109 Roman mounts: Excavating a military horse cemetery

Before the invention of the railway and the car in the 19th century, the horse offered the fastest means of transport on land for more than 4,000 years. Its role in the military was correspondingly important – especially during the Roman period. The considerable effort and expense involved in keeping and training horses was accepted in order to reap the equally considerable benefits of cavalry. Numerous military units comprised a versatile mix of mounted troops and infantry, including the vaunted Roman legions. Formations consisting entirely of cavalry came to be known as alae, literally ‘wings’, evoking their classic battlefield deployment on the flanks of the infantry.

In the Roman provinces, archaeological evidence for mounted soldiers can take many forms, including inscriptions and images (such as on gravestones), structures (especially stable barracks, where riders lived side by side with their mounts), small finds (for example, hoof shoes and snaffles), and, of course, the animals themselves, courtesy of their skeletal remains. An opportunity to learn far more about this last category came in 2024-2025, when the largest known Roman horse cemetery in southern Germany was excavated in advance of development at Stuttgart- Bad Cannstatt. Thanks to this, the skeletons of 109 equids were recovered. Even though our analyses have only just begun, it is already clear that the Cannstatt horse cemetery offers a rare and valuable insight into the life of military riding animals in the Roman provinces – and also into the lives of their riders.

Cavalry at Cannstatt

Roman Cannstatt lay at a pivotal position along a stretch of the Roman frontier, known as the Limes, in present-day south-west Germany. This stretch of the frontier is called the Neckar Limes, after the river that marked its course. The location is favourable for many reasons: it lies on the river, at a transport hub, and halfway between the provincial capitals of Augsburg (known to the Romans as Augusta Vindelicum) and Mainz (Mogontiacum). In addition, springs feeding from the second-largest natural reservoir of mineral water in Europe bubble to the surface here, while fertile layers of loess soil carpet terraces on both sides of the Neckar. All of these aspects were presumably factored in when the Roman imperial border was pushed forward to the Neckar line around AD 100, and a new home had to be found for the most important military formation in the region: an ala quingenaria – that is, a fully mounted unit comprising 500 horsemen. One of its most important qualities was the ability to deploy rapidly in order to control this section of the imperial border. In the event, the fort was founded on the left bank of the Neckar, just back from the lip of the valley slope, providing it with a sweeping view stretching for some 30km to the Swabian Alb mountains.