ALTENBURG
Aargau, Switzerland.
Roman
fort on the right bank of the Aare, just W of Brugg. The
ancient name is unknown. A rocky ford here necessitated
protection for nearby military roads and for a bridge
leading to the legionary camp of Vindonissa 2 km to the
E. There are few traces of the 1st c. A.D. military installations, but under Diocletian or Valentinian I a fort
was built, a link in a chain of defenses on the Rhine-Aare
waterway similar to Salodurum and Ollodunum. About
A.D. 401 the site was abandoned by the garrison, but the
fortress survived in part because in the Early Middle
Ages it was transformed into a castle of the Habsburg
family.
The fortress was small (60 x 40 m; area 2929 sq. m)
and exclusively military; it did not include an earlier
civil settlement or the river-fort mentioned above. The
walls were ca. 3 m thick and the plan was bell-shaped,
with the base (ca. 65 m) towards the river. There were
probably eight towers, semicircular or larger segments
of circles (max. diam. 6 m), and two gates, the main
one flanked by two towers. Some of the towers still stand
3-8 m high (four have been excavated). A berm (18 m
wide) and a double ditch (each 8 m wide) surrounded
the fortress.
See also Limes, Rhine.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
R. Laur-Belart, “Altenburg,”
AnzSchweiz 37 (1935) 172, 174-75
PI; H. Herzig, “Das Kastell Altenbung,”
Jber. Gesell. Pro Vindonissa (1946-47)
69-71
PI; F. Staehelin,
Die Schweiz in römischer Zeit (3d
ed. 1948) 309-11, 632; E. Ettlinger,
RE IX A (1961) 95;
T. Pékary,
Jber. Gesell. Pro Vindonissa (1966) 12-13.
V. VON GONZENBACH
