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migration of the Slavs into the eastern Alps at the end of the sixth century led
to the complete
collapse of ecclesiastical organisation in the former provinces of Noricum and Pannonia.
Roman colonisation, and the related Romanisation of indigenous populations, who
participated in Roman society with varying degrees of involvement and success, was initially
related to military settlements and camps. In Emona, for example, the indigenous population
were almost completely driven out, while in Celeia, Virunum and Teurnia, even the leading
roles were predominantly filled by indigenous inhabitants. At the start of the first century, two
Roman legions were stationed in modern-day Slovenia – Legio VIII Augusta, which had its
winter camp in Poetovio, and Legio XV Appolinaris, which was stationed near modern-day
Ljubljana before being transferred to Carnuntum (Petronell) on the Danube, east of Vienna.
Poetovio remained a legionary camp throughout the first century. It was there, in 69 AD (by
which time the Legio XIII Gemina were at the camp) that Vespasian was declared emperor.
The incursions of the Marcomanni and Quadi led to the creation of a camp for Legio II
Italicae
in Ločica, near Šempeter in the Savinja valley, but the legion was quickly transferred
to Lauriacum (Lorch) on the Danube. As early as the third century, a new defence system was
starting to appear on the passes of the Karst. Works included blocking valleys and
constructing signal towers and fortifications, to protect Italy from the east. The defences
stretched from Tarsatica on the Kvarner Gulf in the south to the valley of the Gail river in
modern-day Austria to the north. According to Ammianus Marcellinus, the fourth-century
officer and historian, it was known as the claustra Alpium Iuliarum. The defences were part of
the larger system for Italy that ran from Liguria all the way to the Kvarner Gulf (tractus
Italiae circa Alpes); the local operational command was probably located in Castra
(Ajdovščina) and Ad Pirum (Hrušica). After the fourth century, the defences were only used
occasionally, in individual sections.
The logistical requirements of the army meant that Roman occupation of the region
was soon followed by a road system that expressed the geopolitical importance of the wider
Slovene space. The starting point for this system was Aquileia; from there, the roads spread
throughout the Danube, Drava and Sava river basins. The via Iulia Augusta went north from
Aquileia to the Norican Alpine area. One branch of the road led through Aguntum to the
upper valley of the Drava river and on towards Raetia, while another followed the Val Canale
towards Virunum (at Zollfeld), the old Norican capital, before continuing to Lauriacum
(Lorch), the capital of Noricum Ripense. Two roads led south towards Istria from Aquileia:
the via Flavia, which passed through Tergeste (Trieste) to Pula, and another that led straight to
Tarsatica (Trsat) and onward via Senia (Senj) to the main centre of Pannonia Savia, Siscia
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(Sisak). The main route across Slovene territory, the
via Gemina, led east from Aquileia
towards Ad Pirum, Emona, Celeia and Poetovio, connecting the eastern Po valley and Italian
Adriatic to the central Danube river basin. From Poetovio, home to the main customs treasury
for all Illyricum (publicum portorium Illyrici), one branch of the road led to northern
Pannonia and Carnuntum on the Danube, while another led towards the capital of Pannonia
Secunda, Sirmium (Sremska Mitrovica). There was a further road leading from Emona via
Neviodunum and Siscia along the Sava to Sirmium, with a road branching north to Virunum
somewhere between Emona and Celeia.
The barbarians heading into Italy in the fifth and sixth centuries also travelled along
the main Emona-Aquileia road, finding plunder or a new home along its course. At the end of
the fourth century, the Roman defence system along the Danube collapsed and the Visigoths,
who had settled on lands within the Empire after their victory over Emperor Valens in the
Battle of Adrianople in 378, were followed by other tribes such as the Huns, Suebi,
Ostrogoths and Lombards, who steadily built up pressure on the northerly and easterly flanks.
In 379 these events had already spilled over onto present-day Slovene territory, when the
Visigoths sacked Poetovio and Stridon, the birthplace of St. Jerome, which lay somewhere
along the border between Pannonia and Dalmatia (perhaps even in the Kvarner Gulf area).
The Visigoths were also the first barbarian people to sack Rome; they broke into Italy in
409/410, along the route that Attila would follow in 452, when the Huns sacked and burned
Aquileia, as well as towns and fortresses in present day Slovenia. At the end of the 480s,
Theoderic the Great reached an agreement with the emperor in Constantinople to act as allies
(foederati) of the Eastern Roman Empire, enabling him to lead the Ostrogoths into Italy. In
the Battle of the Isonzo (the Soča river), in 489, Theoderic defeated Odoacer, who had
deposed the last Western Roman emperor in 476. By 493, Theoderic had conquered Italy,
which the Romanised Ostrogoths would rule for another half century. By 536, Noricum,
Pannonia and Dalmatia all came within the Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy. Theoderic’s
administrator for Noricum Mediterraneum was, in all probability that Ursus v(ir) s(pectabils),
who donated a notable mosaic with Christian symbolism in the ‘funeral’ church of the newer
Norican capital of Teurnia.
The Langobardi or Lombards entered Italy almost exactly 80 years after the Visigoths.
They arrived just after Easter in 568, the last time that a wave of soldiers would migrate from
a Pannonian homeland, taking their wives and children, equipment and animals on carts, on
horses and on foot. The Lombards arrived in the present-day Lower Austria, south of the
Danube, at the start of the sixth century. In 547/48, Emperor Justinian I made a treaty with