Roman Austria

Most of Austria’s Roman sites lie in the provinces of Noricum and Pannonia. Rome took over the kingdom of Noricum, and for more than four hundred years the Danube was the empire’s northern frontier. Forts lined the river from the Bavarian border eastwards, the Noric limes as far as Lower Austria and the Pannonian limes from Klosterneuburg on. Most of the garrisons lay in forts, fortlets and watchtowers, and many of today’s towns and villages grew from these posts and the settlements beside them. Since 2021 this stretch of the Danube frontier has been part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site.

The largest site is Carnuntum, halfway between Vienna and Bratislava: a legionary fortress and a city that became the capital of Upper Pannonia (Pannonia Superior) and grew to about 50,000 inhabitants. Its remains lie in an archaeological park of about 1,000 hectares near Petronell-Carnuntum and Bad Deutsch-Altenburg, and its best-known monument, the Heidentor, is the partly reconstructed ruin of a four-way triumphal arch of which one arch still stands. Vindobona, a legionary fortress with a military settlement and a civil town, lies beneath Vienna, where dense modern building has made it hard to study. Upriver, Lauriacum at Enns became the largest military base in Noricum after the Legio II Italica built its fortress there around AD 200, and in the 5th century it was a bishop’s seat.

South of the Danube lie the towns of Noricum. On the Magdalensberg in Carinthia stood a Noric settlement that traded in the region’s iron before and during the first years of Roman rule; it was abandoned once the Roman town of Virunum had been built on the nearby Zollfeld. Further west, Teurnia near Spittal an der Drau was a late Roman provincial capital and bishop’s seat, and its episcopal church and memorial church are presented on site, with finds in a museum. Aguntum, near Lienz in East Tyrol, became a self-governing town under Claudius, and its excavated area covers about 3 hectares. In Styria, Flavia Solva near Leibnitz is the only Roman town in the state, and in the far west Bregenz, Roman Brigantium, is the site of the oldest Roman fort yet identified in Austria.