Oppidum Ubiorum (Latin city of Ubii), Ara Ubiorum and Apud Aram Ubiorum A Germanic tribe known as the
Eburones had originally inhabited the present-day
Cologne Lowland. But they were wiped out in a war of reprisal carried out by
Julius Caesar. In 38 BC, the Germanic tribe known as the
Ubii, who inhabited the right bank of the Rhine, were resettled by the Roman General
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa in the lands in the Cologne Lowland vacated by the Eburones. This brought the Ubii within Roman-occupied territory. The Ubii chose an island in the Rhine as the central location of their settlement area. The island was a natural rise that was protected from flooding. The location of the settlement no longer exists today but it roughly comprises the area between the areas of the Heumarkt and the Alter Markt sections of the old city of Cologne. The settlement can be dated by archeological finds to the first half of the 1st century AD. By this time the typical Roman grid-style street plan was already in use. The settlement's assumed name is probably Oppidum Ubiorum (Settlement of the Ubii). The Roman epoch of the
history of the city of Cologne begins with this
oppidum. During the rule of
Augustus (30 BC to AD 14), the Ara Ubiorum (Altar of the Ubii) was constructed within the city limits. This altar was possibly foreseen as the central place of worship for a greater Germanic province, which would comprise lands across the Rhine, which remained unconquered at this point. The noble
Segimundus is mentioned as the priest of the Ara in the year AD 9. He was from the family of
Arminius, leader of the
Cherusci. After Arminius' victory over
Publius Quinctilius Varus in the same year at the
Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, the plans for a greater German province were largely set aside. However, the altar itself retained some of its importance as the city is mentioned as “Ara Ubiorum” in many inscriptions. Between 9 and AD 30 the area of present-day Cologne was mainly a garrison.
Legio I Germanica and the
Legio XX Valeria Victrix were stationed nearby. The place of the initial Roman
Castra was known as Apud Aram Ubiorum (At the Altar of the Ubii). The headquarters of
Germanicus were located in Cologne from AD 13 to 17, when he was recalled by
Tiberius. After the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, Germanicus made efforts to stabilize the border region and to plan and carry out new offensives against the Germanic tribes located on the right bank of the Rhine. With the death of Augustus in AD 14 the legions garrisoned in Cologne mutinied with the aim of establishing Germanicus as emperor. These legions probably united in mutiny with those from
Vetera stationed at their summer garrison in
Castrum Novasium. Germanicus however remained loyal to Tiberius, who was heir to the throne. He dissuaded the legions from declaring him emperor and at the same time placated the mutineers through generous concessions. Legio I was later stationed in Bonna (present-day
Bonn) and Legio XX garrisoned Castrum Novaesium near present-day
Neuss.
Promotion to Roman colony (early 2nd century AD), today site of the church
St. Maria im Kapitol Agrippina the younger was born in AD 15 in Cologne. She was the daughter of Germanicus and the wife of the Roman Emperor
Claudius. She succeeded in convincing Claudius around 50 AD to elevate her birthplace to a
colonia named
Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (Colony of Claudius and Altar of the Agrippinians) − where the name of the emperor stands for the rights granted to a
colonia, that of the empress for the inhabitants, her compatriots, who she had named
Agrippinenses after her, and even the altar at the central sanctuary (on the
forum) was mentioned, the
Ara Ubiorum, where, in addition to the emperor, the Ubiian gods were worshiped. The elevation gave the previous oppidum the status of "city" under Roman law and a Roman colony had many more imperial rights than an oppidum. At this time the city became the administrative capital of
Germania Inferior. Before this time the area was not an official province, but an occupied area controlled and administered initially by the military (exercitus Germaniae inferioris) and later temporarily defined as a tentative "Germania provincia". From AD 70 on the city had a strong
city wall that was c. 8 meters in height and 2.5 meters wide. However, the remains of the Roman city wall that can still be seen today are from the 3rd century AD. The unwalled portions of the city were equal to a square kilometer. Its most important
steles and
grave goods are preserved in the
Romano-Germanic Museum.
The year of four emperors and Batavian revolt In AD 68, the death of Emperor
Nero caused a succession crisis in
Rome. This led to a civil war throughout the empire. The
Roman Senate installed
Servius Sulpicius Galba as emperor, but he was quickly murdered by another contender for the throne,
Marcus Salvius Otho, who had the backing of the
Praetorian Guard. Meanwhile, the legions stationed in Colonia called for their commander
Aulus Vitellius to be crowned as emperor. Vitellius marched on Italy at the head of the better part of the Rhine legions, and defeated Otho's troops at the
First Battle of Bedriacum, in which Otho himself was killed. A power vacuum occurred on the now undefended Rhine border. The
Batavians rose and advanced on the empire from the Northeast of Germania Inferior. The majority of the inhabitants of Colonia remained Ubii, as they had not been fully romanised. They quickly sided with the Batavians. However, when the Batavians demanded that the city wall be torn down, the inhabitants of Colonia again sided with the Roman Empire. Vitellius was overthrown eight months later by
Titus Flavius Vespasianus, whose troops feared reprisals for having previously recognized Otho as emperor. Vitellius was killed and his body thrown into the
Tiber.
