History of Trier

Trier in Rhineland-Palatinate, whose history dates to the Roman Empire, is often claimed to be the oldest city in Germany. Traditionally it was known in English by its French name of Treves.

The first traces of human settlement in the area of the city show evidence of linear pottery settlements dating from the early Neolithic period. Since the last pre-Christian centuries, members of the Celtic tribe of the Treveri settled in the area of today's Trier.

The Romans under Julius Caesar first subdued the Treveri in 58 to 50 BC. No later than 16 BC, at the foot of the hill later christened the Petrisberg, upon which a military camp had been set up in 30 BC and abandoned again a few months later, the Romans founded the city of Augusta Treverorum ("City of Augustus in the land of the Treveri"), which has a claim to being the oldest city in Germany. The honour of being named after the Emperor was only locally shared by Augsburg and Augst in northern Switzerland. Following the reorganisation of the Roman provinces in Germany in 16 BC, Emperor Augustus decided that the city should become the capital of the province of Belgica. Shortly before AD 100, an amphitheatre was built, the signal sign of a city of any importance. By the first half of the second century another major structure, a Roman circus, had reached truly monumental proportions.

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