Vallatum
VALLATUMa town in Vindelicia, not far from the S. bank of the Danubius, on the road from Reginum to Augusta Vindelicorum; it was the station of the staff of the third legion and the second Valerian squadron of cavalry. ( It. Ant. p. 250; Not. Imp. ) It occupied, in all probability, the same site as the modern Wahl, on the little river Ilm.
[L.S]Station of the High Empire mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary as on the road along the Danube to the S, and in the Notitia Dignitatum as a Late Empire fort. The name almost necessitates its location in or near the ring wall of Manching in the district of Ingolstadt. This wall, segments of which are still preserved, was over 7 km long and enclosed an area of 380 ha. These are the remains of a true murus gallicus, renewed in a second phase in a prehistoric technique.
Excavations have shown that, except for a strip just inside the walls, the entire enclosed area was settled. It was crisscrossed with apparently regular streets, and the buildings, all of wooden construction, show a certain systematic plan, so the settlement may justly be counted as one of the oldest examples of town planning N of the Alps. The inhabitants were Celts, probably Vindelicans, and the oppidum at Manching may have been their capital. The remains of the buildings and the artifacts indicate a considerable population.
Settlement within the wall began and ended in the Iron Age. There are indications that the town was taken and destroyed by the Romans in 15 B.C. The site was unoccupied for a time, and then a Roman village grew up inside the wall, on the E-W road which was still in use. When the defense of the limes collapsed in the mid 3d c. with the invasion of the Alamanni, the fortified settlement received refugees from the surrounding territory, as is shown by a series of finds such as a large hoard of silver vessels. After the station was destroyed, the site again remained unoccupied until a late Roman border fort was erected in the 4th c. According to the Notitia Dignitatum, the praefectus of the Lagio III Italia was stationed here as commander of this section of the border (pars superior), as was the praefectus of the Ala secunda Valeria singularis, so the fort can hardly have been small. Stones from the wall were used in its construction. When the E gate was excavated, a fibula with onion-shaped bosses was found which dates from the time of Valentinian.
BIBLIOGRAPHYW. Krämer, “Manching, ein vindelikisches Oppidum an der Donau,” Neue Ausgrabungen in Deutschland (1958) 175-202; id., “The Oppidum of Manching,” Antiquity 34 (1960) 191-200; id., Ausgrabungen in einer keltischen Stadt. Das Bild der Wissenschaft. Neue Funde aus alter Zeit (1970) 94-103; id. & F. Schubert, “Die Ausgrabungen in Manching 1955-1961,” Die Ausgrabungen in Manching I (1970) esp. 48-56 on the
Roman period. H.-J. KELLNER