COBI Roman Camp-Gate Set 20077

COBI's Roman Camp – Gate is built from 591 blocks: a camp gate with opening doors, a section of log palisade, an ox-drawn cart loaded with barrels, sacks and crates, and the Aquila standard. Two figures are included, a legionary in full kit and a Gallic merchant, along with two oxen.

What arrived at the gate

A legionary fortress held five thousand men who were paid in coin and could not leave to spend it. That was an opportunity, and civilians took it. Traders, innkeepers, craftsmen and the soldiers' unofficial families settled immediately outside the walls in a settlement called the canabae, and everything they sold came through a gate like this one on a cart like this one.

Those settlements outlasted the army. Cologne, Bonn, Vienna, York and a long list of others began as the civilian sprawl outside a camp gate, and several still show the fortress outline in the street plan of the old town. The ox cart in this set is doing the thing that turned military camps into cities.

The gate itself was the control point: a Roman camp had four, each in a fixed position, and the porta praetoria was the main one. Everything in or out was counted.

Building the full camp

The gate is modular. Two gates opposite each other, four watchtowers (20076) at the corners and tent dioramas (20078) inside make a complete castrum in the historical rectangular layout.

Specifications

Pieces: 591 · Figures: 2, a legionary and a Gallic merchant · Also included: two oxen and a loaded cart
Model dimensions: 26 × 12 × 15.5 cm (10.2 × 4.7 × 6.1 in)