Roman amphitheatre at Deva (Chester), base of Legio XX Valeria Victrix · Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Fortress of Legio XX Valeria Victrix (Chester)

Deva Victrix

FortBritannia · Chester, England, UKBuilt 88 CE

About

Deva was first built by Legio II Adiutrix around 70 CE, but II Adiutrix left Britain in the mid-80s and Legio XX Valeria Victrix took over the fortress around 88 CE, rebuilding it in local sandstone. At roughly 20 percent larger than any other legionary base in Britain, Deva stood out further for a unique elliptical building discovered in 1939 behind the modern market hall: two oval structures, one built atop the other, each with its own bathhouse and storerooms, found nowhere else in the Roman army. The oversized scale fed a longstanding theory that Rome intended to launch an invasion of Ireland from here, or even make Deva the future capital of the province. XX Valeria Victrix remained Deva's garrison through 117 CE and for the following two centuries.

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 2.3
Ptolemy's Geography lists Deva among the towns of the Cornovii and explicitly identifies it as the camp of Legio XX Victrix.