Wetterau Limes

During the two campaigns of the Roman Emperor Domitian against the Chatti (83 and 85 AD), the Romans began to cut swathes of open ground through the dense forests of today's Hesse, in order to prevent their columns from being ambushed (e.g. at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest).

After the end of the Chatti Wars, the Romans began to secure these conquered regions east of the Rhine with a limes - a line of forts, fortlets, watchtowers and palisades.

This ensured that the southern slopes of the Taunus mountains and the fertile and strategically important Wetterau became part of the Roman Empire.

In addition to the establishment of this frontier, Domitian turned the two Germanic military territories of Upper and Lower Germanian into Roman provinces.

Although there were Roman military outposts on the eastern side of the Rhine from the seventies, the border running along the Odenwald-Neckar Line to Donnstetten (see Lautertal Limes) is now dated by most sources as having not been erected before 98 AD.

The neighbouring Taunus line was reinforced in the second half of the second century by the numerus forts of Holzhausen, Kleiner Feldberg and Kapersburg.