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Schwäbisch Gmünd - Schirenhof
Unless otherwise indicated, pictures on this page © Marco Prins and Jona Lendering. Photos can be downloaded and used for non-commercial purposes, but you have to acknowledge Livius.
To the west of modern Schwäbisch Gmünd, the remains of the Roman limes fort of Schirenhof have been discovered on this meadow (map; satellite photo). It measured 157x130 m. The limes wall itself was on the hills to the north; and the nearest military settlement was Freimühle, which has been identified on the hilltop to the right on this picture.
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Hardly anything of the former fort can be discerned today, but this corner coincides with its southern corner. The modern road is in the ancient ditch. To the west was a bathhouse, to the south was a civil settlement, and in the east was a cemetery. In the north is the valley of the river Rems, which must have been used to produce food for the inhabitants of the Schirenhof fort and village.
The roofs of the barracks were covered with tiles (these were photographed in the Limes Museum in Aalen), and living must have been comfortable. Like the other forts in this part of the limes, Schirendorf was built during the reign of Antoninus Pius (138-161) and evacuated in 259/260, when Franks and Alamans, two Germanic tribes, invaded the Roman empire and the entire Rhine frontier collapsed. The Alamans were able to cross the Alps. Later, the Romans restored the frontier, but the triangle between Rhine and Danube, the Agri Decumates, was never recovered.
The fort was occupied by the Cohors Prima Flavia Raetorum, the First Raetian regiment, surnamed "Flavia". The last-mentioned element is left out on this stamp, which may be read as COhoRs Prima RaETorum. A cohors was a unit of about 500-600 men auxiliary infantry.
Halfway down of the western slope of the hill on which the fort was situated, the soldiers would find their bathhouse, the thermae. The inhabitants of the civil settlement, which was  to the north, east, and south, could also use this facility. Still, the building appears to have been too large for the settlement. Archaeologists have discovered that parts of it were no longer used after 238.
This is a reconstruction of the thermae, to be found near the ruins, which were shown on the picture above. The building must have had the normal three types of bath: cold, tepid, and warm. There may have been a small open air swimming pool and an athletic field.
The water of the thermae was heated, and because there was a heating room, it was easy to create a hypocaustum or floor heating. Hot air was blown through the space between these little columns, which supported the floor itself. Several rooms in the bathhouse were heated in this fashion.
On this map, the ovens are colored gray, whereas red and blue indicate the heated and unheated parts of the building.
Like all other thermae, the bathhouse of Schirenhof was decorated. This little statue of a water nymph, a personification of a well or other flowing water, was made in c.200. It must have stood against a wall; water flowed out of the rock on which the nymph reclines. (The original work is in the museum of Schwäbisch Gmünd.)
The cemetery was 500 m east of the fort. About 310 burials have been identified, which is a fraction of the people who must have lived in the fort and the village, but is still one of the largest cemeteries that was excavated in this part of Germany. This tombstone is a copy of an original that was excavated near Schirendorf and is now in the Limes Museum in nearby Aalen. It shows how the deceased man is having dinner in the afterworld; a slave offers him a glass of wine.
The next limes castle to the west is Freimühle; to the east is Böbingen.
 
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