In our trip to Germany we have visited the Roman fort of Saalburg, part of the 220 kilometres Limes barrier Raeatian section, one of the walls that have been marking the boundaries of the Roman empire for some centuries. The original fort (90 AD) covered an area of about 0,70 hectares and had a rectangular plan with corner towers. In 135 AD was built a larger fort, of 3,2 hectares (221 by 147 metres), over the earlier one, with four gates, a stone and timber defence wall with rampart walk and a double ditch. The remains of many internal buildings have been excavated and entirely reconstructed in stone and timber under the emperor William II. There are the granary, the commander’s quarters, the barrack blocks for the common soldiers and the headquarters buildings with the monumental assembly room the colonnaded courtyard, the rooms, the offices and the armouries. Interesting are the reconstructions of a barrack room, home to a squad of eight soldiers who lived in close quarters, of the richly decorated officer’s dining room, of the regimental shrine, the spiritual and religious centre of the fort, of the ovens and of the “restaurant”. Between the remains of the civilian settlement just outside the fort there is a bath house, a guest house, the cellars and the wells of the private houses and the reconstructions of the Jupiter column and of the Temple of Mithras. Near the fort there is a reconstruction of the limes at an ancient border crossing and a long elevation of the soil where it passed.

I quite liked the fort because it’s an impressive example of a Roman border fort, even if we have visited the remains outside the fort quite in a hurry, because they are in a wood and it was raining. The fort is worth of visit if you are in Hesse and I think that the Limes absolutely justifies the inscription, but in my opinion with the Limes in Germany and the Hadrian’s Wall in UK can be inscribed the whole boundaries of the Roman Empire in many countries. The state of conservation of the building is sometimes very good (the reconstructions), and sometimes they are ruined, but I think that the reconstruction of the fort, even if it has a historical value because it is of the 19th century, was a completely wrong decision that compromises completely its authenticity and the only authentic buildings are those ruined outside the fort. It is easy to reach Saalburg: you have to exit from the highway A5 going from Darmstadt to Bad Hersfeld at Bad Homburg and then take the road B456; you have to pay to visit the fort, but not the remains around it (if you want to see them well, walk on the Saalburg Circuit Road, 2,4 kilometres long, that brings you to the Limes and to the other remains).

Photo: Saalburg - Fort walls