Templeborough

About

A timber-and-earth fort was raised on the north bank of the River Don at Templeborough sometime in the mid-first century CE, guarding a key river crossing in South Yorkshire. Excavators found evidence the fort had burned and been rebuilt at least twice before later builders replaced it with a stone-walled successor defended by an eighteen-foot ditch. The garrison appears to have held this crossing through Trajan's reign and into the following centuries. The entire site was buried beneath a First World War-era steelworks and has never been fully excavated.

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

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templeborough
• https://roman-empire.net/army/templeborough-roman-fort

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