Civilian life

Civilians lived in the vicus or town that could be found just outside the walls, the fort.

In front of the south gate lived those merchants who sold the oil, pottery, fish sauce and olives from the Mediterranean.

One house belonged to the official who was responsible for roads and transport.

There was a house with an oven that may have been a bakery and a building that may have been a tavern or inn; shop fronts opened on to the road and had wooden shutters; a building with a small furnace and coin moulds was probably used for forging coins; and there were also barracks for soldiers.

You would also find a blacksmiths, butcher's shop and tannery.

Outside the walls of the fort there were temples to Mars and
Jupiter and also a small Mithraeum.

At the bottom of the hill there was a cemetery.

"Just when you think you are at the world's end, you see a smoke from East to West as far as the eye can turn, and then under it as far as the eye can stretch, houses and temples, shops and theatres, barracks and granaries, trickling along like dice behind - always
behind - one long, low, rising and falling, and hiding and showing line of towers. And that is the Wall !"

Puck of Pooks Hill
By Rudyard Kipling

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(7) You ask the butcher about Burcanius and his wife

(8) Ursa is standing outside her house waiting for Romululs

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