it was attached. Each has ended in becoming the centre and capital of
an extensive empire. On the other hand, the differences between them
are no less significant. Vienna is the older of the two. It can claim,
in fact, a faint reflex of the glory of the old Roman world, for it
was founded as a _castrum_ and military colony by Vespasian in
the first century of our era. This ancient _Vindobona_ was the
head-quarters of the thirteenth legion, which was replaced in the next
century by the more famous tenth, the _pia fidelis_. Until the fifth
century, Vindobona and the neighboring Carnuntum (not far from the
modern Pressburg) were the seats of Roman power along the middle
Danube. But when the empire fell, they fell with it. For centuries all
traces of Vienna are lost. The valley of the Danube was the highway
for Goth and Slave, Avar and Hun, who trampled down and ruined as
they advanced or receded. Not until the Carolingian era do we find
indications of a more stable order of things. The great Carl, having
consolidated all the resources of Western Europe under his autocratic
will, having crushed the Saracens and subdued the Saxons and
Bavarians, resolved to make the Danube as well as the Rhine his own.
The idea was stamped with genius, as all his ideas were, and the
execution was masterly. The Frankish _leudes_, with their Saxon and
Bavarian auxiliaries, routed the Avars in battle after battle, and
drove them back beyond the Raab and the Theiss. The "eastern marches"
became, and have remained to this day, the bulwark of Christendom.
Carl's successors in Germany, the Saxon and Franconian emperors,
continued the work. In the year 996 we find the word Ostar-rîch
(_OEsterreich_) appearing for the first time. From 976 to 1246 the
duchies were in the possession of the Babenberg family. In 1276
they were annexed by Rudolph of Habsburg. Ever since then they have
constituted the central possession of the house of which he was the
founder.