Redő Ferenc: Katonák Sallában (Zalalövő öröksége 1. Zalalövő, 2003)

SOLDIERS IN SALLA Strategical Significance of Salla and its Effect on the Development of the Inner-Pannonian Municipium T

he general military strategy of the Empire, its modifications, the steps of the conquest of the province and its consequent strategic role, interior and exterior conflicts, the geographical setting of the settlement exercised an important influence of the history of Salla. We can say this was one of the most important factors in the history of the settlement. In the fallowings, the history of Salla will be analysed from this respect. The Amber route and the antecedents of the Roman Period at Zalalövő S

alla lies on a road, the use of which goes back far before the Romans and which has been used ever since. The development of the Amber Road is justified by its geographical position. It connects Italy and the Adriatic Sea with the North Sea in the most economic route (Fig. 1). The track of the road was slightly modified from time to time yet the overall direction remained unchanged through millennia. Settlements naturally developed at places where the road crossed water. This was the situation in Salla's case as well. The recent excavation results have proved that graphitic globular pottery sherds with a rim of P-shaped cross-section, wide-mouthed pots of a coarser raw material decorated with thick vertical notches, 5/iw/ß-shaped vessels with vertical rims ornamented by wide and shallow grooved under the rim and large open-work winged brooches occur more frequently in lowermost Roman period layer and under it in a semicircle of a radius of 100 m next to the crossing place (Fig. 2). These finds belong to the material culture of the Celtic antecedents of the settlement and attest to the fact that the territory