Alisca
About
Roman itineraries list this fort as 'Alisca ad latus,' set on the Báta stream south of Szekszárd on the Danube's right bank. An inscribed stone recorded soldiers likely lost when a unit shipped out to Moesia around 98-99 CE, pointing to a late-1st-century garrison. Its true location was long misplaced at Szekszárd's Kálvária hill before researcher Mór Wosinsky reassigned it to Őcsény. It filled the gap on the limes road between Lugio and Alta Ripa.
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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