Gnotzheim Fort
About
Mediana was among the oldest forts on the Raetian limes, raised in wood and earth under Domitian in the late first century at the northern foot of the Hahnenkamm ridge, some six kilometers behind the frontier line it helped guard as a rear-guard post. Its ancient name survives on the Tabula Peutingeriana, the Roman road map that recorded troop stations across the empire. A military diploma confirms a cavalry cohort, the Cohors V Bracaraugustanorum, raised generations earlier in Lusitania, garrisoned here by 107 CE. Its stone rebuild, dated by inscription to 144 CE and garrisoned afterward by the Cohors III Thracum, came decades after the 117 CE snapshot, when the fort's timber-and-earth defenses and Lusitanian horsemen were still in place.
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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Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →