Castra Novae
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.
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 →