Redő Ferenc: Katonák Sallában (Zalalövő öröksége 1. Zalalövő, 2003)

the limes, which is another factor of military policy that had a decisive effect on the history of Salla. The eminent importance of the Pannonian border stretch of the empire became evident in the military conflict that reached as far as Italy. The enemy could relatively quickly get close to Rome from here marching around the Alps, and the province had a verylong borderline as compared to its territory. The victorious war, the prestige of the troops that excelled in the battles, the forts developed from justified carefulness, and the richly rewarded soldiers made the territories on the limes politically important and economically flourishing. This created a real rivalry for the Inter-Pannonian towns. This rivalry suffocated the towns, or at least abducted the younger generation to the flourishing towns on the borders. The coin and Samian ware circulation (Fig. 23) clearly shown that the settlement survived another generation after the Marcomann wars with significant territorial restrictions. By the second third of the 3

rd century it got practically depopulated. The period of the Severi, which was the most dynamically developing flourishing period in nearly the entire province, was the time of hopeless ageing and finally the total depopulation. The continuity of coin circulation was not broken, it only sank much lower than the average of the province. The reason is the Amber Road was continuously used (Fig. 24). This was the time when the ditches got filled up with debris and, at the same time, the find material that was not swept away by careful hands after the travellers had left. Civil epilogue in the 4

th century T

he restart in the 4

Ul century did not root in military policy any more, it was due to the reorganisation of the empire and the establishment of new centres and roads (Fig. 25). We could say that it was the result of an administrative action on the ruins of a practically' uninhabited former town, and as such it is beyond the topic of this conference. I would only like to mention with regard to the Salla of the 4

dl century that, owing to its geographical position, it was absolutely

7 unsuitable for the realisation of a defence strategy, and accordingly, the population that had lived here for 2-3 generations abandoned the settlement as soon as they had heard about the marauding groups of the resettled barbarians.