ABSTRACT
The beginning of the fifth century marked the opening of a new epoch for Noricum. It led not only to wars, devastation and suffering but to the gradual collapse of Roman rule in the east Alpine lands. The barbarian attacks resulted in the destruction of the unprotected Norican settlements that lay in their path; they were never rebuilt. Virunum's buildings gradually collapsed during the fifth and sixth centuries. The central administration of southern Noricum had probably been transferred from there to Teurnia at the beginning of the fifth century, and the latter town is referred to as metropolis Norici in the Vita of St Severinus. In Noricum Ripense, by contrast, the regular administration must already have ceased to exist before the middle of the fifth century. The Romanic population was certainly very heavily reduced in numbers in the troubled times from the sixth century onwards, and the Fliehburgen were taken over by Germans and Slavs.
