Potaissa (castra)

Last updated
Potaissa
Castra Potaissa-5.jpg
Romania location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location within Romania
Alternative name(s)Patavissa, Patabissa, Patauissa, Patruissa, Patrouissa, Patreuissa [1] [2]
Known also asCastra of Turda
Founded during the reign of Marcus Aurelius
Founded168
Abandonedc. 4th-5th century
Attested by Tabula Peutingeriana
Place in the Roman world
Province Dacia
Administrative unit Dacia Apulensis
Administrative unit Dacia Superior
Directly connected to Napoca, (Colțești), (Războieni-Cetate), (Sânpaul)
Structure
— Stone structure —
Size and area573 m × 408 1 m (23.4 ha)
— Wood and earth structure —
Stationed military units
Legions
V Macedonica [3]
Location
Altitudec. 369 m
Place nameFortress' Hill
Town Turda
County Cluj
CountryFlag of Romania.svg  Romania
Reference
RO-LMI CJ-I-s-A-07208
RO-RAN 52268.01
Site notes
Recognition Monument istoric.svg National Historical Monument
ConditionRuined
Excavation dates1950

Potaissa was a legionary fortress and later a city in the Roman province of Dacia, located in today's Turda, Romania. [4]

Contents

It appears on the Tabula Peutingeriana (Segmentum VIII) as Patavissa between Salinae and Napoca.

Roman Dacia Roman Byzantine Gothic Walls Romania Plain.svg
Roman Dacia

History

Location Turda - Asezarea Potaissa si drumul roman.jpg
Location
Potaissa plan Potaissa plan.jpg
Potaissa plan

The Potaissa salt mines were worked in the area since prehistoric times.

The Dacians established a town that Ptolemy in his Geography calls Patreuissa, which is probably a corruption of Patavissa or Potaissa, the latter being more common.

It was conquered by the Romans between AD 101 and 106 in Trajan's Dacian Wars, together with parts of Decebal's Dacia. [5] The Romans kept the name Potaissa.

The city became a municipium, then a colonia.

The start of the Marcomannic Wars and murder of the governor Calpurnius Proculus led Rome to send the Legio V Macedonica from Troesmis to Potaissa around 168 AD to strengthen the north-western defenses of Roman Dacia. They built their legionary fortress nearby on the "Cetate" Hill as their base

It was used until 274 after which the legion was moved by Aurelian to Oescus on his withdrawal from Dacia.

The site

The fortress occupies an area of 23.4 ha, belonging to the group of the medium-size legionary fortresses. The fort wall had a perimeter of almost 2 km and its construction needed circa 25000 m3 of stone from the quarry at Sanduleşti. In the four corners of the fortress were trapezoidal-shaped bastions, and along each side was a gate. Via principalis, which provides access to the porta principalis dextra and porta principalis sinistra, was about 10 m wide. The whole fortress area was judiciously used (the cereal warehouses/horrea, the soldier's barracks of cohorts quingenaria and milliaria, the access roads etc.) so as to ensure all the supplies for over 5000 soldiers of the legion. The most important building examined archaeologically is that of the headquarters (principia).

The thermal baths, with an area of over 2,000 m2, are the biggest military thermae known in Dacia.

Aqueducts

The spring supplying the fort with water is at "The Spring of the Romans" southwest of Copăceni village, on the right side of the Turda - Petreștii de Jos road. [6] From here the water was led through an aqueduct about 5 km long to the fortress. A second aqueduct, starting from the same source, supplied water to the city of Potaissa also at a distance of about 5 km.

Milestone

The name Potaissa is recorded on the Milliarium of Aiton milestone dating from 108 AD [7] shortly after the Roman conquest of Dacia, and showing the construction of the road built by Cohors I Hispanorum miliaria from Potaissa to Napoca, by demand of the Emperor Trajan. [8] It indicates the distance of 10,000 feet (3,000 m) to Potaissa.

The complete inscription is: "Imp(erator)/ Caesar Nerva/ Traianus Aug(ustus)/ Germ(anicus) Dacicus/ pontif(ex) maxim(us)/ (sic) pot(estate) XII co(n)s(ul) V/ imp(erator) VI p(ater) p(atriae) fecit/ per coh(ortem) I Fl(aviam) Vlp(iam)/ Hisp(anam) mil(liariam) c(ivium) R(omanorum) eq(uitatam)/ a Potaissa Napo/cam / m(ilia) p(assuum) X". [9]

See also

Notes

  1. Schütte, Gudmund (1917). "Ptolemy's maps of northern Europe, a reconstruction of the prototypes". The Royal Danish Geographical Society. Retrieved 2013-05-04.
  2. Dana, Dan; Nemeti, Sorin (2014-01-09). "Ptolémée et la toponymie de la Dacie (II-V)". Classica et Christiana. p. 18. Retrieved 2014-03-30.
  3. Constantin C. Petolescu: Dacia - Un mileniu de istorie, Ed. Academiei Române, 2010, ISBN   978-973-27-1999-2
  4. Turda–Potaissa http://legionaryfortresses.info/turda.htm
  5. (in Romanian) "Epoca dacică" at the Turda City Hall site; accessed March 21, 2013
  6. The aqueducts of Potaissa https://www-romanaqueducts-info.translate.goog/aquasite/potaissa/index.html?_x_tr_sch=http&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB
  7. Lazarovici et al. 1997, pp. 202–3 (6.2 Cluj in the Old and Ancient Epochs)
  8. ARCHAEOLOGICAL REPERTORY OF ROMANIA. Archive Of The Vasile Parvan Institute Of Archaeology – Site Location Index Archived 2014-12-31 at the Wayback Machine
  9. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum , vol. III, the 1627, Berlin, 1863.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turda</span> Municipality in Cluj, Romania

