Bingium
- a town of Gaul, lying on the Rhine, opposite the modern Bingen, on the west bank of the Nahe, Tac. H. 4, 70; Amm.18, 2, 4.
BI´NGIUM (Bingen), a Roman station on the Rhine, at the junction of the Nava (Nahe) and the Rhine. It is mentioned by Tacitus in his history of the war of Civilis. (Hist. 4.70.) Julian repaired the fortifications of Bingium while he was in Gallia. (Ammian. 18.2.) The Antonine Itin. mentions Vincum on a road from Confluentes (Coblenz) to Treviri (Trier) and Divodurum (Metz), and as it makes the distance xxvi Gallic leagues from Confluentes to Vincum, we must suppose that Vincum is Bingium; for the Table makes viii from Confluentes to Bontobrice, ix from Bontobrice to Vosavia, and ix from Vosavia to Bingium, the sum total of which is xxvi. The Itinerary and the Table both agree in the number xii between Bingen and Moguntiacum, or Mainz.
[G.L]The modern Bingen; a town of Germania Prima, on the Rhine, west of Moguntiacum (Mayence). See Tac. Hist. iv. 70.
A Roman settlement on the right bank of the Nahe (ancient Nava) where it joins the Rhine. A bridge of the Roman Rhine valley route which crossed the Nava at this point was protected by a castellum for auxiliary troops in the first half of the 1st c. A.D. Particularly important in the Roman road network was a route from Bingen to the imperial town of Trier, which is marked in the Peutinger Table. Stationed at Bingen were Cohors IV Delmatarum, Cohors I Pannoniorum, and Cohors I Sagittiariorum, which is attested by gravestones, as well as the Legio XXII Primigenia Pia Fidelis. In 370 the Roman writer Ausonius mentioned that the town was surrounded by a wall which the emperor Julian had built in 359 (Amm. Marc. 18.2). There is evidence of milites Bingenses under a praefectus ca. 400.
Many graves from the civil settlement are preserved. The most notable is a doctor's grave from the beginning of the 2d c. A.D., containing a rich assortment of bronze instruments: basin, scalpel, trapan, pincers, spatula, etc. (exhibited in Burg Klopp, Bingen).
BIBLIOGRAPHYG. Behrens, Bingen (= Katalog westund süddeutscher Altertumssammlungen 4) (1920) 49MPI; id., Die Binger Landschaft in der vor- und frühgeschichte (1954); Como, “Das Grab eines römischen Arztes in Bingen,” Germania (1925) 125ff; H. Klumbach, “Bingen zur Römerzeit,” Führer zu vor- und frühgeschichtlichen Denkmälern 12 (1969) 127-30.
H. BULLINGER