Gyöngyössy Márton (szerk.): Perspectives on the Past. Major Excavations in County Pest (Szentendre, 2008)

(6100-4500 ВС)

(4500-2700 ВС)

(2700/2500-800 ВС)

Oeoples with widely differing cultural traditions lived on opposite sides of the River Danube during the Roman Age. The regions on the right bank were part of the Roman Empire for four centuries, while the left bank was inhabited by the Quads, a Germanic people, and the Sarmatians of Iranian stock.

Pannonia was one of the empire’s frontier provinces. Even though the Emperor Augustus boasted that he had “subdued the tribes of the Pannonians and extended the frontiers of the empire as far as the bank of the Danube”, the province was actually organised in the mid-1 st century AD, under the Emperor Claudius.

A defence line of forts and watchtowers known as the limes was built along the Danube in the 70s, under the Flavians. One section of the limes passes through County Pest. The remains of the limes road and its milestones can still be seen in some spots. Civilian settlements (vicus militares) sprang up around the military forts, which had their own cemeteries. The bridgehead at Szigetmonostor and the fort at Szentendre were investigated during the new excavations along the limes.

The Romans generally created a new administrative system when organising a new province. They surveyed the province’s territory and carved out various territoriums, each of which was divided into smaller districts (pagus), where the villages (vicus) eventually evolved. Vicus settlements of this type were investigated at Budaörs and at Páty. The name of the vicus at Budaörs is preserved on an inscribed altarstone. Both settlements grew up along the road leading from Aquincum to Savaria, whose course is outlined by the villas and cemeteries beside it. The occupants of the settlements and the owners of the villa estates along the road came from the ranks of the native population, discharged veterans and the officials of neighbouring towns, such as Aquincum.

The impact of Roman culture can be traced in burial customs (e.g. the erection of tombstones and the spread of the cremation rite) and in architecture (e.g. the adoption

of stone as a building medium and the use of underfloor heating systems). The broader area was supplied with Roman

products from Aquincum, the province’s seat. The role of the limes declined in the late 4th/early 5th century. The troops defending the province were by that time mostly recruited from Barbarian peoples and their number too dwindled. Many watchtowers were evacuated and the forts too were adjusted to garrison a smaller number of soldiers.

• Katalin Ottományi 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

1. Painted mortar from the settlement at Budaörs

2. Sarcophagus of a soldier who died in Lauriacum from Budaörs

3. Grave altar erected by P. Aelius Victorinus from Budakeszi

4. Reconstruction of the two-wheeled wagon from Budakeszi (by Zsolt Mráv)

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The Roman Age

(1 st-4th centuries AD)