Domitian's reign began with agression in the Wetterau by the Chatti who sustained effective hostilities against Rome for a decade. In CE 83 a preventive strike showed that the Roman army could not operate efficiently in the heavily wooded country. Behind the Roman vanguards, detachments of the Chatti severely dislocated communications and supply.

The Roman situation only improved when the soldiers began to hack wide tracks in the forest for patrols linking up the advanced units. These limites or limes were soon strengthened by wooden towers along the patrol way giving forward visibility and lateral communications. Linear frontier defences were thus created on the spot, out of necessity, and were to secure this frontier for nearly two hundred years.

Domitian's limes started on the Rhine opposite the boundary between the military commands of Upper and Lower Germany, marked today by the Vinxtbach (lat. finis). The Taunus and the Wetterau were enclosed, more or less on the line reached by Vespasian. Most of Domitian's forts were earthworks. In the Taunus and the Wetterau the limes separate the hill forts of the hostile tribes from their corn lands.