Budapest: An Ecological Study

This statement is based on Budapest's claim that it is the successor of the Roman city of Aquincum, the remains of which are found within the Third Ward of the modern city.3 Aquincum occupied a defensive location on the right bank of the Danube, just above the large islands Nagysziget and Margitsziget. To the west lay great, and in Roman times almost impassable, marshes, which separated the colony from the Mountains of Pilis. Under Septimus Severus a bridge was built across the Danube at this point.4 During the Roman period brick and lime kilns were built south of Aquincum on both sides of the Danube, on the very sites of the later towns of Buda and Pest. Ofen, the German name of Buda, and Pest, a Slavic word, both mean oven. During the centuries of political confusion that followed the collapse of Roman power and preceded the establishment of Magyar sovereignty in Pannonia the settlement of Aquincum was largely abandoned and population concentrated around the old brick and lime kilns of Buda and Pest. The invasion of the Tatars in I24I led King Bela IV to fortify