SLĂVENI
(Gostavăţ) Olt, Romania.
A Roman settlement and camp on the limes Alutanus. The
civil center is traversed by the Roman road (6 m wide).
The center (1 km x 300 m) was flanked by two necropoleis to the N and S. Excavations made during the last century have uncovered a mithraeum dug out of the bank of the Olt, and have revealed the foundations of several
important buildings. The first earthen camp was built
during the era of Trajan and Hadrian by a few detachments of the legions V Macedonica, XIII Gemina, ala I
Hispanorum, ala I Claudia, Cohors I Fl. Commagenorum. These troops from Moesia inferior marched against
the Dacians in 105, going up the Olt Valley. A second
camp, built on the first, was constructed in 205. It was
slightly larger than the first (198 x 176.6 m) with four
gates, corner towers, a praetorium (43.20 x 37.4 m), a
horreum, etc. It was the work of the ala I Hisp. and the
numerus Syrorum sagittariorum. The inscriptions in the
camp mention a basilica castrensis, a collegium duplariorum, a series of names of officers and soldiers, dedications to Septimius Severus and his sons, to Philip the Arab, etc. A deposit of coins buried in A.D. 248 and
other isolated coins are proof that the civil settlement
and the camp were finally destroyed by the Carpo-Gothic
invasions of 249-50. To the E of the camp, excavations
have unearthed some bath installations.
Material from excavations is in the museums of Craiova and Slăveni.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CIL III, 8038; 13779-80; 14216,7, 16-39;
AnÉpigr (1963) 125; (1966) 314-17; D. Tudor, “Castra
Daciae inferioris II: Slăveni,”
BCMI 33 (1940) 34-38;
id.,
Oltenia romană (3d ed., 1969) 306-11, 334-36; id.,
“Collegium duplariorum,”
Latomus 22 (1963) 240-51;
id., “Distrugerea castrului roman de la Slăveni pe Olt,”
Historica 1 (1970) 67-83; id., “Basilica castrensis de la
Slăveni,”
Drobeta 1 (1972); G. Popilian, “Termele de
la Slăveni,”
Apulum 9 (1971) 627-41.
D. TUDOR
