Daily life in Virunum during the 2nd century CE

At Virunum on the Zollfeld in present-day Carinthia, Austria, streets, houses and inscriptions reveal aspects of life in Roman Noricum. The evidence is uneven: substantial buildings are easier to reconstruct than the routines of their occupants.

A city of public business

Founded under Claudius, Virunum served as Noricum’s provincial administrative centre until changes around the Marcomannic wars, about 170 CE. Its forum combined shops with civic offices. This placed buying, selling and official business in neighbouring spaces, although buildings alone cannot establish individual occupations or daily earnings. See the archaeological overview.

Homes, warmth and unequal visibility

Excavated houses include courtyards, heated rooms and private bathing facilities. These substantial residences should not stand for every household. Buildings underwent successive alterations, so their surviving plans do not represent a single second-century moment.

At the western edge, land still used mainly for agriculture early in the century became increasingly built up after its midpoint. Further expansion belongs to the third century. The residential excavation account therefore helps explain change over time, rather than supplying a complete house plan for 150 CE. Heating and bathing also imply maintenance work; the remains do not identify everyone who performed it.

Food from nearby farms and distant coasts

The residential archaeology account reports food remains from well and latrine fills, including cereals, cultivated fruit, berries and livestock products. It also records Adriatic imports such as wine, olive oil, fish sauces and oysters.

These finds indicate varied supplies and access to imported luxuries in the excavated neighbourhoods. They are not a menu for every resident: the account covers several building phases and does not date every food deposit to 100–199 CE. Neither portion sizes nor the frequency with which poorer households obtained these foods can be recovered from this summary.

Entertainment and religious connections

The amphitheatre was built no earlier than after 131 CE and renovated under Commodus. It offered an occasional gathering place, rather than evidence for daily attendance. A bronze membership tablet and other finds attest to Mithras worship in late-second-century Virunum. Such evidence reveals organised religious connections, but not the beliefs of every inhabitant. These dates and finds are discussed in the city’s archaeological overview.

Remembering the dead

The southern cemetery provides evidence beyond monumental buildings. The Austrian Archaeological Institute’s Necropolis of Virunum project describes both cremation and inhumation during the first and second centuries CE, alongside the development of elaborate burial monuments.

Grave enclosures may have served family associations, but this remains an interpretation. Differences in burial cannot automatically be translated into ethnicity, migration or legal status. The cemetery makes funeral practices visible while leaving many questions about the relationships and identities of the living open.

Reading the evidence carefully

This account distinguishes dated second-century evidence from discoveries spanning longer periods. It does not reconstruct an invented resident’s timetable. Houses and public buildings reveal settings for activity more readily than household budgets, working hours or personal experiences.

Explore another regional setting in Carnuntum during the 2nd century CE, or return to the Classical daily life collection.