Dunafoldvar Danube Watchtower
About
This riverbank watchtower stood on a hill above the Danube, one link in the chain of burgi that Hungarian surveyors later catalogued along the ripa Pannonica between Aquincum and Intercisa. A series of inscriptions from the reign of Commodus records the emperor's engineers building these fortified watch-posts and praesidia along this stretch of river in the 180s CE. The tower therefore postdates this snapshot by more than six decades; in 117 CE the Danube bank here was still watched only by patrols from the nearest auxiliary forts.
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 →