FLAVIA SOLVA
(Steiermark) Austria.
In
the SE corner of Noricum ca. 35 km S of Graz. It was
on the ancient road which led from Poetovio up through
the Mur valley to Ovilava and the Danube limes. A bit
off the main roads, the Noric main road in the W and
the Amber road in the E, Flavia Solva is mentioned
neither in the
Peutinger Table nor in the itineraries. The
name, perhaps Illyrian, continues in modern river and
land names.
According to Pliny (
HN 3.146), Flavia Solva was
founded by Vespasian (A.D. 69-79) and was called
Municipium Flavium Solvense. It never became a colonia as asserted in older literature, nor was it ever a
garrison. Being distant from the major traffic arteries,
it was historically unimportant. It was a quiet country
town with considerable prosperity as evidenced by numerous stone monuments. Flavia Solva suffered heavily
during the Marcomannic wars, but experienced toward
the end of the 3d c. A.D. a certain renaissance. It was
finally destroyed at the beginning of the 5th c.
The town was well situated on an elevated terrace
on the right bank of the river Mur, near Klein Wagna,
ca. 2 km SW of Leibnitz. Excavations have been supplemented since 1950 by occasional test and emergency
digging. Nothing excavated is above ground. A considerable part of the built-up area (ca. 600 x 400 m)
is known today. The settlement was not walled in. It
consisted of regular house blocks of different sizes, some
of which have been excavated. The larger insulae, located in the center, are separated by wide streets crossing at right angles. Strangely enough, there was no
sewage system and no aqueduct. A large insula (71 x
60 m) N of the decumanus maximus, formerly identified
as a forum, was probably only an elegant villa. No
public building at all is known. At the SW edge of the
town is the amphitheater (3d c. A.D.); for the arena (80
x 35 m) use was made of a natural basin; its ground
plan is still recognizable in the terrain. The roads leading out of the town are paralleled by necropoleis with
hundreds of tumuli from the Late Bronze Age to the
Marcomannic wars.
More than a hundred stone inscriptions and tombstone reliefs are built into the wall of the court of the
nearby castle Seggau, which is thus transformed into an
outdoor museum. Other finds from the municipium are
in the castle Graz-Eggenberg, which contains an outdoor lapidarium.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Flavia Solva: E. Diez,
Flavia Solva.
Die römischen Steindenkmäler auf Schloss Seggau bei
Leibnitz (2d ed. 1959); id. in
EAA 3 (1960) 704f; W.
Modrijan, “150 Jahre Joanneum 150 Jahre Forschungen
in Flavia Solva,”
Schild von Steier 9 (1959-61) 13ff
MPI;
id., “1900 Jahre Flavia Solva,”
Schild von Steier, Kleine
Schriften 11 (1971)
MPI.
Frauenberg: W. Modrijan,
Frauenberg bei Leibnitz.
Die Friühgeschichtlichen Ruinen und das Heimatmuseum
(1955); Graz-Eggenberg: W. Modrijan & E. Weber,
Die Römersteinsammlung im Eggenberger Schlosspark,
1. Tell: Verwaltungsbezirk von Flavia Solva (1965).
R. NOLL
