Rome builds castles ?

I would like to explore the feasability of castle building occuring earlier than the 9th C. They surely could not have been beyond the scope of the Romans, they were economical of manpower, the Romans had concrete. Castle building east of the Rhine might have pacified the Germanic tribes, it could have allowed the Romanisation of scotland, one of the things that strikes me about the later roman empire is the weakness of fortification. By Castles i mean including towers, motte and bailey, its a strange oversight that the Romans missed this. Well placed high stone/concrete towers at strategic rivers crossings and other points could have been very effective. I think im correct in saying that many Roman civil engineering projects were far bigger constructions than a lot of medieval castles/towers/forts.
 
I would like to explore the feasability of castle building occuring earlier than the 9th C. They surely could not have been beyond the scope of the Romans, they were economical of manpower, the Romans had concrete. Castle building east of the Rhine might have pacified the Germanic tribes, it could have allowed the Romanisation of scotland, one of the things that strikes me about the later roman empire is the weakness of fortification. By Castles i mean including towers, motte and bailey, its a strange oversight that the Romans missed this. Well placed high stone/concrete towers at strategic rivers crossings and other points could have been very effective. I think im correct in saying that many Roman civil engineering projects were far bigger constructions than a lot of medieval castles/towers/forts.

The later Roman fortreses looked a lot like castles.
This, for instance, is a reconstruction:
Arbeia_Roman_Fort_reconstructed_gateway.jpg
 
The biggest problem is that a castle is a private fortification.

Roman build impressive walls and fortification to protect towns or legion camps. Castles are protecting the lord's house, reserves and private little army.

Even the word castellum didn't existed in classical latin : it was stranger to the roman mentality.

What you need is probably a feudalisation or shattering of power in Rome, and you could have private fortification appears.
 
OK they were private but they didnt have to be.
Im not thinking of large legionary barracks but smaller stone/concrete circular towers, rather like the east franks used to govern and extend their power and territory into what became east germany. This is what rome failed to do east of the rhine.
 
OK they were private but they didnt have to be.
Im not thinking of large legionary barracks but smaller stone/concrete circular towers, rather like the east franks used to govern and extend their power and territory into what became east germany. This is what rome failed to do east of the rhine.

You mean outposts rather than castles then? Well, it's technically possible but i doubt that Rome, even at the weight of his power would have the logistical capacity to maintain such features a long time.

Furthermore, even if it was the case, i would say that the people in charge would have tied links with locals to strength their power, critically if they were far from the limes.
 

elkarlo

Banned
The biggest problem is that a castle is a private fortification.

Roman build impressive walls and fortification to protect towns or legion camps. Castles are protecting the lord's house, reserves and private little army.

Even the word castellum didn't existed in classical latin : it was stranger to the roman mentality.

What you need is probably a feudalisation or shattering of power in Rome, and you could have private fortification appears.

What if they started a Thema like system?
 
OK they were private but they didnt have to be.
Im not thinking of large legionary barracks but smaller stone/concrete circular towers, rather like the east franks used to govern and extend their power and territory into what became east germany. This is what rome failed to do east of the rhine.

This is what the Romans tried: the established fortified outposts. Only that the Romans had other means and built fortified cities and legion camps, something completely out of the scope of the Franks.

However, in a large scale uprising such as the Germanic one, castles wouldn't be much better, see the great Slav rising in 983 that ended the German rule east of the Elbe river.
 
On the Hadrian´s Wall, Rome did build "milecastles". Attached to the Wall, true, but small structures with size 15x15 to 20x20 m, intended for garrison of perhaps 20...30.

There were also bigger cohort castles (garrison around 500) and intermediate size castles.

How should Rome have deployed garrisons to hold Scotland north of Hadrian´s Wall? Why did Antonine Wall not work?
 
If you have a look at the Roman fortification on the "Saxon shore" such as Portchester, IMHO that comes pretty close to castles.

Also the Limes system between Rhine and Donau (likewise Hadrian's wall) can be translated as a series of castles linked by a linear fortification/communication/transport-line.

