Castra Troesmis
About
Legio V Macedonica, veteran of Trajan's Dacian Wars, was transferred to Troesmis on the lower Danube in 107 CE to guard against the Roxolani Sarmatians and the Black Sea Greek cities' hinterland. It remained based there through 117 CE and until the 160s, though a vexillation was sent east for Trajan's Parthian campaign (115-117).
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
- Ptolemy, Geography 3.10.5
Ptolemy's gazetteer of Moesia Inferior lists Troesmis among the region's towns with coordinates — a bare place-name entry.
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 →