Tigava Castra
About
Tigava Castra guarded a river crossing on the road between Oppidum Novum and Malliana in central Mauretania Caesariensis, two Roman miles from the separate civilian town of Tigava. Ptolemy's Geography and the Antonine Itinerary both list the post as a fixed stop on the province's road network. An amphitheater later rose in the garrison town that grew up around the fort's walls. No surviving inscription records the year the camp itself was raised, though its place in the province's early road system points to an origin well before the second century.
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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