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Gonio Fortress
About
Roman engineers built this fort at the mouth of the Chorokhi River in the 70s CE, anchoring the northern end of Rome's Black Sea garrison chain along the Colchian coast. Its walls enclosed four and a half hectares, the largest Roman stronghold on that shore. Governor Arrian inspected the base in 131 CE and found five cohorts stationed there, an unusually heavy garrison for a frontier post. Excavators have since uncovered its bathhouses, barracks, and headquarters building on the site.
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
- Arrian, Periplus Ponti Euxini 6
- Pliny the Elder, Natural History 6.4
- https://www.brepolsonline.net/content/books/10.1484/M.WSA-EB.5.149700
- https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Gonio_Fortress
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/377210330_NEW_AND_REVISED_TILE_STAMPS_FROM_THE_ROMAN_FORT_OF_APSAROS_GONIO_GEORGIA
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