Just ten kilometers east of Basel lies one of the most evocative Roman sites north of the Alps. Augusta Raurica, once a thriving colony of the Roman Empire, stretches today across the Swiss municipalities of Augst and Kaiseraugst. What survives is not just a scattering of ruins but the skeleton of a real Roman city: streets, workshops, temples, theaters and the footprint of a bustling urban center that reached its peak nearly two millennia ago.
Augusta Raurica — literally “the city of Augustus in the land of the Raurici,” the local Celtic tribe — was formally founded in 44 BC. Although archaeological remains from this earliest phase are scarce, the settlement took shape during the reign of Augustus, after the Roman conquest of the Central Alps around 15 BC.
