Budapest-Albertfalva Roman Fort

Albertfalva

Auxiliary FortPannonia Inferior · Budapest (District XI), HungaryBuilt 50 CE

About

A palisade fort with double ditches and towers went up on the Albertfalva plain in the mid-1st century AD, sized to hold a full 500-strong cavalry unit guarding the gap between Aquincum and Campona. Builders rebuilt the whole camp in stone after AD 106, just as Trajan was wrapping up the Dacian wars a few years before his death. Sarmatian raiders from across the Danube destroyed the fort more than once, and each time Roman troops rebuilt it rather than abandon the post. The vicus that grew up around the garrison eventually sprawled across an enormous 72-hectare area.

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.