Forum Scarbantiae — The Roman City Under the Modern One
Listen at the stop, then read the transcript and follow the sources behind the story.
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Transcript
About four and a half metres below today’s centre lies part of Scarbantia’s forum. That depth is not evidence that the Romans lived underground. It is what happens when centuries of demolition, rebuilding, street raising and accumulated material create a new city level above an old one.
Scarbantia stood on the Amber Road network that connected the Adriatic world with the Baltic. The forum concentrated the civic functions expected in a Roman town: public buildings, religious activity, commerce and social life. Sopron’s tourism material even highlights the everyday services travellers could find nearby—lodging, workshops, baths and wine.
The Roman city declined during the migration period, but its fortification lines later influenced medieval Sopron. This is a recurring European pattern: abandoned Roman infrastructure becomes quarry, foundation and urban memory rather than disappearing completely.
The archaeological display is small compared with the imagined city. That is useful. Archaeology rarely gives us a complete street scene. It gives fragments, levels and objects, and asks us to reconstruct systems from them. Sopron’s picturesque centre literally depends on a city most visitors cannot see.