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Pannonia was an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia. Pannonia was located over the territory of the present-day western Hungary eastern Austria, northern Croatia, north-western Serbia, Slovenia, western Slovakia and northern Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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Julius Pokorny derived the name Pannonia from Illyrian, from the Proto-Indo-European root *pen-, "swamp, water, wet" (cf. English fen, "marsh"; Hindi pani, "water").[7]
The first inhabitants of this area known to history were the Pannonii (Pannonians), a group of Indo-European tribes akin to Illyrians. From the 4th century BC it was invaded by various Celtic tribes. Little is heard of Pannonia until 35 BC, when its inhabitants, allies of the Dalmatians, were attacked by Augustus, who conquered and occupied Siscia (Sisak). The country was not, however, definitely subdued by the Romans until 9 BC, when it was incorporated into Illyricum, the frontier of which was thus extended as far as the Danube.
In AD 6, the Pannonians, with the Dalmatians and other Illyrian tribes, engaged in the so-called Great Illyrian Revolt, and were overcome by Tiberius and Germanicus, after a hard-fought campaign which lasted for three years. After the rebellion was crushed in AD 9, the province of Illyricum was dissolved, and its lands were divided between the new provinces of Pannonia in the north and Dalmatia in the south. The date of the division is unknown, most certainly after AD 20 but before AD 50. The proximity of dangerous barbarian tribes (Quadi, Marcomanni) necessitated the presence of a large number of troops (seven legions in later times), and numerous fortresses were built on the bank of the Danube.
Some time between the years 102 and 107, between the first and second Dacian war, Trajan divided the province into Pannonia Superior (western part with the capital Carnuntum), and Pannonia Inferior (eastern part with the capitals in Aquincum and Sirmium[8]). According to Ptolemy, these divisions were separated by a line drawn from Arrabona in the north to Servitium in the south; later, the boundary was placed further east. The whole country was sometimes called the Pannonias (Pannoniae).
Pannonia Superior was under the consular legate, who had formerly administered the single province, and had three legions under his control; Pannonia Inferior at first under a praetorian legate with a single legion as garrison, after Marcus Aurelius under a consular legate, still with only one legion. The frontier on the Danube was protected by the establishment of the two colonies Aelia Mursia and Aelia Aquincum by Hadrian.
Under Diocletian a fourfold division of the country was made:
Diocletian also moved parts of today's Slovenia out of Pannonia and incorporated them in Noricum. Constantine I enlarged in 324 AD the borders of Roman Pannonia to the east, annexing the plains of what is now eastern Hungary, northern Serbia and western Romania up to the limes that he created: the Devil's Dykes.
In the 4th-5th century, one of the dioceses of the Roman Empire was known as the Diocese of Pannonia. It had capital in Sirmium and included all four provinces that were formed from historical Pannonia, as well as provinces of Dalmatia, Noricum Mediterraneum and Noricum Ripensis.
In the middle of the 5th century, Pannonia was ceded to the Huns by Theodosius II, and after the death of Attila successively passed (entirely or partially) into the hands of the Ostrogoths (456–6th century), Lombards (530–68), Gepids (6th century), Byzantine Empire (6th century and 11th-12th century), Avars (560s – c.800), various Slavic states (Slavs living there since c. 480s; independent since 7th century), Franks (8th-9th century), Magyars (since 900/901), Holy Roman Empire (since 10th century), Habsburgs (since 14th century), Ottomans (since 1512; the Ottoman administration ended in 1878) and Serbia (since 19th century). After the First World War, the region was divided between Austria, Hungary the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed to Yugoslavia in 1929) and Czechoslovakia.
During the first period of Byzantine administration in the 6th century, province named Pannonia (with capital in Sirmium) was temporarily restored, but it included only small south-eastern part of historical Pannonia. In the second period of Byzantine administration (11th century) an province named Theme of Sirmium (also with capital in Sirmium) was established in this same area. An Frankish frontier march named March of Pannonia was established in the end of the 8th century, while terms Lower and Upper Pannonia were also used in the 9th century as a designations for an Slavic principality and an Frankish province.
Furthermore, between the 5th and the 10th century the romanized population of Pannonia developed the Romance Pannonian Language, mainly around the lake Balaton in present-day western Hungary, where there was the keszthely culture. This language and the related culture were extinct with the arrival of the Magyars.
The native settlements consisted of pagi (cantons) containing a number of vici (villages), the majority of the large towns being of Roman origin. The cities and towns in Pannonia were:
The country was fairly productive, especially after the great forests had been cleared by Probus and Galerius. Before that time timber had been one of its most important exports. Its chief agricultural products were oats and barley, from which the inhabitants brewed a kind of beer named sabaea. Vines and olive trees were little cultivated. Pannonia was also famous for its breed of hunting dogs. Although no mention is made of its mineral wealth by the ancients, it is probable that it contained iron and silver mines. Its chief rivers were the Dravus, Savus, and Arrabo, in addition to the Danuvius (less correctly, Danubius), into which the first three rivers flow.
The ancient name Pannonia is retained in the modern term Pannonian plain.