But the Romans cannot go much beyond that towards Medieval castles. As others pointed out, society is somewhat different. Castles are there to control a noble family's (castles within towns or as actual military bases as in Wales come later) estate and its agricultural output. The Roman equivalent is the "villa" - and once security increasingly demanded it, more and more villas actually became fortified. But that is more a private measure like a "gated community", not something the Imperium recommended.

Rome deals with a different scope. It needs a large field army to protect its territory in a way isolated, non-mobile strongholds cannot. And it is (even in late antiquity) a comparatively Urban-based society, therefore it needs to defend its cities and fortify them big style.
All of this eats up ressources, and Rome's ressources are not infinite either.
 
But the Romans cannot go much beyond that towards Medieval castles. As others pointed out, society is somewhat different. Castles are there to control a noble family's (castles within towns or as actual military bases as in Wales come later) estate and its agricultural output.
Plus the noble's knights. They can sally out to deal with any revolting peasants then return to sleep in safety. In effect castles are priimarily for internal security, which is why the Normans built so many of them across England.

Rome deals with a different scope. It needs a large field army to protect its territory in a way isolated, non-mobile strongholds cannot. And it is (even in late antiquity) a comparatively Urban-based society, therefore it needs to defend its cities and fortify them big style.
Absolutely correct. You average castle only needs to control a small area, namely the noble's estate. Rome has to think at a provincial level. Investment in castles would take money away from field armies and they are becoming skint anyway without further beggaring themselves on castles.
 
If we have in mind that average 'medieval castle' was not too impressive the Romans have something like that in Africa:

Limes Tripolitanus: frontier zone of the Roman empire in the west of what is now called Libya. It is interesting because it was not a just a defense line, but is also an example of human intervention in the ecosystem.
The fortified farms were called centenaria (sing. centenarium). More than 2,000 have been identified, like the ones in Gheriat esh-Shergia, Qasr Banat, and Suq al-Awty. There appears to have been some central planning on regional level, because they all have a more or less identical square ground plan, and are only found in the Tripolitana. They were connected by a network of watchtowers.

When the Third legion Augusta was in 253 reconstituted by Valerian, the defense system had been changed beyond recognition. The armed peasants in the borderland, and not the garrisons of the three forts in the oases, were the first to notice an enemy, and would signal the inhabitants of other farms. In a short time, they could gather a considerable force that could probably repel a small nomadic army, or, in any case, slow it down sufficiently long for the legionaries to arrive. After all, the nomads would not have found it easy to storm a centenarium. Of course invaders could pass along the peasants and meet the legion head-on, but in that case, they would be caught between the Roman main force and the inhabitants of the centenaria - quite unpleasant when you do not have access to a well.

Some of centenaria were two-storied buildings, the walls two meters wide, made of stone.

* The centenarium at Qasr Banat

The centenarium at Qasr Banat.JPG
 
I found the above post extremely interesting. It is times like this that you learn as much history as alternate history. Thank you.

One conclusion I draw from it is that if the Romans had gone into the castle business, allowing for the size and shape of sites they would have gone for more uniform designs. They would not have done as in the case of the first three Edwardian supercastles (Harlech, Conway and Carnaervon) had two of one type of architecture and one of another. (The fourth, Beaumaris was built later.)
 
The Romans have no reason to build castles. Castles are basically small, private fortresses. Castles were built in the Dark Ages/Medieval period because there was no political stability and people were not safe. Absent a strong government to provide law and order, the local landowners built their own defenses (castles) to protect themselves and their property.

During the Roman Empire, there was no reason for people to build private fortifications. The Roman government inside the Empire could provide protection against crime, and the Roman legions at the border could stop foreign invaders. Also, given the control of the Roman government, I suspect the Emperors would not see private fortresses too kindly.

If you are talking about castles as real military fortifications, then the Romans already had these, usually near the borders.

The reason the Romans did not build forts in Scotland or east of the Rhine has nothing to do with their inability or miscomprehension to do so. They didn't because it was a conscious choice by the Emperors to not extend the boundaries of the Roman Empire into those lands. They decided they offered little economically to the Romans, and that they were not worth the expense to maintain troops in those locations. It was cheaper to build fortifications on their side of the border combined with a combination of threats, politics, and bribes to the barbarians closest to them.
 
