Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a previously unknown Roman town in Lower Austria, complete with a planned street network, extensive burial grounds and an amphitheatre capable of holding around 8,000 spectators. Researchers believe the settlement may be the long-lost city of Claudivium.
The remains of a substantial Roman town that disappeared nearly 1,850 years ago have been identified near St. Pantaleon-Erla in Lower Austria, offering archaeologists a rare glimpse into Roman expansion and retreat along the empire’s northern frontier.
An interdisciplinary research team, including archaeologists from the University of Innsbruck, has mapped a planned urban settlement covering an estimated 25 to 30 hectares near the hamlet of Stein, close to the River Danube.
Geophysical surveys have revealed a regular network of streets, buildings, burial grounds and a large amphitheatre believed to have accommodated about 8,000 spectators.
Researchers say the scale and organisation of the site strongly suggest that it was an important Roman urban centre rather than simply a civilian settlement serving a nearby military fort.
“Geophysical measurements show a planned urban area of 25 to 30 hectares with a regular street grid and an amphitheatre for around 8,000 people,” said Gerald Grabherr, an archaeologist at the University of Innsbruck.
The amphitheatre is comparable in size to that of Carnuntum, one of the best-known Roman military and civilian centres on the Danube.
A city that lasted just a century
Evidence gathered so far suggests settlement at Stein began around AD 80 and ended approximately a century later, around AD 180.
That unusually short lifespan could make the site particularly valuable to archaeologists because it provides a relatively narrow archaeological window into a transformative period of Roman history.
Rather than being destroyed in battle or catastrophe, the town appears to have been deliberately abandoned.
“Our archaeological findings suggest that there was a planned withdrawal from the area around 180 AD,” said Barbara Kainrath of Research Archaeology. “There is no evidence of the settlement being destroyed.”
Researchers have been investigating the roughly 10-kilometre stretch of the Roman Danube Limes between Enns in Upper Austria and St. Pantaleon-Erla in Lower Austria since 2015.
The project brings together specialists from the University of Innsbruck, the Danube Limes Forum, GeoSphere Austria, Research Archaeology and the archaeological services of Upper and Lower Austria.
From military outpost to Roman town
The discovery builds on years of research into a complex Roman military landscape around Stein.
In 2017, Grabherr discovered a Roman stone fort dating from the second century AD. Subsequent geophysical investigations identified an earlier timber-and-earth fortification dating to the first century.
The military position east of the River Enns appears to have been established partly to control an important Danube crossing near the mouth of the River Aist.
The Aist Valley provided one of the shortest trade routes between the Danube and the Vltava, or Moldau, making the area strategically important for commerce between Roman territory and lands beyond the empire.
Archaeological evidence also points to Roman military activity north of the Danube. Three or four temporary camps have been identified there, suggesting a significant concentration of troops and possibly reflecting Roman attempts to exert control over Marcomannic territory.
Civilian settlements commonly developed around Roman forts, providing soldiers with goods, services and accommodation. The scale of Stein, however, is highly unusual.
“The construction of a 25- to 30-hectare settlement with a street grid for an auxiliary fort with approximately 500 soldiers is unprecedented in the Roman Empire,” Grabherr said.
Researchers believe the town was deliberately planned rather than developing organically around the fort. Its layout resembles that of autonomous Roman towns elsewhere in the province of Noricum.
Amphitheatre and wealthy burials
Further evidence of the settlement’s urban status comes from extensive cemeteries discovered beside roads leading out of the town.
A particularly large burial ground has been identified to the north-west, containing numerous graves, tombs and burial mounds. Some are substantial in size, suggesting wealthy or high-status inhabitants lived in the settlement.
The amphitheatre provides perhaps the clearest evidence of the town’s importance. A venue capable of accommodating thousands of spectators would have served a population extending well beyond the soldiers stationed at the nearby fort.
Another intriguing discovery has been made at Albing, also within the modern municipality of St. Pantaleon-Erla.
There, archaeologists identified the construction site of a planned Roman legionary fortress. Foundation trenches were dug and substantial foundations were prepared for fortifications and a headquarters building, but the project was abandoned before the walls were completed.
Together, the sites reveal an extensive and changing Roman military and civilian landscape along this section of the Danube frontier.
Could the lost city be Claudivium?
The identity of the newly mapped town remains one of the biggest questions facing researchers.
One possibility is that it was Claudivium, a settlement mentioned by the second-century Greek geographer Claudius Ptolemy.
Ptolemy recorded coordinates for Claudivium that researchers say correspond closely with the location of the Roman settlement at Stein. His geographical account also refers to a river entering the Danube from the north at similar coordinates — potentially the River Aist.
The chronological evidence provides another clue.
Coin finds suggest the settlement was abandoned around AD 180, at approximately the time Marcus Aurelius died and his son Commodus became emperor.
The transition coincided with the end of the Marcomannic Wars, a series of conflicts that had occupied Rome along the Danube frontier since AD 166. Commodus concluded peace agreements following his father’s death and Roman strategy in the region subsequently changed.
Researchers believe that strategic realignment may have resulted in Claudivium — if Stein is indeed the lost town — being abandoned while the Roman presence was consolidated at Lauriacum, modern-day Enns.
Population shifts to Lauriacum
Lauriacum subsequently developed into one of the region’s most important Roman centres.
Archaeological finds indicate that some inhabitants of the abandoned town at Stein may have moved there. Researchers have discovered bronze-casting equipment and matching types of fibulae — Roman garment fasteners — at both sites.
Within roughly 50 years of the relocation, the legionary settlement at Lauriacum had grown to approximately three times the size of the abandoned town.
Stein, meanwhile, appears to have been stripped for reusable building materials, effectively becoming a quarry.
Archaeologists seek further research
Researchers say the newly identified town has considerable potential to improve understanding of a crucial period between the Flavian dynasty, which ruled from AD 69 to 96, and the end of the Marcomannic Wars in AD 180.
A combination of aerial archaeology, geophysical surveying, targeted excavation and scientific analysis could reveal considerably more about how the town was established, who lived there and why it was ultimately abandoned.
For now, however, researchers say securing sustained funding remains a challenge.
“The potential offered by a modern mix of methods, including aerial archaeology, geophysics, targeted excavations and the integration of various natural science disciplines, is enormous,” Kainrath and Grabherr said.
Despite the site’s significance, they added, medium- and long-term funding needed to investigate it to international research standards has yet to be secured.
If the identification of the site as Claudivium is confirmed, the discovery would restore to the map a Roman city that effectively vanished from the historical record almost two millennia ago — and provide a new window into life, warfare and political change on one of the Roman Empire’s most important frontiers.
Sources : University of Innsbruck
