Tricensimae

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Tricensimae
limes Lower Germanic Limes
Dating (occupancy) Last quarter of the 3rd century
to the 1st half of the 5th century
Type late antique fortress,
used for civil and military purposes
unit Legio XXX Ulpia Victrix (?)
size 400 × 400 m = 16 ha
Construction Stone fort
State of preservation No longer visible above ground
place Xanten
Geographical location 51 ° 40 ′ 0 ″  N , 6 ° 27 ′ 0 ″  E Coordinates: 51 ° 40 ′ 0 ″  N , 6 ° 27 ′ 0 ″  E
height 45  m above sea level NHN
Previous Burginatium
Subsequently Calo (?), Asciburgium (both south-southeast)
Location of Tricensimae within the Colonia Ulpia Traiana

Tricensimae was the name of a large Roman fortress from late antiquity in the center of the area around the medieval city of Colonia Ulpia Traiana (CUT) in Xanten on the Lower Rhine .

Sources and research history

There is only one ancient source on Tricensimae: Ammianus Marcellinus (around 330 to around 395) mentions the place twice in the 18th and 20th book of his res gestae . The first mention describes how Emperor Julian recaptured and restored Tricensimae and six other places on the Rhine between Castra Herculis and Bingium in 359 . The second passage mentions that Tricensimae served Julian in 360 as a deployment base for a campaign against the Chattuarians on the right bank of the Rhine . It is not unimportant that Ammian always writes of an urbs , an oppidum or a civitas in connection with Tricensimae , but not of a castellum or castrum . It can therefore be assumed that Tricensimae was primarily a civilian settlement and not a military camp. However, one has to take into account that in late antiquity the spatial separation between the military and civilians was increasingly abolished. Soldiers were billeted in civilian settlements and, conversely, civilians sought protection in military facilities.

The localization of Tricensimae has long been the subject of numerous hypotheses and speculations. Although Hermann Hinz had already come across the first findings in the early 1960s , he had not yet been able to interpret them correctly. It was not until the end of the 1960s that Günther Binding exposed the remains of late Roman fortifications in the middle of Colonia Ulpia Traiana, which he interpreted as Tricensimae. This interpretation did not initially meet with unanimous approval from experts. In 1979 Christoph B. Rüger presented a detailed first publication of the fortress in the Bonn yearbooks and rejected the equation of the finding with Tricensimae, and in 1987 he did not mention Tricensimae in a compendium of the Roman sites of North Rhine-Westphalia, but continued to represent the Thesis that the CUT continued to exist until the middle of the fourth century and that a successor settlement should be sought further east. In the meantime, the identity of the late Roman findings in the center of the CUT with the Tricensimae mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus is undisputed.

History and archaeological evidence

For a long time it was wrongly assumed that the fort was founded between 306 and 311 under Emperor Constantine . In recent research, however, it has been shown that the foundation had already taken place towards the end of the third, at the latest at the beginning of the fourth century AD, probably even in the last quarter of the third century, relatively shortly after 275. The name Tricensimae indicates a possible continued existence of the Legio XXX Ulpia Victrix ( trīcēsimus = ordinal number of trīgintā , 30), which was previously stationed in Vetera , which was reduced to 1,000 soldiers in late antiquity after the Diocletian army reform . In 352 Tricensimae was conquered by the Franks , but was won back by Julian in 359 and rebuilt. Ceramic finds go back to the first, occasionally to the second quarter of the fifth century, at the latest by this time the fortress was abandoned.

The construction takes place on the nine central insulae of the Colonia Ulpia Traiana (insulae 10-12, 17-19 and 24-26). The fortress covered an area of ​​400 m square, which is exactly 16 hectares. It was surrounded by a four-meter thick defensive wall. At the corners of the wall there were four three-quarters of a round, outwardly protruding defense towers, ten semicircular ones on each side. In front of the wall, after a four-meter-wide berm, two twelve-meter-wide trenches followed as obstacles to approach. The building material for the fortress was obtained directly on site through the demolition of the CUT buildings that were no longer needed due to the population decline. The clearing of the apron also served a purpose from a military point of view, as each ruin represented a visual obstruction for the defense and offered a possibility of protection for potential attackers.

