WWhy the Limes went under without a sound on New Year’s Eve in the years 259/60 has long remained a mystery. How much effort had the Romans made for more than 200 years to hold inhospitable Germania, and then this ignominious end when the Alemanni pushed into the empire on a broad front without a fight. How dare the “barbarians” attack the supposedly unassailable symbol of Rome’s greatness and power with its 120 castles and 900 towers?
Myths and conjectures need to be dealt with impartially. The Imperial Limes Commission set up 130 years ago had doubts about Roman omnipotence in favor of a pragmatic understanding that the border was by no means hermetically sealed. Today it is understood more as a pacifying demarcation line, an approach obstacle that is always permeable in quieter times for auxiliary troops, traders or those willing to settle.
Even the sheer concentration of troops did not fail to have a deterrent effect. Recent research has been able to clarify why the Romans did little to defend themselves: against the background of the severe imperial crisis in the 3rd century, when civil wars weakened the empire and the Persian onslaught threatened it, they simply bared the Limes. The example of the Kapersburg fort in the Taunus region shows that only a quarter has been used since the 1930s.
The lifeline of western Wetterau is the United States coming from the Usinger area. Partly renatured in the Taunus, it touches Ober-Mörlen and Bad Nauheim, where it was formerly used to drive the sucker rods for brine extraction.
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Image: Thomas Klein
A stroke of luck from an archaeological point of view. Because the military camps and watchtowers showed hardly any traces of destruction, it was possible to make at least basic statements about their content and shape and risk reconstructions. It would not have been possible to rebuild one of the most unusual watchtowers in any other way in 1926, thanks to the patron Gustav Oberländer, who had become prosperous in the USA. Built on the almost 400 meter high Gaulskopf north of the Kapersburg, it was almost twice as large as the standard towers with a height of over 20 meters and a floor area of 64 square meters.
It probably served as a signal station visible from afar for flags or smoke signals between the Wetterau and the Taunus ridge, which had long been threatened by the restless Chatten. This corner impressively reveals the efforts that were made to secure it. In one of the most spectacular sections of the entire Limes, the military strategists mastered 200 meters in altitude over a good two kilometers from the Usatal, and that in front of gorge-like flanks over swampy ground. Due to a lack of visibility, there were small forts above and below, as well as the signal tower on the Gaulskopf.
Directions:
The village of Langenhain-Ziegenberg, part of Ober-Mörlen, was chosen as the entry point into the Roman world in order to also include the archaic Marienkapelle on the Holzberg. The bus stops centrally at Usinger Straße (B 275). Then continue briefly in the direction of travel and before the gas station turn left over the near Usa to the forest. Parking is less cheap. It is best to leave the car on the main road (direction towards Fauerbach) or in the Vogelthal hiking car park to the east. From there you walk next to Usinger Straße up to the level of the motel and cross the Usa opposite; over right on the paved path to the edge of the forest where the green oak leaf, red line and black triangle markers are ready. The latter become relevant when they open up the possibility of skipping the Marienkapelle with their left turn after 300 meters.