Xeron Pelagos Praesidium (Feisaleya)
About
Xeron Pelagos took its name, 'the dry sea,' from the flat, wind-scoured plain where the Roman army built it between the forts of Dios and Phalakron on the road to Berenike. Its garrison kept watch over one of the loneliest stretches of the desert route, where the absence of any landmark had given the station its name. Archaeologists excavating the site between 2010 and 2013 recovered the postal register of the fort's curator, a rare survival that names the soldiers who passed through the post. The excavated walls at Feisaleya now stand exposed to the same open plain that once made the station's name fitting.
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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