Pannonia
Pannonia is an ancient country bounded north and east by the
Danube, conterminous westward with
Noricum and upper
Italy, and southward with
Dalmatia and upper
Moesia.Pannonia was located in the territory of present-day countries:
Austria,
Croatia,
Hungary,
Serbia,
Slovenia,
Slovakia and
Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Today, the term Pannonia is usually used for what is called
Transdanubia (Dunántúl) in
Hungary and for the northern parts of former
Yugoslavia which are located in the
Pannonian plain.
Julius Pokorny derived the name
Pannonia from
Illyrian, from the
Proto-Indo-European root
*pen-, "swamp, water, wet" (cf. English
fen, "marsh").
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Position of the Roman province of Pannonia |
Its original inhabitants were the
Pannonii (
Pannonians), a group of tribes akin to
Illyrians. From the
4th century BC it was invaded by various
Celtic tribes. Little is heard of Pannonia until
35 BC, when its inhabitants, allies of the
Dalmatians, were attacked by
Augustus, who conquered and occupied Siscia (
Sisak). The country was not, however, definitely subdued until
9 BC, when it was incorporated into
Illyricum, the frontier of which was thus extended as far as the Danube.
In AD
6, the Pannonians, with the Dalmatians and other Illyrian tribes, revolted, and were overcome by
Tiberius and
Germanicus, after a hard-fought campaign which lasted for three years. The proximity of dangerous barbarian tribes (
Quadi,
Marcomanni) necessitated the presence of a large number of troops (seven legions in later times), and numerous fortresses were built on the bank of the Danube.
Some time between the years
102 and
107, between the first and second Dacian wars,
Trajan divided the
province into
Pannonia Superior (the western), and
Pannonia Inferior (the eastern) portion. According to
Ptolemy, these divisions were separated by a line drawn from Arrabona (
Győr) in the north to Servitium (
Gradiška) in the south; later, the boundary was placed further east. The whole country was sometimes called the Pannonias (Pannoniae).
Pannonia Superior was under the consular legate, who had formerly administered the single province, and had three legions under his control: Pannonia Inferior at first under a praetorian legate with a single legion as garrison, after
Marcus Aurelius under a consular legate, still with only one legion. The frontier on the Danube was protected by the establishment of the two colonies Aelia Mursia (
Osijek) and Aelia
Aquincum (
Ã"buda) by Hadrian.
Under
Diocletian a fourfold division of the country was made:
*
Pannonia Prima in the northwest, with capital in
Savaria/
Sabaria (
Szombathely),
*
Pannonia Valeria in the northeast, with capital in
Sopianae (
Pécs),
*
Pannonia Savia in the southwest, with capital in Siscia (
Sisak),
*
Pannonia Secunda in the southeast, with capital in
Sirmium (
Sremska Mitrovica)
Diocletian also moved parts of today's
Slovenia out of Pannonia and included them into
Noricum.
In the middle of the
5th century Pannonia was ceded to the
Huns by
Theodosius II, and after the death of
Attila successively passed into the hands of the
Ostrogoths (456-471),
Lombards (530-568),
Avars (560s - c.800),
Slavs (living there since c. 480s; independent between c.800 - 900),
Magyars (modern Hungarians) (since 900/901);
Habsburgs and
Ottomans (since 1526; the Ottoman rule ended in 1878). After the First World War, the region was divided between
Austria,
Hungary and the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed to
Yugoslavia in 1929).
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Aerial photography: Gorsium - Tác - Hungary |
The native settlements consisted of pagi (cantons) containing a number of vici (villages), the majority of the large towns being of
Roman origin. Other than the aforementioned towns, there also existed the cities of:
*
Solva (
Esztergom)
*
Aquincum (North-
Buda)
*
Contra-Aquincum (
Pest)
*
Alba Regia (
Székesfehérvár)
*
Arrabona (
Győr)
*
Cibalae (
Vinkovci)
*
Gorsium-Herculia (
Tác)
*
Mursa (
Osijek)
*
Marsonia (
Slavonski Brod)
*
Scarbantia (
Sopron)
*
Taurunum (
Zemun)
The country was fairly productive, especially after the great forests had been cleared by
Probus and
Galerius. Before that time timber had been one of its most important exports. Its chief agricultural products were
oats and
barley, from which the inhabitants brewed a kind of
beer named sabaea. Vines and olive trees were little cultivated. Pannonia was also famous for its breed of hunting dogs. Although no mention is made of its mineral wealth by the ancients, it is probable that it contained iron and silver mines. Its chief rivers were the
Dravus,
Savus, and
Arrabo, in addition to the
Danuvius (less correctly, Danubius), into which the first three rivers flow.
The ancient name Pannonia is retained in the modern term
Pannonian plain.
*
Pannonian plain*
Roman provinces*
Roman Empire*
Aerial photography: Gorsium - Tác - Hungary
