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

was already inhabited before the Roman occupation. They also reveal that this settlement was rather small and could certainly not be a Celtic civitas that could have been the base for a later Roman town. The Amber route as a military deployment route I

n the first phase of the romanisation of Pannónia, Roman military presence can be expected between the Drava and the Sava and along the Amber Road. The total romanisation of Transdanubia was accomplished only 60-70 years later. Regarding our territory it means that, Amber Road played the same role in the border zone of Roman sphere of interest in this period as the road along the Danubian limes in the subsequent centuries. It was a military route along the border. It was the special political situation of Regnum Noricum that makes this analogy incomplete from the respect of status quo, while, concerning the strategic situation, the fact that the second half of Augustus' reign and the beginning of Tiberius' reign was characterised by an offensive imperial strategy is a divergent factor since the development of the Limes Road served already the stability of the border and not further expansions. I would only shortly hint at the fact here that Salla was built on the northern bank of the river (Fig. 3). The Romans never thought of a defence strategy in this case, and the size of the Zala river would not have justified it. If this had been a central concern the fort could have been founded on the Rába. However we describe the role of the Amber Road in the first decades AD, it was certainly a military role. The military forts from where the Danubian border was organised and that served as bases for the gradual occupation of Transdanubia were distributed along the road on the eastern border of Regnum Noricum. Military features of the settlement Site F L

arge timber-structure buildings and features of defensive character are the topographic elements and the sudden increase of Roman type objects in the find assemblages indicate the appearance of the army in Salla from archaeological aspects. In the layer above the earliest sporadic traces of houses, much larger buildings, thicker timber