Lentia
Et facto proinde consilio sic * Lentiam, quæ Rempublicam annue nituntur augere, ad creandam militiam, Deo auspice, profecturam, lætiores solito authoritatem hilari mente præstarunt.Vox ignota ac forte mendosa, hincque locus perobscurus.
QuasVide infra Lesa.(terras) detinet Bonaccio massario ad manum sua(sic) ad laborandum, et de una alia Lentia ibi posita, etc.
LE´NTIA (Linz), a small place in Noricum on the Danube, on the road from Laureacum. According to the Notitia Imperii, from which alone we learn anything about this place, it appears that a prefect of the Legio Italica, and a body of horse archers, were stationed there. (Comp. Gruter, Inscript. p. 541. 10; Muchar, Noricum, 1. p. 284.)
[L.S]The modern Linz; a town of Noricum on the Danube.
On a bay of the Danube opposite which old roads from the N approached the river. The town, belonging to the province of Noricum, is mentioned only in the Notitia Dignitatum 34.32 (equites sagitarii, Lentiae) and 34.38 (Praefectus legionis secundae Italicae partis inferioris, Lentiae). This testifies to the military role of Lentia in Late Classical times. On the one hand, it was a defense outpost opposite the route of invasion from the N; on the other, it was a link in the chain of fortifications on the river frontier. In the first half of the 1st c. there was an auxiliary earthworks within the area to be used later for the theater. The ground plan is trapezoidal (78.5 x 79.0 m; 87.6 x 79.9 m). Later (under Hadrian?), it was replaced by a larger stone castellum, only parts of which have been excavated. The earliest garrison mentioned is Ala I Pannoniorum Tampiana Victrix (ca. A.D. 200).
The center of the settlement was W of today's main artery Hauptplatz-Innere Landstrasse. Since the Roman area was completely built over by the modern city, Classical remains were discovered only during reconstruction of sections destroyed in WW II. Besides dwellings (some with cellars, some with timber frame construction), in the old sector of the town is a sacred precinct. Of this a mithraeum is known with numerous offerings (reliefs, inscriptions, coins, etc.); also a “temple of the two gods,” and finally a capitolium, with a Gallo-Roman peripteral temple in the vicinity. The so-called Römerberg NW of the old quarter does not seem to have been a settlement center, and it is questionable whether St. Martin's on the Römerberg includes Late Roman parts. In the W of the town, on the Freinberg, where the Celtic oppidum Lentia is supposed to have been, foundations of a building of uncertain use have been found.
The largest of the known necropoleis is the one located in the S (near the Kreuzschwestern) from the 1st and 2d c. It contains, almost exclusively, graves showing evidence of cremation, which suggests a relatively prosperous population. Only small groups of graves with skeletal remains have been found, mainly along the Lentia-Ovilava road.
The finds are in the Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum in Linz.
BIBLIOGRAPHYR. Noll, Der römische Limes in Österreich 21 (1958) 50ff; L. Eckhart in EAA 4 (1961) 645ff; P. Karnitsch, Die Linzer Altstadt in römischer und vorgeschichtlicher Zeit (1962) MPI; id., Die Kastelle von Lentia (1970-72) MPI.
R. NOLL