Vindobona — The Roman Camp Beneath Vienna
A Roman military camp was established at Vindobona around AD 97, on the site of what became Vienna. The Danube was the empire's northern frontier in this sector, and the camp sat on a terrace above the river at the point where the Wienerwald hills come down to it — a defensible position covering the approach from the north and the amber route running south from the Baltic. It began as an auxiliary post and became a legionary fortress, garrisoned from about AD 100 by Legio XIII Gemina and from the 110s by Legio X Gemina, which stayed for some three centuries. The fortress held around 6,000 men in a rectangle of about twenty hectares, and its street plan survives in the modern city: the lines of Graben, Naglergasse and Rotgasse follow its walls, and the Hoher Markt sits on the headquarters building, whose remains are visible under the square. A civil settlement grew alongside it and received municipal rights under Caracalla around AD 212. Vindobona was never as important as Carnuntum, forty kilometres downstream, which was the provincial capital of Pannonia Superior and several times the size. Marcus Aurelius spent years on this frontier campaigning against the Marcomanni and Quadi, wrote part of the Meditations in the field, and died in the region in AD 180 — at Vindobona according to one tradition and Sirmium according to another. The fortress was abandoned in the fifth century as the frontier collapsed. Its street plan is the one durable thing the legions left, and Vienna's first district still follows it. The Roman museum on the Hoher Markt is built over the officers' quarters.
- Year: 97 CE
- Category: Military
