Lincoln
About
The Ninth Legion Hispana garrisoned a fortress on this hilltop above the River Witham from around 60 CE, before marching north to found York around 71 CE. The Second Legion Adiutrix briefly took their place before it too departed for Chester around 77 to 78 CE, ending seventeen years of continuous legionary occupation. Sometime after 86 CE the emptied fortress was formally refounded as a colonia, a chartered town for retired soldiers. By 117 CE Lincoln had been a civilian colonia for roughly three decades, its legionary ramparts replaced by the walls of a full Roman city.
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.
Sources
Nearby
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 →