Jupiter Dolichenus sanctuary at the Vetus Salina Roman fort site, Adony, Hungary · Wikimedia Commons

Vetus Salina

Auxiliary FortPannonia Inferior · Adony, HungaryBuilt 100 CE

About

Named in Ptolemy's Geography, this Danube-bank camp held the cohors II Alpinorum until it handed over to the cohors III Batavorum around 117-120 CE. A tribune of the Batavian cohort dedicated an altar to the goddess Vagdavercustis, otherwise unknown in Pannonia. A Jupiter Dolichenus sanctuary went up just outside the fort's northwest corner after the Marcomannic Wars. A late Roman cemetery of some 20 graves was later cut into the abandoned camp itself.

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.