TURICUM
(Zürich) Zurich, Switzerland.
Vicus and fort at the W end of Lake Zurich and on the
Limmat river (
CIL XIII, 5244 = Howald-Meyer no. 260).
It was a harbor and depot on an old route from Raetia
to the Rhine via the Walensee and Zurichsee, and there
was therefore a small fort during the Augnstan campaigns ca. 25-15 B.C. During the 1st c. A.D. its toll station, a statio Trigesimae Galliarum, was guarded by
detachments of the legions garrisoned in Vindonissa. A
fortress was built, under Valentinian I, and abandoned
probably in A.D. 401. The settlement lies below the mediaeval city, but the fort has been excavated.
All the military installations occupied Lindenhof hill,
above the Limmat, and the vicus was located near the
bridge. Despite the characteristic location on a spur no
trace of a pre-Roman oppidum has been found. The late
Roman fort was of irregular shape (E wall toward the
river 48 m; N 96; W 60; S 80; area 4500 sq. m). The ten
towers protruded considerably inside the walls (av. width
7-8 m). Most of them were pentagonal on the outside, and
built on square foundations, but the N and S gate towers,
through which the road passed (modern Lindenhofstrasse-Pfalzgasse), were square. Some material in the fortress
was reused. A ditch lay outside on the N (Fortunagass),
and some traces of buildings have been found inside the
fort. No late Roman houses are known outside it. Pants
of the fortress are visible in modern buildings. Finds are
in the Schweizenisches Landesmuseum.
(See also Limes, Rhine.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. Vogt,
Der Lindenhof in Zürich
(1948); V. von Gonzenbach,
BonnJbb 163 (1963) 103-5; E. Meyer, “Zürich in römischer Zeit,” in Vogt et al.,
Zurich von der Urzeit bis zum Mittelalter (1971) 107-62
MPI; C. M. Wells,
The German Policy of Augustus (1972) 53-54.
V. VON GONZENBACH
