GORSIUM
later HERCULIA Hungary.
A settlement 16 km S of Székesfehérvár on both sides of the
Sáirviz river. About A.D. 50 a military camp was constructed at the crossroads. It was garrisoned by the ala
I Scubulorum for several years. After the departure of
the mounted unit a civilian settlement was formed in the
area of the castrum and probably raised to municipal
rank under Hadrian. At the end of the 1st c. another
military camp was constructed S of the city. This was
garrisoned by the cohors Alpinorum equitata. After the
partition of Pannonia in 106 Gorsium became the religious center of Pannonia inferior. The construction of
its capital and forum was begun under Trajan; the former
contained the ara Augusti Pannoniae inferioris. The city
was devastated by the Sarmatians in 178 and by the Roxolans in 260. After the first catastrophe rebuilding was
completed under Septimius Severus, who dedicated the
reconstructed shrine of the capital in person. Following
the entire destruction in 260, the city was rebuilt in the
period of Diocletian and its name changed to Herculia.
The history of the settlement may be followed to the
middle of the 5th c., but the center of the city at the
important crossing, persisted to the middle of the 16th c.
Excavations have uncovered the entire extent of the
settlement. The forum, established at the crossing of the
decumanus and the cardo, was closed by a colonnade
on the N. Three long stairs interspersed with nymphaea
once led to the buildings of the capital. Among these the
apse of a large hall to the W contained the ara Augusti,
with a sacrificial altar in front of it. The central stair
represented the entrance to the shrine of the capital, to
which access was given by a colonnaded area. The E
side of the capital was occupied by an edifice that was
perhaps the site of the consilium provinciae. The capital,
devastated in 260, was occupied by a new city center in
the 4th c.; its forum was moved somewhat to the N and
an Early Christian basilica was raised at the crossing of
the cardo and the decumanus at the beginning of the
same century. Later another Early Christian basilica was
constructed along the decumanus, to the NE corner of
which a baptismal chapel was added at the beginning
of the 5th c., fashioned from the reshaping of an ancient
public fountain. In the first third of the 4th c. a palatium
was raised along the decumanus in the neighborhood
of the second basilica. During the 4th c. a row of tabernae stood on the S side of the decumanus, opposite the
palatium. They were all built on the ruins of buildings
destroyed in 260. Among the earlier edifices was a large
horreum in the E part of the palatium and a building
possibly of eastern derivation below the level of the second basilica, richly ornamented with wall painting and
stuccos. The city center was surrounded by extensive city
quarters among which excavations have been carried on
only to the S.
Under Domitian a second military camp was established at a distance of 300 m from the crossing of the
cardo and the decumanus, and beside it a minor vicus
with simple huts dug into the ground and houses made
of adobe bricks. This settlement survived the dissolution
of the military camp; the potters' quarter of the city was
here. At the beginning of the 4th c., during the largest
extension of the city, stone buildings were raised here,
among them a major, villa-like edifice. It was constructed
at the end of the rule of Constantine the Great and was
abandoned by the owner under Valentinian, as were the
other dwellings of the neighborhood. On the site of this
abandoned city quarter a cemetery appeared at the end
of Valentinian's rule and was used by the impoverished
inhabitants of Gorsium as late as the 5th c.
Till the Marcomannic wars the inhabitants of the city
were Celtic Eraviscans with a number of Italian merchants and veterans. After the war Italians decreased; in
the mass of the new settlers—partly Thracian, partly
oriental—the local population was pushed into the background and finally disappeared.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. B. Thomas, “Die römerzeitliche Villa
von Tác-Fövenypuszta,”
Acta Arch. Hung. 6 (1955) 79-152; J. Fitz, “Gorsium,”
Székesfehérvár (1960); id.,
“Gorsium,”
RE Suppl. 9 (1962) 73-75; id., “Gorsium,”
Székesfehérvár (1964); id., “Gorsium, Excavations in a
Roman Settlement of Lower Pannonia,”
Acta Arch. Carpathica 10 (1968) 287-90; id., “Gorsium,”
Székesfehérvár (1970); Zs. Báinki, “Villa II von Tác,”
Alba Regia
4-5 (1963-64) 91-127.
J. FITZ