Ruins of the principia (headquarters) of the Novae legionary fortress, Svishtov, Bulgaria (Legio I Italica) · Wikimedia Commons

Fortress of Legio I Italica (Novae)

Castra Novae

FortMoesia Inferior · near Svishtov, BulgariaBuilt 69 CE

About

Legio I Italica, raised by Nero in 66-67 CE from Italian recruits, was posted to Novae on the lower Danube by Vespasian in 69-70 CE and remained there for the rest of its long service (into the 5th century). Its timber-and-earth camp was rebuilt in stone during the Trajanic period (98-117 CE), so by the 117 CE snapshot the legion occupied a substantially stone fortress. Detachments served in Trajan's Dacian and Parthian campaigns, but the main base stayed at Novae throughout.

What happened here

A legionary fortress holds five thousand men and is laid out to the same plan everywhere, so a transferred soldier knows his way around on the first day. Two main streets cross at the headquarters building, where the standards and the pay chest are kept in a sunken strongroom under guard. Around it: the commander's house with a courtyard garden, granaries raised on stone piers, a hospital, workshops, and long barrack blocks divided into rooms for eight men who cook and mess together. Training is daily, and building work is constant — soldiers make their own bricks, tiles and boots. A civilian town grows against the walls, with bars, traders and the unofficial families of men who are not legally allowed to marry.

In ancient writing

Procopius, Buildings (De Aedificiis) 4.6
Procopius lists Novae among the Danube-line fortresses in Moesia that Justinian's engineers repaired and strengthened.