Looking through the bushes across the motorway from the footpath situated 100 metres above the amphitheatre on the 'Im Winkel' plateau one can just about see the conserved
butt of a wall on the opposite slope. This is the only section of the western town wall still in existence today; it was discovered and examined for the first time in 1877-1879 and
was again exposed in 1966 during the construction of the motorway.
The town wall was around 1.85 metres thick and was accompanied by a road running along its inner side. This section of the fortification was probably built at the same time as
its counterpart near the east gate in the late 1st century AD, but never completed. A gate was inserted in the town wall approximately 150 metres south of the motorway, but this
gate was not completed either and only two semicircular towers, both 6 metres in diameter, have ever been found. This was where the wide west gate road led out of the town
onto the Roman arterial road towards the Ergolz Valley, the Jura Mountains and the Hauenstein. |
