Brigetio (Municipium)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Brigetio was a Roman city on the Danube in the area of ​​today's northern Hungarian city ​​of Komárom in Komárom-Esztergom County . Probably before 205 AD the place was raised to a municipality . Brigetio owed its rise to an important city, in addition to civil shipping on the Danube, to the military and trade routes along the river and to the Brigetio legionary camp , whose occupation made up a not inconsiderable share of the economic turnover.

General city history

Site plan of the military and civil structures of Brigetio

First, a camp village ( Canabae legionis) developed around the legionary camp further to the east , the inhabitants of which were often in direct contact with the troops or lived from their presence. Remnants of civilian buildings could be found especially on the west and south sides of the fortification. The Dolichenus temple and a Mithras shrine are known of the public buildings in this settlement . In addition, the amphitheater to the west of the moat took a special place in the life of the garrison and the city of Brigetio. On the occasion of their trip along the Danube, Richard Pococke (1704–1765) and his cousin Jeremiah Milles (1714–1784) described the structure, which was still in good condition at the time. Today nothing of it can be seen on the square. The construction is also a sign of the growing importance of the place. North of the amphitheater, a house lavishly decorated with stucco and frescoes could be examined.

The actual civil town, which has been explored since 1992 and which was raised to a municipality before 205 AD and thus received town rights, was built around 2 kilometers west of the camp village and is located under the village of Szőny, which is incorporated into Komárom.) The rectangular floor plan of this town was from Planned from the beginning. As an obstacle to the approach, it had its own city wall, behind which, like at the legionary camp, an earth dam was built on which the battlements lay. In addition to a number of lavishly furnished private houses, public buildings are also known from the urban area. The Augustale Quintus Ulpius Felix donated a temple to the god of healing Apollo and the goddess of health Hygieia , which he later expanded with a portico . The building inscription on this porch dates back to the last year of reign and life of Emperor Caracalla (211–217).

Like the fort, the city was destroyed during the Marcomann Wars in 169 or shortly afterwards and was only able to recover from the catastrophe in the last 10 to 15 years of the 2nd century, although the trade in imported terra sigillata from the Rhineland did not collapse during the war . In 293 the Quadi attacked and Brigetio was destroyed again. However, as the recovered coin material showed, after this second attack, money transactions were already functioning undisturbed in the years that followed. South of the legionary camp, in a place that was never inhabited, a late antique hoard with 118 aurei came out of the ground in 1959 . These coins date from the reigns of the emperors Nero (54–68) to Julian (360–363) and are possibly related to another barbarian attack.

  • Finds from Brigetio

  • Statuette of the goddess Minerva

  • Statuette of Hercules

  • Middle Imperial fresco from a private house

Burial grounds

A Roman sarcophagus on Freedom Square
A Roman sarcophagus on St. Stephen's Square

The grave fields were located both along the Limes Road between the city and the Canabae and on the southern and eastern arteries of the legionary camp. Rich finds are known from them. Barkóczi and Radnóti discovered more than 100 graves in the Gerhát burial ground to the east of the fort, which lay between the legion potters' quarter of the same name on the Danube and the Limes road. To the east of the Muncipium was the so-called "Járóka burial ground" and to the west of the city, after Barkóczi, there were two other burial sites. The use of these burial areas ended at the same time as the cemeteries belonging to the camp village, southwest (so-called "Mercator burial ground") and south (so-called "Caecilia" burial ground) of the legion camp around 260 AD. The late antique cemetery of Cellás was built in 200 Meters southeast of the southeast corner of the camp and was examined by Paulovics in 1929. On the basis of these late graves it could be shown that the populated area of Brigetio had shrunk considerably at the end of the 4th century, but was still inhabited into the 5th century.

The findings from the Gerhát burial ground, cited several times in specialist publications, also include two horse burials from the 2nd century AD.

Finds

Glass

In Brigetio, fragments of a late antique slide glass came to light. Glasses of this kind are among the most valuable products of the Roman glass industry and were only affordable for a wealthy upper class.

Ceramics

A terracotta medallion shows a depiction of Meleager , which led to the assumption that this could refer to a drama about Meleager designed by the classical Greek playwright Euripides , which could have been performed in a local, previously unknown theater.

Allegorical ceiling fresco

One of the seasons on the ceiling fresco discovered in 1992
Another of the seasons
One of the four panther representations

In 1992, several Roman-era houses with heating ducts and terrazzo floors were cut in the center of the former municipality on today's market square (Vasater) . One of the multi-phase buildings was almost completely exposed. In one of its rooms, among other things, the remains of large-scale wall paintings in a 60 centimeter high mud pile came to light. In the course of the excavation, contiguous areas could be recognized that were decorated with figures as well as geometric and plant motifs. The paintings were originally applied to a barrel vault and partly also on the side walls of the room. The painting was created in the last building phase of the house, judging by Terra Sigillata finds, probably in the late 2nd century. The upper layers of the find contained coins from the Severan period ( Elagabal , Severus Alexander ).

In the middle, a medallion could be seen, which was bordered on the edges with light blue, white and red circular lines. In the middle is a floating, half-naked woman next to a rearing horse. The woman is only dressed in a billowing green coat. The horse's body is turned towards the female figure, with the animal held by the reins looking backwards. In the corners, the personifications of the four seasons (horae) are shown as busts on red, square fields . The symbols for the seasons

  • Wreath of flowers = spring,
  • Ear = summer,
  • Grape = autumn,
  • Cloth = winter,

are attached to the heads. Four blue stripes run in a square shape along the edge of the vault. In the middle there are panthers (felina) , which have been painted on striding to the right. A green curtain motif decorated with red ribbons can be seen under all four panther representations. At the bottom they are closed by a 10 cm wide strip that once closed the curve of the ceiling.

