Budapest [antikvár]

THE HISTORY OF BUDAPEST The soul of a city lies in its history. Budapest was several times ruined during the centuries, and had to be rebuilt again. What remained after the devastation was expropri- ated by the conquerors and converted to serve their own purposes. The Roman amphitheatre at Aquincum be- came the headquarters of the chieftain of the conquering Magyars, the stones of the fortress at Contra Aquincum, on the other side of the Danube, were used to build the houses of Pest. Medieval churches in Buda were convert- ed into mosques by the Turks, bathhouses into Turkish baths. After the recapture of the city, the churches were recreated in a triumphant Baroque style. At the end of the 1. The coat of arms of Budapest — 1873 last century some architects used Romanesque and Gothic elements, others aimed at creating a national style. Naturally, none of these endeavours could be entirely successful, but all of them added something to the unique appearence of the city — Budapest. In one of the caves on Castle Hill, prehistoric man had settled some half a million years ago and the capital city has been inhabited ever since for longer or shorter inter- vals. It is the traces of lllyrian (500-400 B.C.) and Celtic (300—60 B.C.) cultures in the first place that have been excavated by archaeologists. The first Golden Era of the region is associated with the appearance of the Eravisci, a tribe of Celtic origin. Their rule ended with the conquest of the Romans in 11 B.C. For the next four centuries it was the line of their fortresses — the limes — that marked the border of the Roman Empire. Aquincum, the site of the