The Capidava fortress lies
at half the distance between Hârşova and Cernavodă. It has
been erected during the Trajan ruling at the beginning of
the 2nd century a. D. like many other Roman camps
and fortresses from the Danube frontier. This camp is
situated on the right Danube shore near a river ford and has
been constructed by the following detachments and legions:
the V Macedonica and the IX Claudia legion. The Getan
toponym (Capidava means “the fortress from the turning
place”) confirms a pre-Roman human existence that is also
archeologically proved in a settlement of such importance to
communication between the Dobruja Getans and the Muntenia
Getans. The geographical position of Capidava was very
important from a strategically point of view and has
determined the settling of a military station as well as the
construction of a civilian center nearby during the Roman
epoch. The spot chosen for the fortification was the most
appropriate: a rocky, peninsular massif surrounded from
three sides by the Danube and the natural ditch. The shape
of the massif has imposed the shape of the camp: a
quadrilateral with its long sides running from the Northwest
towards the Southeast. The eastern part, a narrow promontory
gave accesses to the massif and to the fortress. As a
military station for almost five centuries the fortress
allowed cantonment of a series of troops: cohort I Ulbiorum,
cohort I Germanorum (2nd – 3 rd century);
vexillatio capidavensium, cuneus equitum Solensium and
cuneus equitum Scutariorum (4th – 6th
century).
Like the other frontier
settlements, Capidava had to confront many barbarian
attacks. It so happened that the camp has been destroyed by
carpo-Gothic attacks and had to be entirely reconstructed
towards the end of the 3rd century a.D. The
reconstructed fortress (its ruins can be visited nowadays)
has a quadrilateral basis (105 x 127 m) with 2 m thick and 5
– 6 m high walls.
There are also 7 towers,
11 m in height; a 2,36 m broad gate on the South-East; a
strategic gate on the Danube side of the tower and a terrace
harbor. The camp has been attacked, destroyed and then
rebuilt several times. During the 6th century a.D.
after the Huns had burned it down, when probably no
sufficient forces existed for a complete reconstruction, a
little quadrilateral fort has been erected (60 x 60 m) on
the southern part of the former fortress. Archeological
diggings have discovered the itinerary of the site wall and
also the defense ditch. In the 7th century a. D.
the fortress has been completely destroyed by the Slavic-Avarian
attacks and it was deserted by all troops left to survey the
area.
Due to the reorganization
of the Byzantine Empire, Capidava gets again to the
attention of the administration. On top of the fortified
Roman ruins, a new peasant fortress has been erected, a
fortress for the stratiotoi (peasant frontier guards) that
will last up to the 11th century and consists of
eleven living platforms, as the successive reconstruction
shows. The new fortress was surrounded by a wall of stone
and soil, doubled by a defense ditch, both following the
itinerary of the Roman-Byzantine site.
The visiting route goes
around the fortress along the site wall from West to East;
ruins from a Roman-Byzantine construction can be seen inside
the fortress on the right side: store houses, living houses,
a hypocaust, etc. The fort lies on the left side of the
fortress and its adjacent buildings. Towards the North there
are some feudal mud-huts where those stratiotoi have lived.
Behind the site wall a Christian basilica can be seen dating
from the 5th – 6th century a. D. The
thermae can be visited on the plateau in front of the
fortress entrance. The highly diversified pieces found in
the fortress and its surroundings are exhibited in the
Museum of the National History and Archeology in Constanta.
