Outside the Saalburg Fortress

Here's another quick picture post, showing the vicus outside the Saalburg. Almost all Roman frontier forts attracted a settlement at their threshold where the inofficial families of the soldiers, craftsmen and traders lived. Some of those villages developed from the local huts into a more sophisticated place with stone-built forum, baths and temples.

The main gate seen from the outside
Contrary to the fortress, the vicus has not been reconstructed except for the mithraeum, but the foundations that appeared during excavations in the 19th century have been preserved.

Foundations of the guest house
The houses themselves were made of timber, but they had stone cellars serving as storage rooms, and many of them had a small stone walled room that held the hearth. Most of them had a vegetable garden at the back.

Foundations of a house, with the fort wall in the background
The rectangular houses were arranged along a main road leading to the fort, facing the road with the smaller side. They look so much alike that it is assumed they were erected according to a Roman design.

Roman layout - a street in the vicus
The vicus brought to light a number of finds from Roman everyday life, toys, tools, terra sigillata (of course, lol). Most of them are shown in the Saalburg museum.

One of the gate towers and the fortress wall
I'll leave the baths and the mansio, the guest house, for another little picture post. Not that you can see very much, my visit of the Saalburg fell into the very rainy summer of 2007 and the rain really showed off that day. *grin*