Sanliurfa (Urfa)

Edessa

FortMesopotamia · Sanliurfa, TurkeyBuilt 116 CE

About

Trajan's general Lusius Quietus sacked Edessa in 116 CE, ending King Abgar VII's brief resistance and folding the client kingdom of Osroene into the new Roman province of Mesopotamia. A Roman garrison occupied the city that had hosted Trajan himself only months earlier, when Abgar had opened its gates to the emperor as an honored guest. Edessa controlled the strategic pass linking the plain of Harran to the roads running toward the Tigris and the Parthian heartland beyond. Its occupation lasted less than two years. Hadrian restored Osroene to a client king, Parthamaspates, within months of Trajan's death, ending direct Roman rule over the city until the later second century.

What happened here

A legionary fortress holds five thousand men and is laid out to the same plan everywhere, so a transferred soldier knows his way around on the first day. Two main streets cross at the headquarters building, where the standards and the pay chest are kept in a sunken strongroom under guard. Around it: the commander's house with a courtyard garden, granaries raised on stone piers, a hospital, workshops, and long barrack blocks divided into rooms for eight men who cook and mess together. Training is daily, and building work is constant — soldiers make their own bricks, tiles and boots. A civilian town grows against the walls, with bars, traders and the unofficial families of men who are not legally allowed to marry.