Hyssos Limen

Auxiliary FortCappadocia · near Araklı, Trabzon Province, Turkey

About

A small Roman garrison held this fortified harbor at the mouth of the Hyssos River, roughly 34 kilometers east of Trapezus on the Black Sea coast. The cohors Apuleia civium Romanorum manned its walls, guarding an anchorage on the coastal road running east from Trapezus. Governor Arrian stopped here during his 131 CE inspection tour of the Pontic garrisons and watched the soldiers drill with javelins. The site is now identified with the harbor at Araklı, near Sürmene.

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.