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Oasis Forts of Legio III Augusta on the Routes to the Fezzan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

R. G. Goodchild
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Extract

The two well-preserved Roman fortresses to be described in this paper have been known for many years. They were first brought to European notice by the British-sponsored geographical expeditions of the nineteenth century, when Tripoli was the spring-board for repeated attempts to find a route into Central Africa. Although important discoveries have been made in one of these forts (Bu Ngem) in more recent years, no detailed ground-plans have previously been published.

The following notes and illustrations are primarily intended to fill this lacuna in the documentation of the African limes; but it is hoped that they may also serve to increase our knowledge of early third-century trends in Roman military architecture. The European frontiers of the Roman Empire have yielded, and are still yielding, numerous examples of first- and second-century forts, and equally numerous examples of the forts erected during the later-third and early-fourth centuries, when barbarian invasion threatened the whole Roman world.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 22 , November 1954 , pp. 56 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1954

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References

1 I must here express my indebtedness to Lt.-Col. P. J. Sandison, Sudan Defence Force, and to Capt J. James, 14/20 King's Hussars, for enabling me to visit Bu Ngem in 1947 and Gheria el-Garbia in 1953; to Air Headquarters, R.A.F. Malta, for arranging an air reconnaissance of these sites in 1950, and allowing me to fly in a Lancaster aircraft (pilot: Fl./Lieut. Hillier) to obtain air photographs; to Mr. Duncan Black for the restored elevation of the main gateway of Gheria el-Garbia; and to Cpl. Day, 14/20 Hussars, and the Department of Antiquities of Tripolitania for some of the photographs here reproduced.

2 Lugli, G., ‘Castra Albana I–II’, Ausonia ix (1919), pp. 211–65Google Scholar, and x (1921), pp. 210–59. Recent air photographs suggest that the plan of the legionary fort reproduced as pl. IX in the first of these articles is slightly inaccurate, the outline of the walls being more regular than is shown. The overall dimensions of the fort are 435 × 230 metres.

3 The Porta Praetoria has been fully revealed by war damage. See Fasti Archaeologici i (1946), no. 1932Google Scholar.

4 Pliny, , Hist. Nat. V, 5, 35–7Google Scholar. Cf. P. Romanelli in Rendiconti Acc. Lincei, 1950, pp. 472–92.

5 Ibid. V, 5, 38. Solinus 29, 6. The ‘iter praeter caput saxi’ followed by Festus cannot be identified with certainty. It may well have been the central route, Tripoli–Mizda–Gheriat.

6 Marinus of Tyre, cited by Ptolemy, I, 8, 4–9; I, 10, 2. Agysimba cannot be precisely located.

7 Caputo, G., ‘Scavi Sahariani’, Monumenti Antichi xli (1951), pp. 201–442Google Scholar.

8 Spartianus, , vita Severi, 18, 3Google Scholar. Cf. Victor, Aurelius, Caes, 20, 19Google Scholar.

9 Under the Caramanli rulers of Tripoli, in the early nineteenth century, Bu Ngem was recognised as the northern boundary of the Fezzan, and slaves who died beyond this point during their journey to the coast were held to be the loss of the Pasha of Tripoli, and not of the ruler of the Fezzan. Lyon, G. F., Narrative of travels in Northern Africa in 1818–20 (London, 1821), p. 66Google Scholar.

10 Ibid. p. 65–6, with plate.

11 R. Cagnat, L'armée romaine d'Afrique, pp. 555 et seq.

12 Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania = IRT (Rome, 1952), nos. 914–16Google Scholar.

13 Bartoccini, R., ‘La fortezza romana di Bu Ngem’, Africa Italiana ii (1928), pp. 50–8Google Scholar. IRT, nos. 918–19.

14 IRT, no. 913.

15 Ibid., no. 920.

16 Cf. Romanelli, P., Il limes romano in Africa (Rome, 1939), p. 13Google Scholar and pl. IV B. Another small fortified building adjoins the small oasis of Mago, seven kilometres north-west of Gheria el-Garbia.

17 In the well-preserved fortified building of Gasr el-Banat, in the Wadi Nfed (Haynes, D. E. L., Ancient Tripolitania (Tripoli, 1946), pl. 20)Google Scholar; and in a very ruinous building at Faschia, in the Wadi Zemzem.

18 These fortified farms, so common in Tripolitania, are discussed summarily in Journal of Roman Studies xl (1950), pp. 34–7Google Scholar.

19 Barth, H., Travels in North and Central Africa (London, 1857), i, pp. 126–31Google Scholar. Vischer, H. (Across the Sahara, London, 1910, pp. 78–80Google Scholar) gives a description and a photograph, showing that the ruins have changed little in the last half-century.

20 Cagnat, op. cit., p. 555.

21 IRT, no. 896. We could not find this text in 1953.

22 IRT, no. 897. The reading is certain, but the meaning entirely obscure.

23 Ibid., no. 895.

24 CIL XIII, 6509; cf. O.R.L. Strecke 10 (Lief. 44), p. 85. The meaning of burgus is also discussed by Wolff, in Röm-Germ. Bericht viii (1917), pp. 80–1Google Scholar.

25 Beshevlyev, V., Epigraphic Studies (Sofia, 1951), p. 33, no. 55Google Scholar.

26 IRT, nos. 907–9.

27 By Pavoni, in 1913 (Rivista Coloniale viii (1913), 2, p. 315Google Scholar) and by Bilotti in 1935 (MS. report in archives of Antiquities Department of Tripolitania). A scientific re-examination of the asnam is badly needed.

28 Procopius, de aedif. VI, B, 10.

29 St. Joseph, J. K. S., ‘The Roman Fort at Brancaster’, Antiquaries Journal xvi (1936), pp. 444–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.