Acropolis of Sardis · Wikimedia Commons

Sardis Acropolis

Arx Sardiana

FortAsia · Sart, Salihli, Manisa, TurkeyBuilt 700 BCE

About

A steep citadel rising some 300 meters above the plain, once called by Polybius the strongest fortress in the world. Croesus's Lydian kings ruled from its heights until Cyrus's Persian troops famously scaled its supposedly unclimbable cliffs by night in 546 BCE. Rome inherited it peacefully in 133 BCE, and its ancient walls still crowned the city when Trajan died in 117 CE. Coordinates are approximate, marking the fortified hilltop above the lower city.

What happened here

A legionary fortress holds five thousand men and is laid out to the same plan everywhere, so a transferred soldier knows his way around on the first day. Two main streets cross at the headquarters building, where the standards and the pay chest are kept in a sunken strongroom under guard. Around it: the commander's house with a courtyard garden, granaries raised on stone piers, a hospital, workshops, and long barrack blocks divided into rooms for eight men who cook and mess together. Training is daily, and building work is constant — soldiers make their own bricks, tiles and boots. A civilian town grows against the walls, with bars, traders and the unofficial families of men who are not legally allowed to marry.