Vindobona

Vindobona was a Roman military camp, or castra, in the province of Pannonia, located on the site of the modern city of Vienna in Austria. Around 1 AD the kingdom of Noricum was included in the Roman Empire and the Danube became the border, with fortifications and settlements built on its banks, Vindobona among them with an estimated population of 15,000 to 20,000. The legionary fortress may have been built around the year 100, since the oldest excavated building inscriptions date from 103. The military complex covered some 20 hectares and housed about 6,000 men where Vienna's first district now stands, beside the civilian settlement of the canabae. Vindobona belonged to a defensive network with the camps of Carnuntum, Brigetio and Aquincum, and over 3,000 stamped bricks show that several legions were stationed there. The geographer Ptolemy mentions it, and the historian Aurelius Victor records that Marcus Aurelius died there in 180. The settlement was rebuilt after Germanic invasions in the second century, remained a seat of Roman government through the third and fourth centuries, and was abandoned after the Huns invaded Pannonia in the 430s. The layout of the camp can still be recognised in the street plan of central Vienna, and remains are shown at Michaelerplatz and the Hoher Markt.