The legion's stamp from Apulum: three marks in clay, one word that came straight into Romanian

49 BC

January 49: at the Rubicon, with Caesar

The Thirteenth Legion was recruited by Caesar in 57 BC, in the Gallic war. In January 49, its men stood beside Caesar at the crossing of the Rubicon — but how it happened, each source tells differently: Caesar narrates the crossing himself in the Civil War (1.7–8), the line about the cast dice survives in Appian (2.35), and “the legion with which he set out to conquer the world” is Livy's phrase, preserved in Orosius (6.15.3).

On the map the point is approximate: the identification of the Rubicon is contested. Today's candidate is the Fiumicino river near Savignano, about 18 km from Rimini.

after 45 BC

The veterans are given land at Spello

Caesar's legion never reached Apulum. Its men were pensioned off after Munda, with land at Spello in Italy — and the Thirteenth Legion mentioned after 41 BC is a new unit, rebuilt from the old.

31 BC

A new legion and a surname

After Actium, strengthened with soldiers from disbanded legions, the new legion takes the surname Gemina — “the twin”, doubled, made from two. The surname is not unique: legions VII, X and XIV carry it too, everywhere with the same sense of merging.

88–106

From Domitian's campaign to the garrison at Apulum

The Thirteenth was one of the nine legions in Domitian's campaign against Dacia, in the year 88. When Trajan had subjected Dacia, it stayed behind, probably from the beginning at Apulum — at first, it seems, beside Legio I Adiutrix, moved elsewhere around 114. At Potaissa, today's Turda, stood Legio V Macedonica. The LEG XIII GEM stamps on building material date from the garrison years.

the 270s

The withdrawal, then the Danube

There it stayed until the Roman withdrawal from Dacia, in the 270s. After the evacuation, XIII Gemina is recorded at Ratiaria on the Danube — where it still was in the early fifth century.

The dashed line joins two places; it does not show the route travelled.

before 106

Before the Romans: Piatra Craivii

Before Rome, Dacian power in the area sat at Piatra Craivii: “the Dacian fortress Apoulon or Ranistorum”, as the RAN record lists it (RAN is Romania's national archaeological register) — “hypothetically identified with ancient Apoulon”, as the excavation chronicle adds.

before 106

Two places, not one

The hypothesis links two different places: the fortress in the north and the Mureș floodplain further south, where the Romans would build Apulum. About 17 km separate them in a straight line.

106–108

The fort and the canabae

In the canabae — formed alongside the building of the fort, in 106–108 — settled the soldiers' families, craftsmen, traders and veterans of the Dacian wars: a mixed population bound to the legion by its very existence. The outline on the map is the fort wall as OpenStreetMap draws it, not an archaeological survey; the Principia museum and the ruins on the via principalis are marked on the same map. For the fort and the fortresses built over it, see Alba Iulia Fortress.

second–third centuries

The centre of a province

South-east of the fort rose the governor's palace, the praetorium consularis: Apulum was the military, economic and political-administrative centre of Dacia.

under Marcus Aurelius and Commodus

Two cities side by side

Roman Apulum was not one city but two side by side: colonia Aurelia Apulensis at Partoș, on the bank of the Mureș — from vicus to municipium under Marcus Aurelius and to colonia under Commodus — and municipium Septimium Apulense around the fort, born from the canabae. For more than 50 years they stood side by side.

From the fort to the Partoș dot is about 2.8 km in a straight line; the dot is today's neighbourhood, not the excavated site. An inscription of 250 also mentions a Colonia Nova Apulensis, but it is not known which of the cities bore the name.

after the withdrawal

The Roman name falls silent

After the withdrawal, the Roman name fell silent. The place took other names, in other tongues — and their order and kinship are still debated. The Slavic name Bălgrad, “the white fortress”, appears late in writing — Belugrad, in 1579 — but is considered old, of South Slavic origin.

Middle Ages

Who translated whom?

Who translated whom, Slavs from Hungarians or Hungarians from Slavs, stays open: on one view the translation runs from Hungarian into Slavic; on another, the Hungarians translated the Slavic name, passing from Fehérvár to Gyulafehérvár — “the white fortress of Gyula”; and a third view sees the two names born in parallel, independently of each other. The medieval Latin form Alba, become Alba Iulia — with Iulia from Gyula — is read as the rendering of the Hungarian name.

early eighteenth century

Karlsburg and the fortress star

And the modern German name, Karlsburg, comes from Emperor Charles VI, under whom the Austrians raised the Alba Carolina bastion fortress in the early eighteenth century. On the map its walls cover the Roman fort.

2024

A place, another history

The Roman name did not survive as a living name — but the place entered another history: the fort at Apulum, the governors' palace and a Roman house (Domus 1) are part of the “Frontiers of the Roman Empire – Dacia” site, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in July 2024.