Fortress of Legio X Gemina (Vindobona)
About
Legio X Gemina, long stationed at Noviomagus (Nijmegen) in Germania Inferior from 71 to 103 CE, was transferred east to Aquincum and then to a new permanent fortress at Vindobona (Vienna) in 114 CE, where it remained the garrison through 117 CE and for centuries afterward. The fortress covered some 20 hectares and housed roughly 6,000 men on the ground where Vienna's first district now stands. Around its walls grew the canabae legionis, a sprawling settlement of traders, veterans, and soldiers' families that would later be granted municipal rights as a full town in the early third century. In 117 CE the legion anchored the Danube frontier here, its watch posts facing the Marcomanni and Quadi across the river.
What happened here
A legionary fortress holds five thousand men and is laid out to the same plan everywhere, so a transferred soldier knows his way around on the first day. Two main streets cross at the headquarters building, where the standards and the pay chest are kept in a sunken strongroom under guard. Around it: the commander's house with a courtyard garden, granaries raised on stone piers, a hospital, workshops, and long barrack blocks divided into rooms for eight men who cook and mess together. Training is daily, and building work is constant — soldiers make their own bricks, tiles and boots. A civilian town grows against the walls, with bars, traders and the unofficial families of men who are not legally allowed to marry.
In ancient writing
- Aurelius Victor, De Caesaribus 16.12
Aurelius Victor states that Marcus Aurelius died at Vindobona in 180 CE — though other ancient authors instead give Sirmium, so the site of his death is itself disputed among ancient sources.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →