Ruckingen Fort

Castellum Rueckingen

Auxiliary FortGermania Superior · Erlensee, Hesse, Germany

Not standing in 117 CE

About

Ruckingen held the southeastern corner of the Wetterau limes where it met the River Kinzig, its roughly 140 by 180 meter stone walls replacing an older fort at Salisberg six kilometers southwest as the frontier line moved forward. Garrison was Cohors III Dalmatarum pia fidelis, a 500-strong infantry unit raised in Roman Dalmatia. Archaeological dating places construction somewhere between 110 and 125 CE, a window that straddles Trajan's death on 11 August 117 CE. The site's bathhouse was already being excavated as early as 1802-04, making it one of the earliest Roman military sites dug in the region. Since the fort cannot be confirmed complete by that date, it is marked absent from this snapshot rather than assumed finished.

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.