Exploring Carnuntum

Ancient life and times

Faded glory of empire

Built anew for us

Once we'd set up camp in the town of Petronell-Carnutum after leaving Vienna, we paid a visit to the open-air museum of Carnuntum.

The mansion front view

 Carnuntum was a large-ish Roman city that was an important border and trading town, but it became “world famous” when, in the 3^rd century AD, when a conference was held there to decide the fate of the Empire (just so you know, you should be listening to the Imperial March for greater effect while reading this post).

The decision was made to divvy the empire up into a tetrarchy, to try and stop every second general declaring himself Caesar. It did work for a bit, but in the end, one of them by the name of Constantine (later humbly known as “The Great”), kicked the other Tetrarch's butts and took sole control of the empire. You just can't trust some people. The tetrarchy, however, did seem to kick off both Constantine and Galerius' (another of the Tetrarchs) conversion to Christianity, which was kind of a big thing.

Marcus Aurelius also lived there for a time, when he penned the second of his “Meditations”, all the while kicking the crap out of the annoying Germanic tribes on the other side of the river.

The Austrians have done some amazing work with the place, there are semi-rebuilt amphitheaters in two locations and in the open-air museum they have rebuilt a couple of the Roman buildings using the types of materials and techniques that would have been available at the time. They've even filled the gardens with plants that are the most likely (as far as they can tell) to have been used in cooking and medicine at the time.

The first rebuilt house we came to was a smaller one, probably/possibly belonging to a reasonably successful merchant (they figure this by the area in which it was, i.e. a fair way away from the legionnaire’s barracks). It was a fairly simple affair, as roman stuff goes, with pleasant cool tiling and a nice little garden. Something like that would do Gab and myself quite nicely, although we'd need another floor to fit the library.

The inside of the merchant's home, Gabby included free of charge

 The other rebuilt house was a slightly more grand affair, as you can see from the top picture - a large mansion, including its own thermal baths. Fairly swish and, again, situated a long way from the oiks in the legion. With the mansion, the Austrians have even painted and decorated the walls and furniture in ways that match the old records. 

View of part of the mansion from the back. At the right edge, you can just see the dome of the meeting hall

The mansion's kitchen

 Pretty impressive, I have to say, and nice to see how the other half lived, with their fancy public meeting rooms and such (the Romans didn't consider their homes as places of quiet and privacy, but rather as public stages on which they greeted associates, formed cabals, earned favours and influence and all the other political and social intriguing that the Romans were famous for.)

The meeting hall

On the private side of the mansion, photo taken up from a smallish platform for reading and resting. The baths began through the door to the left.

 There were also other ruins that had been semi-rebuilt, mainly just foundations and the bases of the walls, but showing how the hypocausts were built and stuff like that – cool if you've not seen it before, but we've done Rome, darling, so this stuff is all old hat now, I'm afraid.

Interesting chimney pots on top of the mansion

Gabby about to pen her next bestseller up in the office

 There was also a very well done clay model of the city and surrounds – even down to the funeral and grave sites strung out along the roads leaving the town. Sadly, we didn't bother with any photos of it, as it was too big to get in one go and wouldn't have done it justice. Had Gabby let me get that wide-angle lens I'd been annoying her about, it might have been another story, so I guess it's actually all her fault, so you can blame her...)

It was a nice, if hot, afternoon's jaunt, although seeing people on a segway tour through the place was definitely disconcerting. I mean, seriously, a more ridiculous way of getting around, I can't conceive.

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Words and most of the pics by Neil