Bata Danube Watchtower
About
Survey teams mapping the Hungarian Danube limes identified this burgus near Bata as the second in a numbered sequence built out from the fort at Ad Statuas, further downriver toward Mursa. Like its neighbors along this stretch, it belongs to the wave of stone watchtower construction attested by Commodus's building inscriptions in the 180s CE. That places its construction some seventy years after this snapshot, when the frontier here was still an unfortified riverbank patrolled from the nearest garrison.
What happened here
A small stone tower with a timber top, sited so that it can see the next one along the line. Half a dozen men live in it. They watch the ground in front, and they watch the tower on either side. A signal — fire and smoke at night, something visible by day — passes a warning down the chain far faster than a rider can, though it can only carry a message that was agreed in advance. The rest of the time it is a lookout post on a road, a river crossing or a frontier line, and the work is boredom punctuated by inspections. Supplies come up from the fort behind. Towers on a frontier stand within sight of each other for hundreds of miles.
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 →