The south-east division of the Danubian Borderland corresponds roughly to the Lower Danube drainage basin together with the eastern part of Bessarabia that drains into the Dniester rather than the Danube. Topographically, this is an altogether more complicated region than the north-west division, and one not nearly as conducive to unfettered human movement, although it contains important natural highways capable of channeling human movement in certain directions. In general, the elevational zones in this half of the Danubian Borderland are narrower than those seen in the other half. The plains of the Middle Danube Basin are all part of one large central lowland zone while those of the Lower Danube watershed are connected like a long, narrow, chain extending south and west out of the great Eurasian Steppe. Similarly, while the great arc of the Carpathians produces in the north-west division a large, contiguous hill zone in Transylvania, this enclosed region is not mirrored on the other side of the mountain chain in Moldavia and the Wallachian foothills, where the hill zones all orient outwards and away from one another. In
118 Gudea 1979, p. 70 and p. 70, note 19. The main question is whether the Banat was ever administered as part of Dacia,
or whether it fell into the tributary lands of the Sarmatian barbaricum. If the former, then the limes must be placed along the Mureș river and the Tisza below the confluence. If we exclude the Banat, then the limes probably ran along the line of forts extending from Lederata on the Danube north through Berzobia and on to Tibiscum on the Timiș.
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general, the south-east division is a land of thin, linear natural features, while the north-west division is characterized by enclosed spaces.
Fig. 1.12 Natural sub-regions of the south/east Danube Basin.
It would be incorrect to characterize the south-east division of the Danubian Borderland as a region fundamentally hostile to human movement. Indeed, as we shall see, a great highway of grassland extends from the Eurasian Steppe south along the coast of the Black Sea into the heart of the Balkan Peninsula. Nonetheless, the peculiarities of the region’s river and mountain topographies serve to direct and limit mobility in ways unknown in the north-west division. These differences in natural environment had important implications for how the two halves of the Danubian Borderland interacted with Rome and Roman power.
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The south-east division can be divided into two distinct sub-sections. Both sub-sections focus on portions of the network of grasslands which form the core of the south-east division. The first sub-section can be called the Scythian Corridor, the region beginning north of the Danube Delta in eastern Moldavia and Bessarabia, and extending south through the Dobrogea and beyond into the plains of Thrace. East-west movement is blocked on one side by the Black sea, and on the other by the Eastern Carpathians and the deep north-south valleys of the Moldavian hill country. Further south, the Scythian Corridor is partially separated from the Wallachian and Bulgarian plains by the swampy lower courses of the Danube. Movement is not, however, totally restricted. Getting between the steppes of lower Bessarabia and the plains of eastern Wallachia/southern Moldavia can be accomplished by crossing the Siret and Prut, large rivers, but generally more manageable than the Danube. Meanwhile, north-south movement along the Scythian Corridor faces only two major hurdles, namely the Dniester and the great Danube delta. While the delta itself is indeed a
formidable obstacle to human mobility, the river narrows to a single channel upstream at the point of its last great curve to the east between Brăila and Galați. Unsurprisingly, this bend played host to multiple Roman installations designed to guard the crossing zone.119 Once past the delta, north- south movement is largely unrestricted through the steppes of the Dobrogea. Further south, the low hills of the far eastern Stara Planina present the only real natural roadblock to movement into the plains of Thrace and onward to Constantinople and the northern Aegean.
119 Two forts, Noviodunum, and Dinogetia, guarded the Danube bend together with the fortified urban center of
Troesmis. The early phases of these installations are largely obscured by large-scale late Roman (third-fifth century) fortifications, but references from Ptolemy’s Geography (3.8.2.10.1; 3.10.2) suggest earlier initial fortification (Scorpan 1980, pp. 17-33). This was the crossing zone where Valens launched the final phase of his Gothic war in 369, and where he later negotiated peace with the Tervingi iudex, Athanaric aboard a ship in the middle of the river (A.M. 27.5.6-10). We will return to this important war and treaty in Chapter Five.
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The second macro-division of the Lower Danube drainage basin is the zone immediately north and south of the Lower Danube and west of the Scythian Corridor. This region consists of two lowland zones (the Wallachian and Bulgarian plains) plus two hill-mountain zones (the southern slopes and foothills of the Carpathians, and the northern slopes and foothills of the Stara Planina). Taken as a whole, this area is somewhat similar, topographically, to the Middle Danube Basin, only rotated 90-degrees. Here, we have two hill zones marking the northern and southern limits of the zone, with a region of plains in between. This grassland is not, however, nearly as conducive to mobility as are the lowlands of the Middle Danube Basin. The Wallachain and Bulgarian plains are not as homogenous as the grasslands of the Middle Danube Basin, and the rivers here generally pose greater challenges to mobility because of their deep valleys and frequent riparian marshes. In general, movement north-south across the region is easier, despite requiring passage across the Danube, than is movement east-west through the plains, due to the great number of troublesome river crossings required to move through the plains. The obvious exception to this rule is
waterborne movement along the Danube itself which is generally easy in this area due to the river's width and depth. Meanwhile, north-south movement is usually easiest by land routes, since the plains are less cut-up in this direction, the transition from plain to foothill to mountain is often gradual, and at the same time, most of the Wallachian and Bulgarian tributaries are useless as avenues for large-scale human movement because of shallow depths in the plains, and frequent cataracts as they cut through the mountains.
As we saw in discussing the north/west division above, Roman political boundaries took no heed of the natural divisions in the landscape, and we see the same pattern within the south/east division of the Danubian Borderland. East of the Iron Gates, the Lower Danube marked the
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boundary between Dacia Malvensis, to the north, and the two provinces of Moesia to the south. Further east, beyond the northward-curve of the Carpathians, the region we have labeled the Scythian Corridor remained essentially outside Roman political control. Finally, the Dobrogea was separated from Moesia as its own province of Scythia Minor. Whereas, as we have seen, the region’s natural axis of mobility is mainly north-south, with only the Danube serving as an easy east- west corridor, the Roman Lower Danube limes effectively severed the natural routes across the river between the foothills of the Carpathians and Stara Planina, and between the plains of Dobrogea and the Scythian Corridor to the north.
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