On the sheltered side of the fort a civil settlement, technically known as the _canabae_, quickly sprang up, and soon contained as many inhabitants as the fort itself, if not more. It was here that the soldiers placed their wives and children, that retired veterans settled near their old comrades, and traders erected their shops. A bath-house or two and a few small shrines, particularly those dedicated to the popular military cults of Mithras, ‘the Unconquered Comrade,’ and Juppiter Dolichenus satisfied the highest material and spiritual needs.[358] At the fort of the Saalburg, where such a settlement has been carefully explored, an area of something like seventy-five acres was covered with buildings and gardens. Shrines dedicated to the Mater Deum and to Silvanus and Diana have been found, as well as those of Mithras and Juppiter Dolichenus, and two others remain as yet unidentified. On the outskirts, here as elsewhere, lay the cemetery with its inscribed sepulchral monuments, the chief source of our information on so many points of military life.[359] On the British wall no _canabae_ have been so carefully explored as those on the German limes, which is the more to be regretted since the buildings are usually in a better state of preservation; but it is still possible to see near the fort at Borcovicium (Housesteads) the terraces on which a scanty crop was raised, while the remains of buildings extend down the hill from the fort at the top to a small Mithraeum in the valley.[360] At Cilurnum an elaborate bath-house was erected for the use of the soldiers of the Ala II Asturum on the banks of the Tyne, and further excavation would doubtless show that it did not stand alone. Where excavations have not taken place the existence of these and other buildings is testified to by inscriptions. At a fort on the Lower Rhine we even find the _praefectus_ repairing at his own cost the regimental clock.[361]