The interpretation of the interior structures is currently still problematic, not least because of the sparse evidence. The finds suggest the continued use of a large imperial building with an apparently representative function in late antiquity up to around the end of the fourth century, but a final assessment is not yet possible for this building as well as for other traces of interior development based on the current state of research.

The area around the Tricensimae

The crest made of bone dates from the 5th century and was excavated near Xanten-Lüttingen

A small late Roman settlement was located and excavated about one kilometer northeast of the Tricensimae between the Xanten districts of Lüttingen and Wardt . A watchtower was erected there in the middle of the Imperial Era, right on the then bed of the Rhine, and it retained its function until the end of the fourth century. In connection with the nearby Franconian burial ground of Lüttingen-Wardt, which was discovered by Philipp Houben in the 19th century and which was documented from the middle of the fifth century, it can be concluded that the tower was subsequently used by the Franks.

Furthermore, a hoard with over 400 Roman gold coins was discovered in 1764, southwest of Xanten, on the grounds of the Hagenbusch monastery . The series of coins can be traced back to the period between Constantine and Valentinian III. (425-455) date.

literature

  • Julianus Egidius Bogaers and Christoph B. Rüger (eds.): The Lower Germanic Limes. Materials on its story . Art and antiquity on the Rhine, 50. Rheinland Verlag, Cologne 1974, ISBN 3-7927-0194-4 , pp. 18–21 and 106–112.
  • Christoph B. Rüger et al .: The late Roman fortress in Colonia Ulpia Traiana . In: Bonner Jahrbücher 179, 1979, pp. 499-524.
  • Thomas Otten and Sebastian Ristow : Xanten in late antiquity . In Martin Müller et al .: Colonia Ulpia Traiana. Xanten and its surroundings in Roman times . Zabern, Mainz 2008, ISBN 978-3-8053-3953-7 , pp. 549-582.
  • Clive Bridger: The graves of late antiquity (275 - approx. 430 AD) In Martin Müller et al .: Colonia Ulpia Traiana. Xanten and its surroundings in Roman times . Zabern, Mainz 2008, ISBN 978-3-8053-3953-7 , pp. 583-594.
  • Thomas Otten: Xanten in late antiquity. An urban center on the Lower Rhine. Nuclei of late antique-early medieval life? In: Roman legionary camps in the Rhine and Danube provinces. Publishing house of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-7696-0126-8 , pp. 143–174.
  • Clive Bridger: The late antique Xanten . In: Thomas Grünewald and Sandra Seibel: Continuity and Discontinuity. Germania inferior at the beginning and at the end of Roman rule . Contributions to the German-Dutch colloquium in the Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen (June 27-30, 2001), (= Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde ), supplementary volume 35, de Gruyter, 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-090090-3 , p. 12-36.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Amm. Marc. res gestae, XVIII, 2.1.
  2. ↑ Amm. Marc. res gestae, XX, 10.1f.
  3. ↑ Clive Bridger: The late antique Xanten . In: Thomas Grünewald and Sandra Seibel: Continuity and Discontinuity. Germania inferior at the beginning and at the end of Roman rule . Contributions to the German-Dutch colloquium in the Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen (June 27-30, 2001), (= Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde), supplementary volume 35, de Gruyter, 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-090090-3 , p. 17th
  4. ↑ See also Bavarian Academy of Sciences (ed.): Conference report on the international colloquium “Roman legion camps in the Rhine and Danube provinces. Nuclei of late antique early medieval life? ” . Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Munich 2006, p. 8, ( digitized version ).
