Isaccea
About
Noviodunum guarded the last narrow crossing of the Danube before the river fans into its delta and the Black Sea beyond. Rome took the site in 46 CE, and it grew into the most important military and commercial town on this stretch of the frontier, eventually rising to municipium status. It headquartered the classis Flavia Moesica, the fleet that policed the lower Danube from the Iron Gates to Crimea, and gained extra importance as a logistics hub during Trajan's Dacian campaigns; the fleet's two-banked liburnian galleys, ferrying troops and supplies across the river, are carved into the reliefs of Trajan's Column in Rome, the clearest surviving picture of what its ships actually looked like.
What happened here
The fleet is quartered here and the base is built around getting ships out of the water. Slipways and covered sheds keep hulls dry through the winter, because a warship left afloat waterlogs and slows. Crews are provincials serving long terms, not citizens, and they train at the oar constantly in the harbour. Workshops turn out rope, pitch, sailcloth and oars in quantity; timber is stockpiled seasoned. The main fleets patrol against piracy, carry dispatches and move troops, and in practice they spend far more time on transport than on battle. Detachments are posted away for years at a stretch. A large base needs a lighthouse, a mole and a town, and it gets all three.
Sources
Nearby
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