Saldum Iron Gates Fort
About
Flavian-era troops founded Saldum at the mouth of the Kožica brook to guard the entrance to the Upper Gorge of the Iron Gates, one link in the chain of forts controlling the Danube's most dangerous stretch. The square fort measured 140 by 120 meters and bristled with 14 towers along rounded corners, a design that archaeologists have traced through five distinct building phases spanning the 1st through 6th centuries. Rome's engineers here worked hard to tame a river the Danube itself made nearly unnavigable. The Đerdap I hydroelectric dam eventually flooded the site, submerging the fort beneath the reservoir it helped inspire modern engineers to build over.
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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