N. Kósa Judit - Szablyár Péter: Underground Buda - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)
A two-thousand-year old puzzle - Óbuda
in the burgers' town, and this water was used for the treatment of ailments that the soldiers, unused to the colder climate here, suffered from. Besides various pools, sweating chambers and dressing rooms, the huge thermal complex had a spacious hall or palae&tra. All this has been preserved under the flyovers at Szentendrei út and Vörösvári út. There are smaller pieces of the puzzle visible in many other places around the baths, too. A few remains of a 2nd century inn are exhibited in the Camp Museum in Pacsirtamező út. The ruins lie in the basement of a block of flats and can be observed from street level through a transparent wall. North of here, in the housing estate built on the far side of the exit from Árpád Bridge, the visitor can see remains of the military camp. In the garden of ruins in Vöröskereszt utca, details of a 2nd century military barracks for rank-and- file soldiers and a hall dating from two centuries later are in evidence (together with remains of a Franciscan monastery built a thousand years later). A few steps away from here in Kórház utca there are the reconstructed elements of what was once the camp’s east gate. Parts of the officers' residences can be seen by the southwest corner of the Flórián Department Store. Ruins of the Flercules Villa hidden in the basement of the Meggyfa utca school and the single brick furnace that has been preserved of several kilns of the same function found on Bécsi út are reminders of the settlement that stood outside the camp. The kiln, which was in use between the 2nd and the 4* centuries, was meant to be exhibited in a small exhibition room in the basement of the office block to be built at 126-128 Bécsi út, but only its parts have been preserved so far. Many pieces of the encampment puzzle have remained hidden from the visitors’ eyes. Right next-door to therma maiorei, in the middle of the camp, stood the 90 by 110 metre principia, the commander's headquarters. The building was destroyed when the foundations of the Flórián Department Store were laid, with only three wall-fragments remaining intact in the basement thanks to the supermarket. There was no way that the centrally heated and richly decorated house of the deputy commander, the tribunui lati- claviuó, could be saved. In its place is the subway beneath the traffic junction at Árpád Bridge. When the foundations of the concrete apartment blocks were laid, former outhouses, oil-presses, granaries and storehouses also disappeared; the five-arched burial temple at the corner of Kiskorona and Kiscell streets was built over. As of now, the plan of exploring the huge palace once owned by Emperor Fladrian on Hajógyár Island only exists on paper. '7
