Buridava Fort
About
Buridava was raised soon after Trajan's First Dacian War, part of the new chain of forts strung along the east bank of the Olt river to hold the freshly won province. Two of its auxiliary garrisons are named on finds: cohors II Flavia Bessorum and cohors IX Batavorum, part of three successive units posted there over the following decades. It briefly served as headquarters for the governor of Moesia Inferior's forces during the Dacian campaigns, complete with his personal guard, the pedites singulares. Romanian archaeologist Dumitru Berciu began excavating the site in 1950, uncovering a bronze statue of an emperor and coins ranging from Caligula's reign to Justinian's, testament to how long the settlement endured.
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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