Fortlet ad Throp
About
Throp's fortlet sat on a spur above the Poltross Burn, its square turf-and-stone ramparts enclosing barely a quarter of a hectare. Like its sister post at Haltwhistle Burn, its whole purpose was watching a single river crossing on the Stanegate road, decades before Hadrian's Wall's own milecastles took over the job a few hundred meters to the north.
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
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 →