A snapshot of the Balkans after the Romans stabilized the Danube frontier in 602 CE. Though the Avars controlled lands from the Alps to Crimea, they had mostly settled their families on the Pannonian Plain (the grasslands on either side of the Middle Danube, basically where the river takes a sharp bend north of Sirmium).…

Here’s what the region looked like after the Lombards settled west of the Gepids at Justinian’s invitation. Note how the Gepids held lands along the south bank of the Danube to better protect their capital at Sirmium, and how the Romans still held the city of Sucidava on the north bank of the river, such…

​Here’s what the Balkans looked like in 535 CE just after emperor Justinian inaugurated Justiniana Prima, his new city in the middle of the Diocese of Dacia that acted as the centrepiece of his defensive system in the region. Note the key cities on either side of the Danube, as well as the arrival of…

Below is a map of what the Balkans looked like in 493 CE. The Gepid kingdom included the lands of the original province of Dacia, plus territory to the west and north which hadn’t been part of the Roman empire. ​If we take a wider view of the Mediterranean world at this moment, we see…

Below, you can see the Balkan portion of the Roman empire. Constantinople’s location near the Danubian frontier allowed the emperor to quickly respond to threats from that direction, but it also put the capital at risk. To strengthen the empire’s Balkan defenses, Constantine pushed his armies beyond the Danube, defeated the Sarmatian Iazyges and the…

Below, you can see Diocletian’s reformed empire in the year 300 CE. The Mediterranean world was divided into four regions, each ruled by an emperor with a capital near the border. Diocletian oversaw the eastern part, which combined Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. His heir, Galerius, governed the Danubian district, which united Pannonia, Moesia, and Thrace.​Maximian…

The map above shows what the Mediterranean world looked like in 270 CE: while the Roman empire retained power in the centre, a breakaway state formed around Gaul in the West, and one around Palmyra in the East. To help you better understand how our local theatre fits into the larger crisis, I’ve highlighted the…

Here is a look at Dacia in 198 CE after emperor Septimius Severus elevated several settlements to the status of city and expanded the borders of the province by pushing the Olt frontier to the east. The map differentiates between cities (municipium), which were urban centres with a certain degree of autonomy, and colonies (colonia),…

This is what Roman domains looked liked north of the Danube in 124 CE after Hadrian’s reorganization of the region. The empire relinquished the territory it had added to Moesia Inferior, and the Sarmatian Roxolani moved to the plains east of the Olt; there they found Dacians that had lived in the area for hundreds…

Here is what the Carpathian region looked like in 109 CE following Trajan’s expansion of the empire and the founding of the first Roman city north of the Danube, Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augusta Dacica.