Compasi Praesidium (Wadi Dagbagh)
About
Compasi sat on the Koptos-Berenike road roughly 85 Roman miles from Koptos, a fortified well the naturalist Pliny the Elder recorded by name in his account of the route to the Red Sea. Soldiers under the prefect Iulius Ursus built it as part of a chain of praesidia that made the desert crossing to Berenike survivable for merchants and imperial cargo alike. Its garrison held one of the harder stretches of the road, in the sandy country now known as Wadi Dagbagh. The fort's remains still mark the well that gave travelers their reason to stop there.
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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