1st century B.C. - 6th century A.D.
The Roman name Lentia is derived from the Celtic root *lentos=bendable, curving. So Linz indicates a settlement at the bend of the river (Danube), which indeed coincides with the local realities.
No doubt to protect the important transport route over the Danube the Romans built a fort as early as the first century A.D. (in the present courtyard of the Landestheater), the first in the Noricum-Danube region. This was replaced by a larger stone fort in the second century, whose location was not definitely discovered until now. The core of the civilian settlement, which was never awarded the status of a town, was located west of the main modern traffic route running from the Main Square to the nearer end of the Landstrasse, known as the canabae (camp village) in the Old Town – Hahnengasse. A sacred district with a mithraeum was uncovered in the Tummelplatz.
The settlement was destroyed on several occasions by attacks by the Goths in the second century; a residual settlement from the late antiquity on the Martinsfeld withstood the storms of the barbarian invasions.
400 A.D.
Destruction of the holy Mithras-site from the late antiquity (where the Tummelplatz lies today). The settlement is named as Lentia in the Notitia Dignitatum, the late Roman state handbook.
End of the 4th century A.D.
The indigenous population is thought to have withdrawn to the easily defensible Martinsfeld in reaction to the advance of peoples from the East and West.
1st half of the 2nd century A.D.
Expansion of the fortifications into a stone fort.
Middle of the 1st century A.D.
The Romans construct a wood-and-earth fort to secure the important Danube crossing to control traffic and for military reasons (where the Provincial Theatre stands today); soon after the construction of a civilian settlement (in today’s Old Town and the Schlossberg).
19 A.D.
The ruler of the Markomanni, Marbod, is thought to have crossed the Danube at Linz on entering Roman exile.
about 400 B.C.
Settlement of the Celts in the Linz Basin. Consequently, the construction of defensive ramparts on the Freinberg and the Gründberg, lying north of the Danube at the lower end of the Haselgraben.