Capital of the province Germania Inferior with
Dionysian scenes from a Roman villa of
Cologne (Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium), 3rd century AD,
Romano-Germanic Museum With the founding of the province of
Germania Inferior under
Domitian in AD 89, the commander of the Legions of Lower Germania Colonia became the provincial governor, based in Colonia. In AD 80 a water supply was built, the
Eifel Aqueduct, one of the longest
aqueducts of the Roman Empire, which delivered 20,000 cubic metres of water to the city every day. Ten years later, the
colonia became the capital of the Roman province of Lower Germany,
Germania Inferior, with a total population of 20,000 people with around 15,000 of them inside and around 5,000 outside the city walls. (For comparison: at the same time there were some 5,000 inhabitants in
Lutetia (Paris), also around 20,000 inhabitants in
Augusta Treverorum (Trier), around 30,000–50,000 or more in Narbo Martius (
Narbonne), between 30,000 and 60,000 people in
Londinium (London), 50,000 to 100,000, and possibly up to 200,000 in
Lugdunum (Lyon), and between half a million and one million in
ancient Rome.) The Rhine fleet (part of the
Classis Germanica) was stationed south of the city at Alteburg. The Alteburg naval fort was a camp measuring around twelve hectares, surrounded by a
vicus, a civilian settlement, just three and a half kilometers south of the ancient city, in the eastern area of today's Marienburg district of Cologne. The fortress was destroyed in attacks by the
Franks in AD 276. This area was later named Alte Burg, from which come the present day names "
Alteburger Wall" and "
Alteburger Platz". With the elevation to provincial capital, Colonia was no longer a military base. The legions of the province were stationed in Vetera II near
Colonia Ulpia Traiana (near present-day Xanten), Novaesium and Bonna. The name of the city varied in usage over time. In the 4th century AD it was known as
Colonia Agrippina, which was shortened to
Colonia sometime after the 5th century. The
Praetorium served as the residence as well as the administrative building of the governor of the province of
Germania inferior. The governor combined in his person the military command over the Lower Germanic army (Exercitus Germaniae Inferioris) and the civil command over the province. His civil power encompassed both the judiciary and the executive and - in a regional context - the legislative power. The governor of a province, as
Legatus Augusti pro praetore ("envoy of the emperor with the rank of
praetor"), was always a former
Roman consul. He only answered directly to the emperor. In order to carry out his tasks, an extensive administrative apparatus as well as an infantry cohort and a cavalry cohort were directly subordinate to him. The praetorium of the CCAA was located in the ancient city directly on the eastern city wall, northeast of the forum district. It is the only administrative building of this type in the entire Roman Empire in which the name
praetorium as such is preserved in an inscription. The foundation walls can be viewed under the "Spanish Building" of the
Cologne City Hall. Essentially, the building, which has seen repeated new construction and extensions throughout its history, can be differentiated into four different construction phases: • The origins of the Praetorium may date back to 14 AD. The first building could arise from the
principia of the Legio XX camp or from the praetorium (in the sense of commander's apartment) of Germanicus, who stayed in Cologne between the years 13 and 17 AD. From this period, two parallel trachyte walls, 4.20 meters apart, with a length of 148 and 173 m respectively, have been identified. The façade facing the Rhine was divided by pilasters. A little south of it, the apse of an unidentifiable part of the building, approximately eight meters in diameter, was excavated. • A second construction phase may be attributed to the period after the events of AD 69/70. To the north of the first building, the so-called conches building with its outbuildings was built. The long parallel walls of the oldest building were divided into numerous smaller rooms by installing partition walls. Further parts of the building - some with hypocausts - were inserted into the area between the praetorium and the city wall. Including the so-called "House on the City Wall", which was connected to the main Praetorium complex via a pillared hall. • The first phase of the third construction phase includes the planned demolition and reconstruction of large parts of the administrative palace. The large-scale renovation work was probably carried out under the governorship of the later "auction emperor"
Didius Julianus, who, after his consulship in 175, resided in Cologne as governor of Lower Germania from around 180. Thanks to a building inscription by
Commodus in which Didius Julianus is mentioned, the date of the renovation can be dated almost exactly to the years 184/185. Of the older buildings, only the “House on the City Wall” and the associated pillar hall were preserved. A large gallery building was created, with various smaller components adjoining it to the north. In the south, the apse building from construction phase I was replaced by a large hall, the so-called
Aula regia or palace hall, the apse of which was approximately 15 m in diameter. In total, the praetorium in this construction phase extended over the area of four
