One Fort - One Unit

[D B Campbell]

I must say I find the one headquarter's building (Principia) for each unit ludicrous. ... I think more along the lines that one building might have served several units in some instances.

This is the point that Mark and I have made about Drobeta, which has the usual HQ centrally located, exactly where we'd expect it, but the rest of the central range is unlike the usual pattern. First, the HQ is flanked by granaries, whereas the granaries are usually placed together (presumably to facilitate loading); and second, these in turn have a building beside them which resembles a simplified Mediterranean-style house. (The remainder of the fort -- the SW corner isn't available for excavation -- is filled with the usual barrack blocks.) This arrangement looks suspiciously like a fort halved down the middle. (Think Castra Vetera on a very much smaller scale.) The HQ can easily be shared, provided each unit has space for its own sacred standards, but the commanders' accommodation cannot.

The idea that only one building/house is found in some forts which is classified as a Centurio's mansion/house or officers house is also highly debatable. There are some large castra which have at the end of each barrack block a building that most of the times is explained as having been the officer's housing. Partly because the houses look more Romanesque with a courtyard. Only in Vindolanda we know fairly exact where the commander of Equestrian status lived and in what buildings his administration probably was located.

You seem to be thinking "legionary", when this thread is "auxiliary".