Roman Scotland:

One must realise that we're not talking about togas and marble on one side of the wall and everybody painting themselves blue on the other. The more settled farming peoples - in Lothian, Strathclyde, the Merse, the Solway plain - were pretty governable, having the accumulation of wealth to make paying taxes less bother than not paying them.

But the more remote, mobile, and militant people in the various uplands - the Brigantians of the Pennines, the Selgovians of the Southern Uplands, and the Caledonians of the central Highlands - and their tendency to unite in revolt were the problem.

The walls existed to separate these tribes as well as place one of them beyond reach of imperial taxpayers. The Antonine wall didn't work because the money could more easily be spent subsidising small kingdoms among the low-lying peoples and letting the Caledonians (future Picts) go hang.

North of the Antonine Wall, there is very little in the way of fertile low-lying areas until you get to Orkney. The Carse of Forth and Strathmore, perhaps, but the lines necessary to defend these would be really disproportionate to their value.

The Romans could invade Caledonia and defeat its inhabitants whenever they liked. They did. There was just bugger all reason to stay, since extracting any taxes would cost more money than the taxes.
 
OK they were private but they didnt have to be.
Im not thinking of large legionary barracks but smaller stone/concrete circular towers, rather like the east franks used to govern and extend their power and territory into what became east germany. This is what rome failed to do east of the rhine.

Well, at the Limes border the Romans later on built everything from
-watchtowers (with palisade and v-shaped ditch)
http://www.miniatures.de/ancients-2-roman-watchtower.html
- small stone forts (100-200 soldiers)
- Cohort forts (stone walls, towers and double ditches
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saalburg
- Legionary barracks / towns
http://www.apx.lvr.de/english/archaeologicalpark/rec_buildings/city+wall+and+gates.htm

So they could build smaller fortifications. But how do you supply them if the native population is unfriendly for a longer time period?
The Roman army at that time is mainly an infantry army with cavalry (no stirrups) used mainly as auxiliaries.
You also don´t have anything approaching "modern" horse collars yet. Meaning that supply transport overland involves a lot more horses or mules (with an accompanying larger military escort) than in the Middle Ages. And don´t forget, zero roads.
Likewise if you want to use river transport in Germania Magna you have to tow the ships upriver against the current. Once again involving military escorts to protect the towing teams (no horse collar) and the ships.

But concerning the region "east of the Rhine".
They didn´t built only legionary barracks there.
- At least one walled town / trading place
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldgirmes_Forum
- Cohort sized forts (also used as supply depots) in Olfen for example
- and excavations found at least one place where construction for a watchtower / signal-tower had been started (Sparrenberger Egge near todays town of Bielefeld).

After the Varus Battle (3 Legions lost plus auxiliaries) the Roman Emperors decided that it wasn´t worth the effort. To conquer, hold and pacify Germania Magna they would have needed a much larger force.

Don´t underestimate the importance of "saddles with stirrups" for the cavalry and "horse collars" for transporting supplies or towing ships. In the Middle Ages you also had a bit more of "roads" than in Germania Magna in Roman times.
Without somewhat regular supplies even a medieval castle would have to be given up sooner or later.
 
You don't want to focus on Principate military architecture. Different purpose, different strategic vision. Milecastles, castra and watchtowers are all mutually interlocking and supposed to complement each other. Look at late Empire structures like the burgi of the Rhine and Danube frontier (or the mansions of Africa, for that matter), and you have as close to a castle as Rome will come. That is, all things considered, pretty close: a self-contained piece of defensive architecture designed to safeguard its garrison even in the event of superior forces besieging it, supplied to last through lengthy periods of isolation and intended to militarily dominate the countryside through smallish engagements while offering shelter in larger ones.
 

Hoist40

Banned
One major difference between 'Castles" and Roman "Fortifications" is that most Castles have Keeps. These are very strong fortifications located at the highest most defensible part of the castles. These keeps were the home of the lord of the manor, his family and his most trusted retainers.

Many castles started out as keeps and then were expanded into castles.

Roman fortifications on the other hand had no keeps, the fortress was the property of the empire and the commander was expected to defend his fortification not retreat to his keep. It probably would have been bad for moral of the legionaries if the commander had a small but well defended keep where he but not all his troops could retreat.
 
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