Mautern Roman Fort
About
Roman auxiliaries dug the first moat-and-rampart camp at Favianis in the 1st century AD, planting a permanent garrison on the Noric Danube limes. Stone walls replaced the earthwork defenses in the following century, and the base anchored this stretch of frontier for hundreds of years afterward. A horseshoe-shaped tower from the fort's western defenses still stands today, one of the best-preserved pieces of Roman military architecture on the whole Austrian Danube. The Renaissance building known as the Göttweigisches Haus in modern Mautern was built directly on top of the old Roman ramparts.
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
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →