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Noricum - 400 BC - 488 AD

Noricum was a mountainous region, lying to the south of the Danube, and traversed by several chains of the Alps. It was inhabited by several nations, among whom were the Boii, the Noricans or Tauriscans, and the Alaunians. Boiodurum founded by the Boii, at the mouth of the Ginus (Inn); Lentia (Lintz), on the Danube, and Lauriacum, on the same river, the station of the Roman flotilla, were the most important towns. The wide extent of territory which is included between the Inn, the Danube, and the Save,-Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, the Lower Hungary, and Sclavonia,-was known to the ancients under the names of Noricum and Pannonia. In their original state of independence their fierce inhabitants were intimately connected. Under the Roman government they were frequently united.

Around 400 BC, Celtic peoples from Western Europe settled in the eastern Alps. A Celtic state, Noricum, developed around the region's ironworks in the second century BC. The Romans occupied Noricum without resistance in 9 B.C. and made the Danube River the effective northern frontier of their empire.

The eastern third of the Alpine region, whose spurs run northward as far as the Danube, but also include wider plains on this river, the Drau and the Mur, than are found in the Central or Western Alps, was, like the more remote Pannonia, completely occupied and ruled by Keltic peoples (who were probably in a minority beside the ancient Illyrian inhabitants). Their special name was Taurisci, but after the town. of Noreia, probably the seat of their kings, they were also called Norici and their country itself Noricum, a name which after its conquest by Drusus in 15 BC was retained for the province which in Roman imperial times counted as part of Illyria.

The tribe of the Norici, who were the most celebrated and powerful one in the land. It was bounded on the north by the Danube, on the west by Vindelicia and Ratia, on the east by Pannonia, and on the south by IUyricum and Gallia Cisalpina. It was separated from Vindelicia by the OEnus, now the Inn, and from Gallia Cisajpina by the Alpes Carniece or Julia, but it is difficult to determine the boundaries between Noricum and Pannonia, as they differed at various times. Noricum may be said, therefore, to correspond to the modern Styria, Carinthia, and Salzburg, and to part of Austria and Bavaria.

Noricum was divided into two nearly equal parts by a branch of the Alps, which was called the Alpes Norica. These mountains appear to have been inhabited from the earliest times by various tribes of Celtic origin, of whom the most celebrated and powerful were the Norici. Noricum was conquered by Augustus, but it is uncertain whether he reduced it to the form of a province. It appears to have been a province in the time of Claudius, who founded the colony Sabaria, which was afterward included in Pannonia. The "Notitia Imperii" realtes that Noricum was subsequently divided into two provinces, Noricum Ripense and Noricum Mediterraneum, which were separated from each other by the Alpes Noricae. The former, which lay along the Danube, was always guarded by a strong military force, under the command of a dux.

The iron of Noricum was in much request among the Romans, and, according to Polybius, gold was formerly found in this province in great abundance. Noric (or, as in modern times it is called, Steiric) iron was celebrated among the Romans, and was largely exported to Italy and beyond. The procuring of salt from the beds of rock salt and from salt springs was also carried on even in prae-Roman times, when on the other hand the yield of the gold dust from the Alpine streams, which was also much talked of by the ancients, cannot have been considerable.

In addition to the Norici already mentioned, Noricum was inhabited in the west by the Sevaces, Alauni, and Ambisonlii; but of these tribes hardly anything is known except the names. Among the cities of Noricum several were the most important: Noreia, the capital of the Norici, where Carbo was routed by the Cimbri, BC 113. It was besieged in the time of Cssar by the Boii, and was subsequently destroyed by the Romans. The ancient site is near Newmark in Styria.

Juvavia or Juvacum, to the northwest, now Salzburg, a colony founded by Hadrian. Ovllia, called subsequently Ovilabis, to the northeast, and which took its name from the flocks of sheep accustomed at one time to be fed here. It was founded by Marcus Aurelius, and is now Wels, on the River Traun. Lentia, to the northeast, on the Danube, now tens. It was built by Gratian. Lauriacum, just below the preceding, now the village of Lohr, near the city of Ens, on the Danube. It was the most important place in Noricum Ripense, and was founded by Marcus Aurelius. There was here an important manufactory of bucklers. Boiodunum, at the junction of the (Enus and the Danube, now Innstadt.

North of the Danube, various German tribes were already extending their territory. By the latter half of the second century AD, they were making devastating incursions into Roman territories. Nevertheless, Roman arms and diplomacy maintained relative stability until the late fourth century, when other Germanic tribes, including the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Vandals, were able to establish settlements in Roman territory south of the Danube. The Roman province gradually became indefensible, and much of the Christian, Romanized population evacuated the region in 488. In 493 the Ostrogoths invaded Italy, seized control of what remained of the western half of the Roman Empire, and brought the Roman era in the eastern Alps to an end.