a slightly corrupt record of the name Taliatae, present-day Donji Milanovac, cf. also Barišić, F. in Vizantiski izvori za istoriju naroda Jugoslavije i (1965), 68.Google Scholar

20 V. Beševliev refers to these names passim from a philological point of view in his work Zur Deutung der Kastellnamen in Prokops Werk ‘De Aedificiis’ (1970); Ζάνες comes from abl. pl. Dianis, see ibid. p. 116. For the positions of both cf. Mirković, M., Rimski gradovi na Dunavu u Gornjoj Meziji (Belgrade, 1968), 111 f.Google Scholar

21 M. Mirković, op. cit. p. 112. Petrović, P. in Starinar xxi (1970), 37.Google Scholar

22 The expression ‘Iron Gate’ is correctly applied only to that section of the Danube cliffs near Sip. After the Danube convention of 1948 it was extended by agreement to include a section of whirlpools and rapids 117 km long between Vinica and Kladovo on the Jugoslav bank or Moldava Veche and Turnu Severin on the Rumanian (that is between Danube kilometres 931 and 1048). Compare the extensive material provisionally presented by Paunović, M. in Djerdap i Timočka krajina (Zagreb, 1970)Google Scholar and by Dragović, R., Plovidba u Djerdapu (Belgrade, 1965).Google Scholar

23 PIR2 C 394.

24 ep. 8, 4, 2.

25 I am indebted to Professor S. S. Frere for help and suggestions in the preparation of this article.