engleski

Justinian I and the so-called limes maritimus

The hypothesis about the so-called limes maritimus, which has been devised to describe a network of maritime strongholds along the coast and on the islands of the eastern Adriatic in the Justinianic and post-Justinianic ages, has become one of the topoi of Croatian historiography of Late Antiquity. The late professor Mate Suić was one of its most distinguished proponents. This hypothesis has recently been contested. The aim of the paper is to present the hypothesis and discuss anew the evidence that has been adduced to its support. The intention is to offer new insights and firmly dismiss the hypothesis from the current historiographic terminology repository. This is not to say that the creation in the time of Justinian I and later of the network of maritime strongolds on the eastern Adriatic was not a systematic and continuing effort, but one which did not primarily involve a military defense purpose, as would the term limes imply, but rather served a navigation purpose and, in some measure, may have also had a refugial function.

Justinian I; limes maritimus; eastern Adriatic; maritime fortifications

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