Eining Roman Fort
About
Cohors IV Gallorum raised Abusina's first timber-and-earth rampart around AD 80 at the exact spot where the Danube road split from the Raetian limes road running south. The fort guarded a river crossing 30 kilometers southwest of Regensburg for well over a century before Alemanni raiders overran the frontier in 233. Soldiers here spent their days watching barge traffic on the Danube rather than fighting, and finds from the site include imported Samian ware and a small bathhouse built for off-duty comfort. Rome finally pulled the garrison in 254 as the Raetian limes collapsed.
What happened here
Five hundred men, sometimes a thousand, recruited from a province rather than from citizens, and often stationed a long way from where they were raised. Cavalry units get a bigger fort and far more stabling; the smell tells you which kind you are in before the plan does. The layout copies a legionary fortress at a quarter of the size — headquarters, commander's house, granaries, barracks, a bath house usually built outside the walls because of the fire risk. Duties are patrolling, escorting, customs, and policing rather than pitched battle. After twenty-five years a man is discharged with citizenship for himself and his children, recorded on a bronze diploma he keeps for life. A village grows outside the gate within a decade.
Sources
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