Aquincum
At the important Danube crossing (It. Ant. 245.7; 263.9) there was an ala camp from the time of Tiberius, a castrum for legions from the time of Domitian. Aquincum was the capital of Pannonia inferior from A.D. 106. The civilian settlement rose to the rank of municipium in 124, to that of colonia in 194. At the end of the 2d c. two facing fortresses were built on the left bank of the Danube across from the camp of Legio II adiutrix, Transaquincum and Contra-Aquincum; the latter was reconstructed during the time of Diocletian (Hydatius Easti a 294). In the middle of the 4th c. the territory of Aquincum was under constant Sarmatian attacks. In 374-75, when Valentinian I put up fortifications with guard towers all along the banks of the Danube, he could not find adequate winter quarters in the suffering city (Amm.Marc. 19.11.8). Between 395 and 398 the formation was transferred to Gallia (Not.Dig. occ. 33.54). In the first decade of the 5th c. the Germans, arriving with the Huns, overran the town, but the remnants of the romanized population still remained (Sid. Apoll. 5.107). In the early Middle Ages Buda developed from the legionary camp of Aquincum, Pest from the fort of Contra-Aquincum.
The ruins of the legionary camp extend under a thickly populated section of Óbuda (ancient Buda). Of the buildings of the castrum, today only the ruins of the legion's bath are visible under a modern building. Among the cannabae relics the ruined complex of the amphitheater can be seen, and in a small museum in its vicinity are preserved the ruins of a house with wall paintings, and the rooms of a balneum with bathtubs. The mosaic floors of a Roman villa, decorated with mythological scenes, can be seen in situ. The foundations of a tripartite cella decorate the small square of a new housing development. The remains of Aquincum's wall and its two bastions were preserved in the park under the approach to the Elizabeth bridge on the Pest side.
The center of the civilian city was opened up during the last decades of the 19th c.; in the W section of town excavations were started during the 1960s. The Roman buildings were destroyed to such an extent that today the order of the industrial and commercial settlement emerges only in outline. A fairly long section of the cardo and decumanus is visible with a portico and rows of shops, a sanctuary on the forum, a basilica, a bath and the buildings of the macellum. Along the smaller streets are the headquarters of the collegium, two more public baths, two Mithraea, a sanctuary of Fortuna, ruins of dwellings and workshops. In a Roman hall are placed on exhibit mosaics, wall paintings, and statues. Among the ruins on exhibit at the Museum of Aquincum are the bronze parts of a portable organ, a wooden barrel with customs stamp, a tomb with mummy and a man's portrait painted on wood. In the lapidarium, connected to the museum, there are statues, altar stones, tombstones.
Outside the city walls are visible the ruins of Aquincum's smaller amphitheater, that of the civilian town. From here the pillar stumps of the aqueduct lead N to a modern beach, where the Roman works of the springs that fed the waterworks are now preserved, with a few relics of the sanctuary circle discovered there.
BIBLIOGRAPHYB. Kuzsinszky, Aquincum, Ausgrabungen und Funde (1934); L. Nagy, Az Aquincumi orgona (1936); id., Az Eskü-téri erőd Pest város őse (1946); id., Budapest Mülékei 2 (1962); A. Alföldi et al., Budapest Története I-II. Budapest az ókorban (1942); J. Szilágyi, Aquincum (1956); A. Mócsy, Die Bevölkerung von Pannonien bis zu den Markomannenkriegen (1959); id., RE Suppl. IX (1962); L. Barkóczi, Acta Arch H. 16 (1964) 256ff; É. Bónis, Die spätkeltisehe Siedlung Gellérthegy-Tabán in Budapest (1969); J. Szilágyi, RE Suppl. XI (1969); Budapest Régiségei I-XXI passim.
SZ. K. PÓCZY