Turda is a city in Cluj County, Transylvania, Romania. It is located in the southeastern part of the county, 34.2 km (21.3 mi) from the county seat, Cluj-Napoca, to which it is connected by the European route E81, and 6.7 km (4.2 mi) from nearby Câmpia Turzii.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Novae (fortress)</span> Roman legionary fortresses in northern Bulgaria

Novae was initially one of the few great Roman legionary fortresses along the empire's border, forming part of the defences along the Danube in northern Bulgaria. The settlement later expanded into a town in the Roman province of Moesia Inferior, later Moesia Secunda.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oescus</span> Ancient Roman city near Pleven, Bulgaria

Oescus, Palatiolon or Palatiolum was an important ancient city on the Danube river in Roman Moesia. It later became known as Ulpia Oescus. It lay northwest of the modern Bulgarian city of Pleven, near the village of Gigen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Troesmis</span>

Troesmis was an ancient Dacian town and later ancient Roman city and legionary fortress, a major site situated on the Danube and forming a key part of the Limes Moesiae frontier system. Around the fortress the Geto-Dacian town developed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Porolissum</span>

Porolissum was an ancient Roman city in Dacia. Established as a military fort in 106 during Trajan's Dacian Wars, the city quickly grew through trade with the native Dacians and became the capital of the province Dacia Porolissensis in 124. The site is one of the largest and best-preserved archaeological sites in modern-day Romania. It is 8 km away from the modern city of Zalău, in Moigrad-Porolissum village, Mirsid Commune, Sălaj County.

The history of Cluj-Napoca covers the time from the Roman conquest of Dacia, when a Roman settlement named Napoca existed on the location of the later city, through the founding of Cluj and its flourishing as the main cultural and religious center in the historical province of Transylvania, until its modern existence as a city, the seat of Cluj County in north-western Romania.

<i>Moesian Limes</i> Collection of Roman fortifications

The Moesian Limes is the modern term given to a linked series of Roman forts on the northern frontier of the Roman province of Moesia along the Danube between the Black Sea shore and Pannonia and dating from the 1st century AD. It was the eastern section of the so-called Danubian Limes and protected the Roman provinces of Upper and Lower Moesia south of the river. The eastern section is often called the limes Scythiae minoris as it was located in the late Roman province of Scythia Minor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amutria</span>

Amutria was a Dacian town close to the Danube and included in the Roman road network, after the conquest of Dacia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romanian archaeology</span>

Romanian archaeology begins in the 19th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Milliarium of Aiton</span>

Milliarium of Aiton is an ancient Roman milliarium (milestone) discovered in the 1758 in Aiton commune, near Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Dating from 108 AD, shortly after the Roman conquest of Dacia, the milestone shows the construction of the road from Potaissa to Napoca, by demand of the Emperor Trajan. It indicates the distance of ten thousand feet (P.M.X.) to Potaissa. This is the first epigraphical attestation of the settlements of Potaissa and Napoca in Roman Dacia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arutela</span>

Arutela was an ancient Roman fort in the Roman province of Dacia today near the town Călimănești. It lies on the left bank of the Olt River. It was part of the Roman frontier system of the Limes Alutanus,

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tibiscum</span>

Tibiscum was a Dacian town mentioned by Ptolemy, later a Roman fort and municipium. The ruins of the ancient settlement are located in Jupa, near Caransebeș, Caraș-Severin County, Romania. The Roman settlement here was one of the most important vestiges of classical antiquity in Banat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buridava (castra)</span> Fort in the Roman province of Dacia, present-day Romania

Castra Buridava was a fort in the Roman province of Dacia, part of the frontier system of the Limes Alutanus, and near the Dacian and Roman town of Buridava.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bersobis</span>

Bersobis was an ancient Dacian fortress conquered in Trajan's Dacian Wars with the Romans. It became a legionary fortress in the Roman province of Dacia in the 2nd century AD. It is located near the town of Berzovia, Romania.

Morisena was a castra in the Roman province of Dacia. Morisena was a Roman auxiliary camp and part of the outline in the western fortress chain of the Dacian Limes. It was located within the modern municipality of Cenad, Romania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Germisara (castra)</span>

Germisara was a fort in the Roman province of Dacia, in modern day Romania, in the village area of Cigmău, in Romania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apulum (castra)</span>

Apulum was a legionary fortress in the Roman province of Dacia from the 2nd to 4th centuries AD, located in today's Alba Iulia, Romania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman Dacia</span> Roman province (106–271/275)

Roman Dacia was a province of the Roman Empire from 106 to 271–275 AD. Its territory consisted of what are now the regions of Oltenia, Transylvania and Banat. During Roman rule, it was organized as an imperial province on the borders of the empire. It is estimated that the population of Roman Dacia ranged from 650,000 to 1,200,000. It was conquered by Trajan (98–117) after two campaigns that devastated the Dacian Kingdom of Decebalus. However, the Romans did not occupy its entirety; Crișana, Maramureș, and most of Moldavia remained under the Free Dacians.

This section of the timeline of Romanian history concerns events from Late Neolithic until Late Antiquity, which took place in or are directly related with the territory of modern Romania.