Fortress of Legio XXX Ulpia Victrix (Brigetio)
About
Trajan raised Legio XXX Ulpia Victrix for the Dacian wars — the thirtieth legion, hence the number, and Ulpia for his own family name. When Legio XI Claudia left Brigetio for Durostorum on the lower Danube, XXX Ulpia Victrix took the vacated Pannonian fortress in 105 CE, and it holds the place through the whole of 117. It moves on only in 122, to Vetera on the Rhine, as part of a three-way shuffle: Hadrian sends Vetera's Legio VI Victrix across to Britain to build his wall, and Legio I Adiutrix comes back from the East to reclaim Brigetio.
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
Nearby
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 →