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Carnuntum (Καρνους in Ptolemy) was a Roman army camp on the Danube in the Noricum province and after the 1st century the capital of the Upper Pannonia province. Its remains are situated in Lower Austria halfway between Vienna and Bratislava, Slovakia on the "Archaeological Park Carnuntum", extending over the area of 10 km² near today's villages Petronell-Carnuntum and Bad Deutsch-Altenburg.

Carnuntum originated as a Roman army camp. Its name first occurs in history during the reign ofAugustus (6 AD), when Tiberius made it his base of operations in the campaigns against Maroboduus (Marbod). Significant Romanization occurred when the town was selected as the garrison of the Legio XV Apollinaris. A few years later it became the centre of the Roman fortifications along the Danube from Vindobona (now Vienna) to Brigetio (Ó-Szőny). Under Trajan or Hadrian, Carnuntum became the permanent quarters of Legio XIV Gemina and the capital of Upper Pannonia. Even in Roman times it had a history as a major trading center for amber, brought from the north to traders who sold it in Italy; the main arm of the Amber Road crossed the Danube at Carnuntum. It was made a municipium by Hadrian.  

Carnuntum in Household Gods

Nicole Gunther was a tourist to the archaelogical site of Carnuntum in Austria, unknowing that a remote ancestress of hers had lived there, and she bought with her a plaque of the Roman gods, Liber and Libera, on the way back to her home in Los Angeles.

When she began to complain of her life in the modern United States, the two gods transported her to the ancient Roman city of Carnuntum, in the body of her ancestress, a tavern-keeper. While in the town, she witnessed a plague, Germanic invasion and the subsequent Roman liberation.

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