When Emperor Constantine establishes Constantinople as the capital of Byzantium, the Via Egnatia took on primary importance for connecting the capital with the Western provinces and with Italy. To secure the road, around 320 A.D. a castle was built in the place where Scampinus (or Scampa, now Elbasan) had been founded. It was in a form of a castrum, that is, a military camp, a regular square measuring 348 by 308 meters. The Via Egnatia passed through it from west to east, so that during the night when the doors of the castle were closed, movements along the road was interrupted. Two semi-cylindrical towers protected the main entrances to the castrum. Cylindrical towers had been built at its four corners, while other semi cylindrical towers rose at equal distance of 40 to 45 meters. From within the walls, stone stairs on brick arches led to the upper floors of the towers and the walkway of the guards. On the outside, the entire fortification was surrounded by a deep moat. Its structure was built entirely from river stones, using bands of four layers of bricks (opus mixtum), which served to secure the stability of the massive walls. Of the fortification. The large dimensions of the castrum permitted it to hold an entire legion, which was charged with securing the shortest road from the Central Balkans to Rome. The new role turned Scampinus into an important city and earned it a place in the various intineraries of the third century, such as the Itinerary of Antonini, the Itinerary of Burdigalnse and the Tabula Peutingeriana. Chance findings have shown the presence of a large basilica in the center of the castle. The most important monuments of Late Antiquity related to Scampinus are the basilicas of Tepe and Bazistan build around the end of the fourth century A.D. Scampius retained its importance as the center of the bishopric in the first half of the sixth century, as shown by two letters in the Vatican Archives from 519 A.D. thay report the warm reception given by the clerics to some papal legates: “Before we entered Scampinus , the honored bishop of the city, Trojus, together with the clergy and the people, came out to meet us….This took place in the basilica of St. Peter. They expressed such devotion and were so grateful to God, they shed so many tears and showed such joy, that it is difficult to match in any other people”. From this description we can conclude that the basilica was outside the castle and can be identified with a newly discovered basilica of Bezistan in front of the southern gate of the castle. For the last time we find the name of the city in the forum of “Skeminites” in a long list of the castles that were rebuild in the province of New Epirus during the reign of Justinian (527-565 A.D.). This spelling of the citys name is very close to the contemporary name of the river Shkumbin that flows by it, and this shows an early formation of place names in the Albanian langjuage. The castle was destroyd during Slavic invasion of the second half of sixth century A.D. and rebuild by Sulejman Mehmet II in 1466.