City
Carnunto
Bad Deutsch-Altenburg
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Carnuntum guarded the Danube near Bad Deutsch-Altenburg in Austria, where the river road met the Amber Road coming up from Aquileia; the Roman writer Pliny reckoned the coast where amber was gathered at about six hundred miles away. A legionary fortress stood here, and the town became the capital of Upper Pannonia. Marcus Aurelius spent three years in it while fighting the Marcomanni, and in 193 Septimius Severus was proclaimed emperor here, later raising the town to a colony. By 375, after Germanic raids, the historian Ammianus described it as deserted and squalid.
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