Colonia Agrippinensis

Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium

Shown within Germany
Location	Germany
Region	North Rhine-Westphalia
Coordinates	50°56′17″N 6°57′25″E / 50.938056°N 6.956944°E / 50.938056; 6.956944

Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium was the Roman colony in the Rhineland from which the German city of Cologne developed.

It was the capital of the Roman province of Germania Inferior and the headquarters of the military in the region. With the administrative reforms under Diocletian, it became the capital of Germania Secunda. Many artifacts from the ancient city survive including the arch of the former city gate with the inscription 'CCAA', which is today housed in the Romano-Germanic Museum.

A Germanic tribe known as the Eburones had originally inhabited the present-day Cologne Lowland. But they were wiped out in a war of reprisal carried out by Julius Caesar. In 38 BC, the Germanic tribe known as the Ubii, who inhabited the right bank of the Rhine, were resettled by the Roman General Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa in the lands in the Cologne Lowland vacated by the Eburones. This brought the Ubii within Roman-occupied territory.

The Ubii chose an island in the Rhine as the central location of their settlement area. The island was a natural rise that was protected from flooding. The location of the settlement no longer exists today but it roughly comprises the area between the areas of the Heumarkt and the Alter Markt sections of the old city of Cologne. The settlement can be dated by archeological finds to the first half of the 1st century AD. By this time the typical Roman grid-style street plan was already in use. The settlement’s assumed name is probably Oppidum Ubiorum (Settlement of the Ubii). The Roman epoch of the history of the city of Cologne begins with this oppidum.

During the rule of Augustus (30 BC to AD 14), the Ara Ubiorum (Altar of the Ubii) was constructed within the city limits. This altar was possibly foreseen as the central place of worship for a greater Germanic province, which would comprise lands across the Rhine, which remained unconquered at this point. The noble Segimundus is mentioned as the priest of the Ara in the year AD 9. He was from the family of Arminius, leader of the Cherusci. After Arminius' defeat of Publius Quinctilius Varus in the same year at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, the plans for a greater German province were largely set aside. However, the altar itself retained some of its importance as the city is mentioned as “Ara Ubiorum” in many inscriptions.