REIGN DATES
Trajan (A.D. 98–117)
Hadrian (A.D. 117–138)
Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138–161)
Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161–180)
Commodus (A.D. 177–192)
Pertinax (A.D. 193)
Septimius Severus (A.D. 193–211)
Caracalla (A.D. 198–217)
Macrinus (A.D. 217–218)
IN THE EARLY SECOND century A.D., with the Roman emperor Trajan’s conquests of Dacia, in what is now Romania, and Parthia, in modern Iran, the Roman Empire reached its greatest extent. Trajan was born in Spain, the first emperor to have been born out-side Italy. His adopted successor, Hadrian, shored up border defenses in northern Britain by constructing a 73-mile-long wall. For much of his reign, Hadrian traveled throughout the vast empire. One of the important provincial centers he visited, twice, was the city of Viminacium, in what is now eastern Serbia.
Situated where the Mlava River flows into the Danube, Viminacium was established as a legionary fortress along the empire’s northern border by the Legio VII Claudia, or Seventh Claudian Legion, which was stationed there beginning in the mid-first century A.D. At its height in the first and second centuries A.D., the legion boasted some 5,000 to 6,000 soldiers. “The legionary fortresses in the province of Moesia at Singidunum and Viminacium flanked the open Pannonian Plain, facing the threat of barbarian tribes just across the border,” says archaeologist Nemanja Mrđić of Serbia’s Institute of Archaeology. “Viminacium occupies the last flat area before you enter the mountains to the east.”
Owing to its strategic location at the confluence of the rivers and its role as the region’sous homes. Citizens gathered to socialize in the public baths and watch gladiatorial contests in the amphitheater, whose walls were emblazoned with paintings of the skins of leopards and lions slain inside. Villas and bustling industrial workshops sprawled across another 250 acres beyond the city walls. During excavations in this area conducted by the Institute of Archaeology, researchers discovered two of the largest brick production sites in Moesia. “The turnout of the kilns could have been over two million bricks per year,” says archaeologist Ljubomir Jevtović of the Institute of Archaeology.
