Castra Bostra
About
Legio III Cyrenaica moved from Egypt to garrison the newly annexed province of Arabia (106 CE) after Trajan's peaceful annexation of the Nabataean kingdom, founding a fortress at Bostra, the new provincial capital. GENUINE UNCERTAINTY FOR THE 117 CE SNAPSHOT: sources indicate the legion (or a large detachment) was pulled back to Egypt around 116-117 CE to help suppress the Kitos War/Jewish diaspora revolt, is attested together with XXII Deiotariana in Egypt in 119 CE, and only clearly returned to Bostra c. 120-127 CE. It is therefore genuinely unclear whether the legion's main body was physically at Bostra or in Egypt at the exact moment of Trajan's death in August 117. Pinned at Bostra as its official provincial post (both immediately before and after this disruption).
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.
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 →