Carnuntum

Carnuntum was a Roman legionary fortress and provincial capital beside the Danube in Lower Austria. It grew from a fort in the reign of Augustus into a city of about fifty thousand people. The remains lie in an archaeological park of ten square kilometres near the villages of Petronell-Carnuntum and Bad Deutsch-Altenburg. The site marks the headquarters of the Pannonian fleet and the garrison of several legions. Marcus Aurelius wrote part of his Meditations here while campaigning against the Marcomanni. Septimius Severus was proclaimed emperor in Carnuntum in 193. The Conference of Carnuntum in 308 gathered Diocletian, Maximian and Galerius to settle disputes in the tetrarchy. Visitors walk through the open-air museum where the House of Lucius has been rebuilt. Nearby stand the ruins of the forum, public baths and an amphitheatre that seated fifteen thousand. A single triumphal arch, the Heidentor, rises in the fields as a relic of the fourth century. The Museum Carnuntinum in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg displays finds from the ancient city beside the river.