Abandoned Fortifications in Jordan: A New Perspective on Rome's Desert Frontier

Greg Fisher - McGill University

Since 1975, the southern Limes Arabicus, Jordan's fortified desert frontier zone, has increasingly engaged the attention of archaeologists. While an intensive debate over the origin and purpose of Jordan's military system continues, the widespread fifth-century abandonment of the fortifications -- the subject of this paper -- has also never been convincingly explained. Did Justinian decide to disband the frontier army and rely on confederated Arab tribesmen, as reported by Procopius (S.T. Parker's view), or did a shift in the realities of Arab-Roman relations no longer warrant a fortified frontier (after D. Graf)? This essay looks at the problem from a wider perspective, suggesting that well before Justinian, the Limes Arabicus was a low priority for the policy makers in Constantinople. The disastrous expedition against the Vandals in 468 and the persistent instability in Italy held Byzantium's fiscal and military attention for much of the fifth century, and the dangerous threat posed by a resurgent Persian state preoccupied diplomats and soldiers in the East. Furthermore, a constant demand for soldiers for Byzantium's volunteer army bled the over-defended frontier zone of troops which were more valuably deployed against the organised Persian military than the local threat of the nomadic Arabs. Ultimately, Arabs allied to Byzantium were more effective against such raiders and the conversion of many tribes to Christianity secured a common ground with the Byzantine government. Furthermore, a revealing perspective into the Byzantine thought-world is visible in fifth- and sixth-century authors (especially John Malalas), who suggest that Constantinople viewed Arabia as a peripheral terra incognita, where undesirables and fugitives were exiled. Dictated by powerful external forces, Byzantium's fifth-century policy towards Arabia seemed measured and rational at the time; nevertheless, it had profound consequences, for when  the armies of Mohammed moved north in the seventh century, they faced depleted defences and little organised resistance.