Antiquity
The Roman Empire once extended over much of today's German Federal Republic, and there are still remains from around 100-150AD at the Limes Romanus, the border defence system of Ancient Rome marking the boundaries of the Roman Empire at that time. In addition to military structures such as forts and military camps built by the Romans, and other border fortifications, there are also spas, bridges, and amphitheatres.
Trier, on the banks of the Moselle River, is the oldest city in Germany, a great metropolis founded in or before 16 BC. The best-known survival from that period is probably the Porta Nigra, the best-preserved ancient city gate. There are also remains of thermal spas, a Roman bridge and the (reconstructed) Constantine basilica.
With the departure of the Romans, their urban culture and their advances in architecture (e.g., heating, window, and glass) vanished from Germany.
Read more about this topic: German Architecture
Famous quotes containing the word antiquity:
“What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground,—and to one another; it is either winged or it is legged. It is hardly as if you had seen a wild creature when a rabbit or a partridge bursts away, only a natural one, as much to be expected as rustling leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“This seems a long while ago, and yet it happened since Milton wrote his Paradise Lost. But its antiquity is not the less great for that, for we do not regulate our historical time by the English standard, nor did the English by the Roman, nor the Roman by the Greek.... From this September afternoon, and from between these now cultivated shores, those times seemed more remote than the dark ages.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)