  5. ↑ a b c Thomas Otten and Sebastian Ristow: Xanten in Spätantike . In Martin Müller et al .: Colonia Ulpia Traiana. Xanten and its surroundings in Roman times . Zabern, Mainz 2008, ISBN 978-3-8053-3953-7 , pp. 563-567.
  6. ^ Hermann Hinz: 1. Report on the excavations in the Colonia Traiana north of Xanten . Bonner Jahrbücher, 161 (1961), p. 343ff. and Ders .: 2nd report on the excavations in the Colonia Traiana north of Xanten . Bonner Jahrbücher, 163 (1963), p. 393ff.
  7. ↑ Clive Bridger: The late antique Xanten . In: Thomas Grünewald and Sandra Seibel: Continuity and Discontinuity. Germania inferior at the beginning and at the end of Roman rule . Contributions to the German-Dutch colloquium in the Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen (June 27-30, 2001), (= Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde), supplementary volume 35, de Gruyter, 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-090090-3 , p. 18f.
  8. ↑ Christoph B. Rüger et al .: The late Roman fortress in the Colonia Ulpia Traiana . In: Bonner Jahrbücher 179, 1979, p. 523f.
  9. ↑ a b Christoph B. Rüger: Colonia Ulpia Traiana . In: Heinz Günter Horn (Ed.): The Romans in North Rhine-Westphalia . Theiss, Stuttgart 1987, pp. 637f.
  10. ↑ Thomas Otten and Sebastian Ristow: Xanten in Spätantike . In Martin Müller et al .: Colonia Ulpia Traiana. Xanten and its surroundings in Roman times . Zabern, Mainz 2008, ISBN 978-3-8053-3953-7 , p. 551.
  11. ↑ Clive Bridger: The late antique Xanten . In: Thomas Grünewald and Sandra Seibel: Continuity and Discontinuity. Germania inferior at the beginning and at the end of Roman rule . Contributions to the German-Dutch colloquium at the Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen (June 27 to 30, 2001), (= Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde ), supplementary volume 35, de Gruyter, 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-090090-3 , p. 23f.
  12. ↑ Clive Bridger: The late antique Xanten . In: Thomas Grünewald and Sandra Seibel: Continuity and Discontinuity. Germania inferior at the beginning and at the end of Roman rule . Contributions to the German-Dutch colloquium at the Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen (June 27 to 30, 2001), (= Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde), supplementary volume 35, de Gruyter, 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-090090-3 , p. 18th
  13. ↑ Clive Bridger: The late antique Xanten . In: Thomas Grünewald and Sandra Seibel: Continuity and Discontinuity. Germania inferior at the beginning and at the end of Roman rule . Contributions to the German-Dutch colloquium at the Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen (June 27 to 30, 2001), (= Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde), supplementary volume 35, de Gruyter, 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-090090-3 , p. 22 and 24.
  14. ↑ Thomas Otten and Sebastian Ristow: Xanten in Spätantike . In Martin Müller et al .: Colonia Ulpia Traiana. Xanten and its surroundings in Roman times . Zabern, Mainz 2008, ISBN 978-3-8053-3953-7 , pp. 549-582.
  15. ^ Michael Erdrich: The representative building. Considerations on the character of the development on Doppelinsel 11/18 . In Martin Müller et al .: Colonia Ulpia Traiana. Xanten and its surroundings in Roman times . Zabern, Mainz 2008, ISBN 978-3-8053-3953-7 , pp. 355-359.
  16. ↑ Thomas Otten and Sebastian Ristow: Xanten in Spätantike . In Martin Müller et al .: Colonia Ulpia Traiana. Xanten and its surroundings in Roman times . Zabern, Mainz 2008, ISBN 978-3-8053-3953-7 , pp. 552-555.
  17. ↑ Thomas Otten and Sebastian Ristow: Xanten in Spätantike . In Martin Müller et al .: Colonia Ulpia Traiana. Xanten and its surroundings in Roman times . Zabern, Mainz 2008, ISBN 978-3-8053-3953-7 , p. 569.
  18. ↑ Thomas Otten and Sebastian Ristow: Xanten in Spätantike . In Martin Müller et al .: Colonia Ulpia Traiana. Xanten and its surroundings in Roman times . Zabern, Mainz 2008, ISBN 978-3-8053-3953-7 , p. 570.