Judging from the names, they probably used a repertory of camp plans, selecting the one appropriate to the length of time a legion would spend in it: tertia castra, quarta castra, etc., "a camp of three days", "four days", etc. They could throw up a camp under enemy attack in as little as a few hours. Each doorway provides entry to a large room, the sleeping quarters of one contubernium, or "squad" of about 10 men.Ĭamps were the responsibility of engineering units to which specialists of many types belonged, officered by architecti, "chief engineers", who requisitioned manual labor from the soldiers at large as required. Reconstructed barracks of a Castra Hiberna, or "winter camp". as soon as they have marched into an enemy's land, they do not begin to fight till they have walled their camp about nor is the fence they raise rashly made, or uneven nor do they all abide ill it, nor do those that are in it take their places at random but if it happens that the ground is uneven, it is first leveled: their camp is also four-square by measure, and carpenters are ready, in great numbers, with their tools, to erect their buildings for them." To this end a marching column ported the equipment needed to build and stock the camp in a baggage train of wagons and on the backs of the soldiers. Regulations required a major unit in the field to retire to a properly constructed camp every day. The best known type of castra is the camp, a military town designed to house and protect the soldiers and their equipment and supplies when they were not fighting or marching. As the word appears in both Oscan and Umbrian (dialects of Italic) as well as in Latin, it probably descended from Indo-European to Italic. The Latin word castra, with its singular castrum, was used by the ancient Romans to mean any building or plot of land reserved to or constructed for use as a military defensive position. (1)Principia (2)Via Praetoria (3)Via Principalis (4)Porta Principalis Dextra (5)Porta Praetoria (main gate) (6)Porta Principalis Sinistra (7)Porta Decumana (back gate)
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