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After reaching the south bank of the Danube in the area between later forts Carnuntum and Brigetio, the Romans began to perform their fortification activities that visibly changed the historical landscape structure on both riversides. Exposing the legionnaires on this territory also attracted merchants. Some high-quality consumer and luxurious goods from top antique workshops began to be imported, which up to that time were unavailable to the native people living north of the Danube. Carnuntum had been supplied with imported articles by means of so-called Amber Route going out of the Adriatic port of Aquileia. Through a Danube ford north of Carnuntum the route then passed over to the territory of Barbaricum. One of its branches crossed the Záhorie region (between the lower course of the Morava River and the Small Carpathians), at that time occupied by the Germanic tribes of Marcomanni and Quadi. The number of Germans in this region increased after the arrival of military troops of Marbod and Katvald, the sovereigns who ruled a mighty Germanic empire with its centre in Central Bohemia and who were expelled by their own tribesmen (the ex-kings were accommodated by the Romans on the territory of the Roman Empire). Afterward the Quadic magnate Vannius was installed to rule these Germanic tribes. The politics supporting the Germanic elite through the establishment of client states as a barrier against barbarian attacks on the Empire frontiers led to an increase in power and wealth of local princes. The ruling clans gained their possessions as well from charges for passing the Amber Route. An evidence of wealth of the Germanic elite that was resident in the Záhorie region, i. e. in immediate neighbourhood of the Roman Empire, is also given by rich princely graves uncovered in the municipalities of Zohor and Vysoká pri Morave.
In Vysoká pri Morave, which is situated ca 20 km north of the Danube, one
princely grave was found unexpectedly in 1939 during the exploitation
of soil for a
dam construction. Its uncovering and taking out wasn’t attended by archaeologists.
According to finders, the grave contained a skeleton with its head in
the North. The grave depth was later estimated to 120 cm. As witnessed
by
the finders,
all grave goods were situated around the head of buried person. The grave
content got into the collections of the Slovak National Museum. It
consisted of 12
artefacts (the skeleton and maybe also some another, less attractive
associated finds were thrown away).
Particular components of this funerary equipment are of various origin.
Situla, skillets, ladle and a glass beaker come from the South-Italic
workshops. The
skillets are equipped with name-stamps of the Capuan bronze worker P. Cipius
Polybius whose production dates from the last third of the 1st century
AD. The other artefacts are of Pannonian origin.
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1. Situla made of bronze sheet during the period of Emperor
Augustus in Capua, height 23,7 cm, mouth diameter 17,2 cm |
2. Skillet cast of bronze and additionally turned off, a product of the Capuan
bronze worker P. Cipius Polybius made during the rule of the Flavian Dynasty,
height 14,4 cm, mouth diameter 19,8 cm |
Little Skillet cast of bronze, a product of the Capuan bronze worker
P. Cipius Polybius, height
5,8 cm, mouth diameter 10,8 cm |
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5. Ladle of bronze sheet of 10,3 cm diameter with strongly damaged handle, made in Gaul or Italy |
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3. Jug
(oinochoë) with horse protome, height 19,2 cm, body diameter 10 cm |
4. Sacrificial bowl cast of bronze with soldered-on handle ending in a dog head. Height 3,9 cm,
mouth diameter 19 cm. Probably the product of a Campanian workshop |
6. Thin-walled bowl made of bronze, height 9,6 cm, mouth diameter 27,2 cm, manufactured
in Campanian workshops |
7. Beaker (poculum) of transparent glass, height 17,6 cm, mouth diameter 7,4
cm, South-Italic origin |
The funerary equipment also comprised fragments of another glass beaker,
metal parts of a drinking horn and a bronze buckle.
The articles preserved in this grave belong to high-quality products of antique
workshops, which also used in wealthy Roman households, whereby some identical
finds are known as well from Pompeii. These facts indicate the significance,
which the Romans assigned to good relationships with the local Germanic elite.
On the other side, the import of such luxurious goods symbolising the antique
way of life was quite limited. The settlement research in this region (Stupava,
Zohor) proved that the native population survived furthermore on the original
cultural level. Only a few antique products from the limited import reached
their households. The Romans were namely way more interested in the political
activity oriented on the Germanic elite than in the romanisation of barbarian
natives.
Ondrouch, V.: Bohaté hroby z doby rímskej na Slovensku. Bratislava 1957, s. 13 – 40.
