Vetera II
About
Legio VI Victrix moved from its older camp at Novaesium (Neuss) to the single-legion fortress Vetera II near Xanten around the turn of the 1st/2nd century CE, and was still garrisoned there in 117 CE, forming (with X Gemina) the backbone of the lower Rhine defense. It stayed at Vetera II until 122 CE, when Hadrian personally brought it to Britain to help build Hadrian's Wall, at which point XXX Ulpia Victrix took over Vetera II — a transfer that postdates this map's 117 CE snapshot, so VI Victrix (not XXX Ulpia Victrix) is the correct 117 CE occupant of this site.
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
- Tacitus, Histories 4.21-30
Tacitus gives an extended narrative of the siege of the legionary camp at Vetera during the Batavian revolt, covering Civilis's blockade, the failed relief efforts, and the garrison's eventual surrender.
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 →