City
Sabarie
Szombathely · Steinamanger
Listen to the story
Sabarie is the Roman colony of Savaria, today Szombathely in western Hungary. The emperor Claudius raised this old town of the Celtic Boii to a colony, as the Roman writer Pliny records, and its place on the Amber Road from Aquileia to Carnuntum made it prosper quickly. Until AD 106 it was the administrative centre of the province, with a customs station and the provincial altar of the imperial cult. Emperors such as Valentinian stayed here, and the martyr Saint Quirinus is linked to the town. One inscription even claims that the poet Ovid lies buried here.