History of Baden-Württemberg

Three roads in Ladenburg bear the names of Roman emperors: the Domitian, the Trajan and the Valentinian Roads. The names represent the beginning, the flourishing and the end of the Roman settlement of Lopodunum.

Emperor Domitian had an early small fort built on the banks of the Neckar in the neighborhood of a pre-Roman settlement. Migrating Suevi (Swabians), who had close ties to the Romans, lived there from the beginning of the 1st century B.C. Emperor Trajan raised the Roman settlement around 100 A.D. as the main town of the surrounding district. Emperor Valentinian around 370 A.D. built in the partially abandoned town a final defensive position against the Alemands. He intended thereby to keep the Neckar crossing for the Roman army. The intervening two and a half centuries are exemplary of Roman settlement in Southwest Germany.

Lopodunum, like many other Roman settlement places, had military considerations to thank for its beginnings. To assure its occupation, Roman troops continually undertook campaigns against the Germans in "Germanien" (thus it was called since Caesar the Rhein right-bank area) since the Emperors Augustus and Tiberius. In the conquered land between the Rhine and the Danube they built forts. Roman military leaders had soldiers build roads to connect the individual forts. Thus the soldiers could quickly man their posts during a rebellion.

After the first fort under Domitian, there was built around 90 A.D., on the Roman highway from Mainz through Heidelberg to the forts on the middle Neckar, the Lopodunum fort. The walls of this fort, planned for 50 men, were 2.20 meters thick at the base and up to 2.75 meters high. They enclosed a quadrangle 168 meters wide and 185 meters long. Guard towers protected the entrances. The construction material was transported by river from the colored sandstone quarries in the Neckar region. As with other forts, peddlers and tradesmen moved in close by. They also supplied the soldiers. From this installation village arose the civilian Roman settlement of Lopodunum, whereby the older settlement of the Suevi was occupied. Because of troop redeployments, the soldiers abandoned the fort. Emperor Trajan raised the village to the status of administration center for the region, and it took on the character of a city.

Around 200 A.D. Lopodunum was rebuilt. A defensive wall 2470 meters long surrounded the settlement. As in cities, the forum, the market place with a market basilica (the old roman market hall) formed the town center. These public places were of city size. Market buildings surrounded this square with their columned ways of 75 meters in length and 41 meters wide. At the head end toward the east stood the double naved market basilica. On its long side was a wing somewhat resembling the choir of a present-day church. In this apse the community leaders met. The forum was erected on the site of the former fort.

From north to south crossed the Roman Lopodunum highway. Towers probably guarded the city entrances. Along the road stood so-called Roman Streifenhäuser (former version of row houses). From the sidewalk, the impression was that one was entering the business rooms. Behind, the living quarters included several small rooms. There the oven also stood. In the back yard there was a fountain. Some businessmen dealt in oil and wine, others had workshops and worked iron and bronze as smiths or casters.

Many potters settled in Lopodunum. As raw materials, there was a sufficient supply of loam and kaolin clays in the area surrounding the settlement. Because of shorter transport routes and also because of smoke nuisance in the residential area, later potteries and also the larger brickworks were placed outside the town.

To a well developed Roman settlement there also belonged a tavern and an inn for transient traders that offered room and board. In every Roman settlement, including Lopodunum, there were baths, the so-called spas. The bathhouse was a good 40 meters long. With the customary warm air heating, the bath rooms were warmed as needed. The walls were also painted in the fashion of Roman buildings in the southern homeland. The wealthier homeowners also had murals.

Directly on the edge of the defensive wall stood the theater. The stage house ran along the city wall for about 90 meters. For the amphitheater a strong retaining wall had to be thrown up, as no natural rise in the ground could support the structure here. In wartime, the theater was even used as a bulwark in front of the southeastern corner of the city wall.

The residents honored their gods in various shrines. In homage to the gods they also erected mighty columns. A large stone as the base showed the likenesses of four Roman gods. Ausonius, the donor of the column, thereby honored gods who where important to the community: Hercules was the protector of roads and harbors; Mercury the god of commerce and trade; in Juno the Romans saw the goddess of home and family, and together with the goddess Minerva also the protectress of the state. The adorned column rising from the "four-god stone" had on top the mounted father of the gods, Jupiter, who was supported by a giant.

When the Alemands attacked Lopodunum for the first time in 233 A.D., this column was tipped over. The broken pieces were thrown into the nearby well. When peace again returned, they performed makeshift repairs on the column and put it back up. But then followed the great Alemand invasion in 259-260 A.D. The Alemanic tribes attacked the Limes; Lopodunum again fell into the hands of the conquerors. A second time the Jupiter-giant column was destroyed and sunk in the well. Perhaps the Alemanic invaders thought thereby to banish the power of the Roman gods. In the following decades, now the Alemands, now the Romans had the upper hand in the many battles. For a short time in 370 A.D. the troops of the Emperor Valentinian brought Lopodunum again into Roman hands. Emperor Valentinian had an earthwork fortification built in the partly abandoned city directly on the bank of the Neckar, with a ship anchorage. The walled defensive tower was intended to hold the Neckar crossing for the Roman army. But even this bulwark could not prevent the end of Roman rule in Lopodunum.

In 1974, the Jupiter-giant column, twice thrown into the well, experienced a resurrection. After the covered well was discovered and investigated by chance during construction work, it was restored as it once was and installed by the episcopal palace. The Jupiter-giant column and other still visible remains of Roman buildings and the many artifacts in the Lobdengau Museum are eloquent witnesses to the Roman past of the present city of Ladenburg and of Roman rule in Southwest Germany.