Roman Legionary Fortresses and the Cities of Modern Europe Author(S): Thomas H
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Roman Legionary Fortresses and the Cities of Modern Europe Author(s): Thomas H. Watkins Source: Military Affairs, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Feb., 1983), pp. 15-25 Published by: Society for Military History Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1987828 . Accessed: 09/05/2011 18:10 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=smh. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Society for Military History is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Military Affairs. http://www.jstor.org RomanLegionciry fortresses aond the Ctiesof ModernEurope by Thomas H. Watkins Western Illinois University England the natives to take up city life. Agricola made good use of the IN assessing the Roman contributionto westernhistory, it is Winter: customaryto stress what may be broadlytermed the imperial achievement: the acquisitionand maintenanceof an empirefor For, to accustom to rest and repose throughthe charms several centuriesand the conversionof conqueredpeoples from ofluxury a populationscattered and barbarous and there- foreinclined to war, Agricolagave privateencouragement One of the strongest subjects to partnersin Roman civilization. and public aid to the buildingof temples, courts of justice agents in this imperial achievementwas the army, whose role and dwelling-houses,praising the energeticand reproving included much more than its primaryfunction of conquest and the indolent.Thus an honourablerivalry took the place of defense. The army was a powerfulfactor in Romanization.In- compulsion.He likewise provided a liberal education for deed, lifein the army was probablythe mosteffective means of thesons ofthe chiefs, and showedsuch a preferencefor the spreadingthe Roman way oflife throughout the provinces of the naturalpowers of the Britons over the industry of the Gauls Rome now Empire, especially among those classes ofthe populationwhich that they who lately disdained the tongue of coveted its eloquence. Hence, too, a likingfor our styleof suppliedmost of the recruits. Latin was thelanguage ofthe army, dress, and the "toga" became fashionable. Step by step and the soldiers tookit withthem wherever they served. Count- they were led to the things which dispose to vice, the less thousandsof people acquired at least a veneer ofromanitas lounge,the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in theirig- throughservice in or contactwith the military. The Roman army norance theycalled civilization,when it was but a part of also contributedto the urbanizationof westernEurope in that a their servitude. numberof its camps have lived on throughtime to become mod- (Agricola 21; Modern Library trans.) erncities. Examples ofthis legacy fromEngland and Europe, not as oftenobserved as they ought to be, are the subject of the Armycamps stimulatedeconomic growth and quasi-municipal presentstudy. developmentall along thefrontiers, and threetypes of commun- Two preliminarypoints are to be noted. First, in the early ityemerged. The first,canabae ("huts, sheds"), consistedof the centuriesof the Empire therewere essentiallytwo kindsof sol- collectionof buildings- workshops,warehouses, stores, inns, diers: legionaries and auxiliaries. The formerwere recruited houses, brothels- located adjacent to legionaryand auxiliary fromRoman citizens and served for 20 years in the legions of bases everywherein the Empire. Their inhabitantsserved the some 5,200men; the latterwere drawn fromthe non-citizenna- manyneeds ofthe garrisons - freshfoods, leather goods, drinks, tive peoples, served 25-yearenlistments in the infantrycohorts women - and the soldiers doubtless welcomed theirpresence. and cavalry "wings" of either 500 or 1,000men, and received Equally certainlythe canabae did somethingto Romanize many Roman citizenshipon discharge. Second, writersin English cus- thousands of provincials. The extentto which canabae contri- tomarilydesignate legionary bases as fortresses,and all smaller butedto urbangrowth is notso clear, forthough they tended to be bases, whetherfor auxiliary units or detachmentsof legions, as more or less permanentcommunities (given that army units forts.It is withthe fortressesalone thatwe are here concerned. remained in the same camps foryears), theywere oftenrather The Romans regarded city life as synonymouswith civilized ramshackle,unplanned affairs, straggling along one or tworoads life: "urban" was civilized,"rustic" and "rural" and were not. leading to one of the main gates of a base. The canabae of a More important,it was Roman policy to use cities as units of fortresswere morelikely to exhibittrue municipal features than governmentwhenever possible, workingthrough them where were those of the small auxiliary forts.Further, it is probable theyalready existedand establishingnew ones wherethere were that canabae were under the jurisdictionof the military,whose none. SometimesRome foundedcolonies of discharged veterans officersregarded them as necessaryevils and deniedthem much both to reward the time-servedsoldiers and to impress the na- in the way of developmentand self-government;canabae were tives withurban life.Such cities were intendedto be showplaces on army property(territorium legionis) and could be abolished of Roman grandeur,deliberately designed to impress all who at the command of the military.2 visited or resided in them. As the second-centuryA.D. writer The second type of communityoriginating in proximityto Aulus Gellius put it, colonies were "littlecopies and images" of armybases was thevicus. Oftengrowing up a mile or moreaway Rome, reflectingthe glory of the capital in theprovinces (Noctes from the fortand so not on army land, the vicus was a true Atticae 16.13.9.).Colonies were thehighest category of city in the communityof its own,legally independentof the militarycom- Empire, bothprestigious and privileged,for they mirrored the mand. Many wealthymerchants took up residencein thevici, as magnificenceof Rome and generallypossessed valuable rightsof did retiredsoldiers and provincialsanxious to get ahead. Vete- self-governmentand tax-exemptionas well. Theyoften served as rans, who were fairlywell Romanized aftertheir long tours of provincialcapitals and centers of the imperial cult (worshipof duty,tended to marrynative women and settle down afterdis- the goddess Roma and the deifiedemperors). As examples we charge in thevici near the bases wheretheir units had longbeen can pointto Antioch-by-Pisidiain Asia Minor,Colchester in Bri- stationed.Generous provisions of discharge extended citizenship tain,Cologne in Germany,Lyon in France, Merida in Spain, and to theveterans' wives and childrenand thuspromoted extensive Timgad in Africa.1At a lowerlevel, Tacitus describes the policy Romanizationin these towns.As a consequence, some of these ofAgricola as governorof Britain in 80 A.D. workingto persuade places attained considerablesize, thoughthere was a wide gra- FEBRUARY 1983 15 dationin them.At theupper end, some vici near fortressesor the more importantauxiliary forts became sufficientlyRomanized CAERLEON (ISCA) fis.2I to be recognizedas municipiaor even, by theearly thirdcentury A.D., promotedto coloniae.3 This developmentwas evidently given officialencouragement along the Danube and in Dacia, where cities as in to be most began vici. York England appears -3~~~~~ - analogous,the vicus growingup across theOuse fromthe fortress and beinggranted colonial status ca. 211-217.At thelower end of the spectrum,there was littleto distinguishvicus fromcanabae at the more remotefrontier posts. What,for instance, should we make ofVindolanda on Hadrian's Wall? It was a prettymiserable place whencompared with the great vici ofthe Danube, butyet its PRINCIPIAI inhabitantsas the vici Vindolandesseshad enoughsense ofcom- (H Q) munityto dedicate an altar to Vulcan.4 The thirdand mostimportant type of community under consid- erationhere is thatwhich originated as or in - notnear or beside VIA~~~I~ - a legionaryfortress. As always thereis variation,and no single statementis valid everywhere.In essence, however,the situation is fairlysimple. Sometimes fortressesof the early Empire be- came cities afterthe end ofthe Roman period.In otherinstances therewas an intermediatephase: aftersome years or decades of occupationa legion abandoned its fortressto move to a position closer to the frontier,and the old base was convertedinto a civilian colonia whichin turnendured through the Medieval into modern times. England affordstwo examples of the former, Chesterand York, and twoof the latter, Gloucester and Lincoln. In bothtypes, what is of interestis