Ein Gedi
About
A Roman garrison held this Dead Sea oasis village between the two Jewish revolts, drawn from the thousand-strong cohors I milliaria Thracum. Documents from the Babatha archive name its commanding centurion, Magonius Valens, who counted the oasis's leading Jewish families among his friends before the fighting resumed. The unit camped inside the settlement itself, its quarters bordering directly on a courtyard owned by one of those families. Ein Gedi's balsam groves, among the most valuable crops in the empire, made the posting a rich one. Bar Kokhba's rebels drove the garrison out of the village in 132 CE.
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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