Aïn Schkour Roman Fort
About
The cohors I Asturum et Callaecorum, a unit raised in Roman Spain, garrisoned this castellum through the 1st and into the 2nd century AD, standing guard three kilometers north of Volubilis. The fort formed one link in a ring of camps protecting the provincial capital from raids across the nearby Limes Africanus. Stone quarries on the slopes of the Jebel Zerhoun just east of the fort supplied much of the building material later used to construct Volubilis itself. The cohors IV Tungrorum rebuilt the whole post in the 3rd century, long after the original Spanish garrison had moved on.
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
Nearby
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