The view is unique.
If you look north over the steep slope edge, you can see the water of the Steinsee lake sparkling in the sun through the tall trees.
The panorama probably delighted settlers two millennia ago.
Steinsee / District
- When the Romans decided to build a house there on the plateau, strategic reasons were in the foreground. A secret is still associated with this in the form of a suspected, but not yet found, very, very old road from south to north through the district of Ebersberg, which the Romans also used.
What hardly anyone knows: on the hill in the south above the Steinsee only a few meters from the hamlet of Oberseeon, the remains of a Villa Rustica from the Roman Empire are not very deep in the ground. In the record of the soil monuments in the Bavaria Atlas only a small red point. It is clear that it was a building with foundation walls in a slightly shifted rectangle around 23 meters long and more than twelve meters wide. That is already in the standard work by Hermann Dannheimer and Walter Torbrügge on the prehistory and early history in the district of Ebersberg, published in 1961 under the logo of the Prehistoric State Collection Munich. The walls of the building were made of pebbles with plenty of mortar. Remnants of bricks were not found.To the west of it the remains of a Roman clay half-timbered building and Roman shards are said to have been discovered.
Country estate for deserving legionnaires at Steinsee?
As district home administrator Thomas Warg explains, such country estates were often given to deserving legionnaires, i.e. soldiers.
“That cannot be ruled out for this Villa Rustica am Steinsee either.” Around 2000 years ago, around 20 people could have lived on the farm, the owner perhaps with his family, plus service staff.
There were probably no slaves there.
Cattle were kept - cattle, pigs and sheep.
“They had dogs too, of course,” says Warg.
Fields were created on cleared areas.
Mainly cereals were grown.
Compared to other Roman settlements, the property was rather modest.
There are no written references in Roman chronicles.
Means: The court existed, but was pretty insignificant in the great empire.
About a decade before the new era, the Romans had crossed the Alps and broken the Celtic resistance and advanced to the Danube.
Today's district of Ebersberg was probably away from interesting areas.
District home attendant: "The Romans did not love our forest areas very much"
However, the location of the country estate is interesting.
In the middle of the forest at that time.
“The Romans did not love our forest areas very much.
They built streets straight through them to get to more attractive areas like Augusta Vindelicorum.
That’s Augsburg today, ”says Warg.
Because of their engineering skills, that was not a problem for the Romans.
Whole legions could be laid quickly on these very well developed highways and they were also significant for traders and travelers.
“We can still see our Roman road in the north of the Ebersberg Forest, which led from Wels in Lower Austria to Augsburg, without any problems,” says Warg.
The route and the pits from which building material was taken for maintenance are still clearly visible.
“We call it RS III.
The Romans didn't give it a name. ”It wasn't even entered in the Roman street directories.
The Roman road Via Julia in the south of the district, which crossed the Inn north of Rosenheim and the Isar near Grünwald, was completely different.
This road was really important even in Roman times.
"And there must have been a connection between these two Roman roads running west-east," says Warg.
It probably led roughly from Anzing via Zorneding, Oberpframmern and Egmating to Kleinhelfendorf near Aying.
Too bad: “We have never found any traces of this street.
Nevertheless, it is occupied.
Because there is evidence, ”said Warg.
There is no doubt about the existence of the Roman Road
The Freising Bishop Arbeo (died 784) wrote the biography of St. Emmeram. Back then, the Romans had long since left, but their roads were still in use. Emmeram was on a pilgrimage to Rome when he was falsely accused of impregnating the duke's daughter. His captors caught him in Kleinhelfendorf and tortured him. That should have been in the year 652. His companions brought the dying back the same way: Kleinhelfendorf-Aschheim-Föhring. These memorial sites can still be visited today. “So there was the street. There was never any doubt about that, ”said Warg.
Everywhere along the Roman roads there were Villae Rusticae as larger, self-sustaining farms that were used to maintain the roads, i.e. no hotels, at most service stations, but above all as a kind of construction yard or road maintenance service.
And the Roman estate at Steinsee will have served this purpose.
It is four kilometers from the imaginary route.
"A common distance," says Warg.
Another proof may be the coat of arms of Oberpframmern: A plum can be seen on it.
According to tradition, "plum growers" lived there in Roman times - in Latin: pfrumarii.
But why were no traces of this road found?
Warg suspects that the Romans used an old trade route from the Bronze Age (around 2200 to 800 BC) along the slope of the Munich gravel plain.
It was probably sufficient so that a “real Roman road” with its well thought-out layer structure was not necessary.
Nevertheless, a control and a certain maintenance of this road could have been important.
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The map shows the Roman and medieval sites in the district of Ebersberg.
© Stefan Rossmann
And what became of Villa Rustica am Steinsee?
"The decline was a long process," says district home administrator Warg.
“It is difficult to say when the final end was.
“In any case, it has to do with the barbarian invasions and the beginning of the migration of the peoples.
The wages were not paid, the Romans left our country 500 years ago. ”The villa was destroyed and razed to the ground.
After that, however, there are further traces of settlement in this place.
A later almost two meter long tuff plate grave was discovered near the previous villa.
There are no more traces of what was probably the farm that belonged to it at that time, explains Warg.
The buildings were made of wood and not of stone, as was the case with the Romans.
"But the Bavarians continued to use the beautiful square at Steinsee."
There are still many secrets to be fathomed.
About the Villa Rustica am Steinsee and across the street, which one certainly believes existed, but of which one has not yet found anything.
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