Besseriani Fort
About
Ad Maiores was built in 104 or 105 CE on the orders of Minicius Natalis, legate of the Third Augustan Legion, to anchor the desert edge of Numidia's frontier southeast of the Aures mountains at Henchir Besseriani, on the Saharan piedmont of the Nemencha massif some five kilometers south of the oasis of Negrine. Two inscriptions recorded in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, CIL VIII 2478-2479, once stood on triumphal arches, one near the camp's west gate and another at a gate of the civilian settlement that grew up beside it. It marks the Trajanic-era origin of the fortified line that would later be extended and consolidated as the Fossatum Africae, and in 117 CE its garrison still watched the same stretch of desert edge.
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 →