Sidi Said Roman Fort
About
Rome garrisoned this castra with the cohors IV Gallorum equitata, a cavalry cohort from Gaul, as one of five camps ringing Volubilis against raiders crossing the Limes Africanus. Builders put the fort up during the 2nd century AD, part of a wider reinforcement of the Volubilis frontier that fell largely outside Trajan's reign. The garrison held the post for more than four centuries before Rome abandoned it around the 6th century AD, remarkably late for a Mauretanian frontier fort. Sidi Said today is little more than a hamlet, its Roman past visible only in scattered foundation stones.
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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