Blatobulgium

Blatobulgium was a Roman fort, located at the modern-day site known as Birrens, in Dumfriesshire, Scotland.

[1] There are several camps near Birrens[2] at least one of which was first occupied in the Flavian period from 79 AD onwards probably during the Agricolan campaigns, when its internal buildings were presumably of timber.

[4] The visible fort and its internal buildings date from the Antonine period around 142 after the reconquest of the Scottish Lowlands when the earlier fort was rebuilt and enlarged to protect the western road to the Antonine Wall and to accommodate a nominally 1,000-strong milliaria equitata garrison of the 1st Cohort Nerviana Germanorum,[5] a mixed unit of cavalry and infantry of the auxiliary army.

It was destroyed perhaps by enemy action around 155 and the replacement stone buildings, although of much poorer quality, in the second Antonine period dating to 159 onwards were for the new garrison of the 2nd Cohort of Tungrians, likewise milliaria equitata.

The later fort formed the northern terminus of the Roman-era Watling Street (using an extended definition of this road), or more simply Route 2 of the Antonine Itinerary.