The theme of the ceiling painting is the allegorical representation of time and its cyclical change. In addition, the ancient view of the cosmic world order is to be presented. The first are the representations of the four seasons, the latter those of the sky, the two spheres of which are symbolized with the color blue and ether (ether) red. The sky is separated from the earthly by the curtains (in Gnostic sources as katapesma = the motif separating the earthly from the heavenly aions [eternity]), the four panthers above represent the cardinal points. On the inside is - with the words of Marcus Tullius Cicero - the “last, highest, all crowning and cohesive complex” (caeli ultimus, altissimus, omnia cingens et coercens complexus), the ether in a circle of fire (pyr technikon) . Above it spreads the darkness (nyx) in which the fixed stars are located. The female figure personifies the constellation Andromeda , the horse (equus) the Pegasus . Andromeda's coat fluttering in the wind and the circular movement of the horse stand for floating in an invisible clear element that is described in ancient sources as clear (clarus) or pure (purus) .

Lost property

The György Klapka Múzeum in the Hungarian part of Komárom
Fort Igmánd houses a lapidarium.
Bastion VI of Komorn, which is now on the Slovak side of the divided city, today has the largest collection of Roman stone monuments in Slovakia.

Unless scattered on the art market through robbery excavations, a large number of finds are in the museums of Komárom ( György Klapka Múzeum , Roman Lapidarium in Fort Igmánd), Pozsony , in the Kuny Domokos Megyei Múzeum in Tata and in the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest . The stone monuments that have been preserved can also be studied in Bastion VI in the Slovak part of Komárom. Some - such as sarcophagi and two milestones - are on display in public spaces in the main square and on the western edge of Komárom.

Web links

Commons : Brigetio  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b c Zsolt Visy: The Pannonian Limes in Hungary . Theiss, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-8062-0488-8 . P.56.
  2. ^ Joan Piso: Municipium Vindobonense. In: Tyche. Contributions to ancient history, papyrology and epigraphy . 6, 1991, p. 156, footnote 131.
  3. ↑ Municipium Brigetio at 47 ° 44 '6.94 "  N , 18 ° 9' 36.36"  O
  4. ↑ Foundation inscriptions of the temple: CIL 3, 3649 ; Géza Alföldy : Augustal and servant corporations in Pannonia. In: Acta antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. 6, 1958, p. 433ff .; here p. 453. The affiliation of the missing inscription CIL 3, 10972 is uncertain , see p. Heidelberg epigraphic database .
  5. ↑ Foundation inscription of the Porticus: AE 1944, 110 ; Zsolt Mráv , Katalin Ottományi : DE {I} FU (N) C (TUS) EXP (EDITIONE) GERM (ANICA) LAURI (ACO) MORT (E) SUA. Sarcophagus of a soldier from Budaörs who died during the Caracallas Alemannic expedition. In: Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. 56, 2005, p. 190.
  6. ^ Lázló Barkóczi: The dated glass finds from the 2nd century by Brigetio. In: Folia Archaeologica. 18, 1968, pp. 67-89; here: p. 68.
  7. ↑ Günther Probszt : Austrian coin and history. From the beginning until 1918. Böhlau Verlag, Vienna a. a. 1973, p. 222.
  8. ↑ Péter Prohászka: Gazdag padmalyos női Temetkezés Brigetio / Komárom-Szőny Gerhát temetőjéből. In: Folia archaeologica. 52, 2005/2006, pp. 79-107; here p. 105; Klára Kuzmová : Spolia from Nové Zámky and their imperial and later architectural contexts. In: Slovenská archeológia. 45/1, 1997, pp. 35-82; here: p. 61.
  9. ^ András Graf: Overview of the ancient geography of Pannonia . Hungarian National Museum, Budapest 1936, p. 92 (Dissertationes Pannonicae I 5).
  10. ^ László Barkóczi: Pannonian glass finds in Hungary. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest 1988, ISBN 963-05-4286-2 , p. 218.
  11. ↑ Guido Libertini: Anfiteatri e teatri antichi di Ungheria. In: Dioniso 10, 1947, p. 109.
  12. ^ László Borhy: Roman ceiling painting from Brigetio . In: From Augustus to Attila. Life on the Hungarian Danube Limes . Theiss, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-8062-1541-3 , pp. 92-94; here p. 92.
  13. ^ László Borhy: Roman ceiling painting from Brigetio . In: From Augustus to Attila. Life on the Hungarian Danube Limes . Theiss, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-8062-1541-3 , pp. 92-94; here pp. 93–94; László Borhy; Horae, Andromeda and Pegasus: The cosmology of the ceiling painting from Brigetio (FO: Komárom / Szőny-Vásartér). In: Plafonds et voûtes à l'époque antique. Actes du 8ème Colloque International de l'Association Internationale pour la Peinture Murale Antique (AIPMA). May 15-19, 2001. Budapest - Veszprém . Pytheas, Budapest 2004, ISBN 963-740-834-7 , pp. 233-244.
  14. ^ Zsolt Visy: The Pannonian Limes in Hungary . Theiss, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-8062-0488-8 , pp. 56-57.

Coordinates: 47 ° 44 ′ 6.9 ″  N , 18 ° 9 ′ 36.4 ″  E