Almus
About
A Roman road station and fort rose on the site of an older Thracian settlement, with the stone fortress itself built at the start of the 2nd century as part of Ratiaria's administrative district. Its pentagon-shaped circuit, roughly 4 hectares in area, carried round towers at each angle. A 1986-1990 excavation by the Lom Museum of History uncovered its structure in detail, and a later rescue dig found the western gate. Bulgaria declared the site a monument of national importance in 1971.
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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