News - Ancient Roman legionary fortress ruins found near UK cathedral

Archaeologists in England have discovered several Roman ruins buried next to a cathedral in Exeter, Live Science reports. The structures, which were built between A.D. 50 and 75, include a street and wooden buildings that were once part of a Roman legionary fortress, according to a statement. The construction itself was likely part of a "long barrack building," John Allan, a cathedral archaeologist with the University of Exeter, said in the statement. Romans built the fortress around the same time as a bathhouse, which was discovered near the cathedral in 1971. The bathhouse was "the second stone building in the whole of Britain at the time it was built," according to a Devon County Council Facebook post. Roman troops—whose legions boasted 5,000 Roman citizen soldiers apiece—were a common sight in Roman Britain, Historic England, an organization that oversees historic sites in England, wrote in a 2018 report. Britain was one of the most heavily militarized regions in the Roman Empire, the report noted.  Archaeologists at the cathedral also unearthed what was left of a stone wall that once belonged to a Roman townhouse built sometime in the third and fourth centuries A.D., according to the statement.