VINDONISSA
VINDONISSA in Gallia, is mentioned by Tacitus (
Tac. Hist. 4.61,
70).
It was the station of the twenty-first legion, A.D. 71, which entered Rhaetia from Vindonissa.
The place is
Windisch, in the Swiss canton of
Aargau, near the junction of the
Aar, Reuss, and
Limmath. Vindonissa was once a large place, and many Roman remains and coins have been found there.
In the
Bärlisgrmlbe there are traces of an amphitheatre, and on the road from
Brauneckberg to
Königsfelden the remains of an aqueduct The name of the XXI. Legion has been discovered in inscriptions found at
Windisch. Near
Windisch is the former convent and monastery of
Königsfelden, where some of the members of the Habsburg family are buried. Several Roman roads help to fix the position of Vindonissa. The Table places it at the distance of xxii. from Augusta Rauracorum (
Augst) [
AUGUSTA RAURACORUM]; and another road went from Vindonissa past Vitodurum [
VITODURUM] to Arbor Felix in Rhaetia. Vindonissa is named Vindo in a Panegyric of Constantine by Eumenius, and Castrum Vindonissense in Maxima Sequanorum in the Notitia of the Gallic Provinces. When Christianity was established in these parts, Vindonissa was the see of the first bishopric, which was afterwards removed to
Constanz. In the third and fourth centuries Vandals and Alemanni damaged the town. The Huns afterwards ravaged Vindonissa, and Childebert king of the Franks destroyed it in the sixth century. (D'Anville,
Notice, &c.; Ernesti,
Note on Tacit. Hist. 4.70; Neigebaur,
Neuestes Gemälde der Schweiz.)
[
G.L]
