The Roman garrison was separate, uphill of the main royal compound, not that this advantage would make any difference if there was trouble. There were just under six hundred men in the garrison, more than a third of them from I Minervia and the rest picked men from equally good units. Yet they were stale. Hadrian could tell that from the first glance and nothing he learned subsequently did anything to change his mind. By army standards the fort was crowded, partly so that it was entirely on the hillock above the royal fortress. Even though from the rampart and towers the Romans could look down on the Dacians as they went about their business, somehow this only reinforced the sense of being isolated and surrounded. Beyond the fortress there was peak after peak, some with smaller Dacian towers and forts, and the nearest help was a long way away. There was nowhere to drill or train, unless the garrison commander sought permission from the king and that always took a long time to be granted. When permission finally came it meant a long march to find a decently open and level patch of ground among all these rugged slopes and deep valleys.

By all accounts the winter had been savage up here, so bad that legionaries lost fingers and noses after standing guard on some of the worst nights and several had died. That had meant even more time inside the barracks, huddled around their fires to fight the chill in their bones. Decebalus had been generous in sending up plenty of wood to burn, as well as food and drink, even arranging with traders to buy wine that neither he nor many of his aristocrats were willing to drink. They had managed, but all the while it was a reminder that they were dependent on the king’s goodwill. There was no well or spring in the Roman fort, and little space in the modest granary. They lived at the king’s pleasure, and if ever he chose he could snuff them as easily as a slave doing the rounds of a house at night extinguishing all the lamps and torches. The men of the garrison all knew this and all lived with the knowledge and with the dullest of routines even by army standards, so that it was not surprising if they lacked spirit. They were a symbol of peace and nothing more.

‘Decebalus does not want more trouble,’ the narrow stripe tribune in command had assured him. The man was from Legio VII Claudia pia fidelis, and was supposed to be junior to a senatorial tribune from his legion, but that man had done a year and departed for home. Piso was supposed to have replaced him in the job, but now Piso was not coming and that left the equestrian tribune all the more nervous because not only had Hadrian arrived, but so had the legatus Augusti in charge of all forces in Dacia.

Cnaeus Pompeius Longinus was surprised to see Hadrian and did not bother to hide his resentment.