insulae and therefore probably took up almost 40,000 m2. At an unclear point in time, the praetorium was destroyed by a devastating fire. The discovery of a coin of
Constantine the Great, which was found in the rubble of the fire and was minted in the years 309 to 313, indicates that the first section of the third construction phase could have lasted for over 125 years. After that, destruction and reconstruction did not take place until the second decade of the fourth century at the earliest. However, written evidence about the praetorium is only available again for the year 355 by
Ammianus Marcellinus. When Cologne was conquered by the Franks that year, the Praetorium was also affected and possibly completely destroyed. • The reconstruction and thus the fourth and final construction phase of the Praetorium cannot be precisely timed. It may have begun immediately after the liberation of Cologne from the Franks by the Emperor Julian in 356. After an interruption, new construction continued in the last quarter of the fourth century and was finally completed in the last decade of the century. Of the older parts of the building, only the southern areas of the gallery building and the Aula Regia remained. The new main building initially consisted of a large rectangular hall, with the so-called porticus gallery in front of it facing the Rhine. At the northern and southern ends of the central building, two apsidal halls were built, whose ten-meter-diameter arches were oriented to the west. In a later phase of the expansion, an octagonal building with a circular interior with a diameter of 11.30 m was added to the center of the main building. The octagonal building divided the central building into two halls, each around 250 m2 in size. • The praetorium later served as a royal palace
(Pfalz) for the
Merovingian kings of
Francia and was destroyed during the reign of
Charlemagne around 780/790, possibly by a natural disaster.
Late antiquity and the end of Roman rule, Aftermath In AD 260
Postumus made Cologne the capital of the
Gallic Empire, which included the Germanic and Gallic provinces, Britannia and the provinces of Hispania. The Gallic Empire lasted only fourteen years. By the 3rd century, only 20,000 people lived in and around the town as the city was badly affected by the crisis of the 3rd century. In AD 310, Emperor
Constantine I had a bridge over the Rhine constructed; this was guarded by the
castellum Divitia (nowadays "Deutz") on the other side of the Rhine, thus in the unoccupied
Germania Magna. In AD 321
Jews are documented in Cologne in a letter of protection from Constantine; when exactly the first Jews arrived in the Rhineland area cannot be established any more, but Cologne's Jewish community claims to be the oldest north of the Alps. Although their religion was recognized as
religio licita ("permitted religion" – in contrast to Christianity before Constantine), at the same time they were exempt from the
Roman imperial cult and sacrifices to the
Roman state gods. However, these were a basic requirement for holding public office. (See:
History of the Jews in Cologne.) Colonia had to be temporarily abandoned in December 355 following a lengthy siege by the Franks. The archaeological strata of that time indicate that conquest and looting had catastrophic effects and the city lay in ruins. The Praetorium was reconstructed and enlarged circa 375 A.D. as seen in the model of the Roman-German Museum in Cologne. The mausoleum that is still preserved in the decagon part of
St. Gereon's Basilica was probably built between 350 and 365. The last dated reconstruction is from 392/393, when
Arbogast, the
Magister Militum of the Western half of the Empire, in the name of the emperor Eugenius renewed an unspecified public building. The city finally fell to the
Ripuarian Franks in AD 459. Two lavish burial sites near the
Cathedral date from this period of late antiquity. When Franconian kingdoms (such as
Austrasia) formed with the fall of Roman rule, the Roman-influenced urban settlements in the Rhineland also largely disappeared. Only a few places – such as Cologne,
Trier (Augusta Treverorum) and
Mainz (Mogontiacum) – remained continuously populated within the Roman city layout with a significantly reduced population in the
migration period and the
Early Middle Ages. Cologne, which was inhabited by up to 20,000 people in late Roman antiquity, had around 3,000 inhabitants in the year 700, making it the second largest city in the Rhineland after Trier (5,000). However, the trend was reversed in the
High Middle Ages and
late Middle Ages: While Trier grew from around 4,000 inhabitants in 1120 to around 10,000 in 1430, only half as many as in ancient times, Cologne quadrupled its population in the same period to 40,000, twice as many as in Roman times. But precisely because Cologne grew rapidly in the Middle Ages and beyond, many Roman buildings disappeared in the course of new development. We still don't know where the Cologne
amphitheater was located (while the
Trier one still exists). In return, Cologne received
twelve Romanesque churches, in addition to an
immense cathedral, and again acquired great prosperity through trade and customs on the Rhine as well as through exquisite craftsmanship that far exceeded that which was already advanced in antiquity. (See:
History of Cologne.) == Architectural monuments and archaeological findings ==