The history of creative presence of man in the territory of today`s Bratislava goes back several thousand years. To know the first inhabitants of the town, we should go back as far as the Older Stone Age.

The Celts brought a revolutionary change in the history of Bratislava. The Celtic tribes, which subdued a substanial part of the northern half of Europe, also settled in the territory of modern Bratislava.

After a short Dacian episode, which took place short before the arrival of new era, another important period of Bratislava`s history started, which can be called after the prevailing ethnicities the German-Roman period. As the Romans were not able to push the frontiers of the Empire up to the crests of the Carpathians, the territory of Bratislava became part of the turbulent contact zone separating often hostile Romans living south of the Danube and Germans ruling over the areas north of this great European river. For approximately four centuries the area immediately neighbouring the Danube found itself on the border between two different worlds, which meant permanent political and economic instability.


The part of modern Bratislava lying south of the Danube belonged to the Roman province of Pannonia administered by the Roman legions settled nearby in Carnuntum (today Bad Deutsch Altenburg in Austria). There were (within the territory administered now by the village of Rusovce) a Roman fort called Gerulata with a settlement bigger than usual and a market place.

The fall of the Roman Empire was followed by a cultural, economic and political vacuum. Several waves of migration passed over the territory of Bratislava during the migration period of the 4th to 6th centuries. The fact that the eastern frontier of the Frankish realm united by Charles the Great stabilized amidst the territory inhabited mostly by the Slavs was especially important for Bratislava.

Now it was in a boundary position. Charles` descendants fighting between them for the crown of the successor state of the Western Roman Empire tried to conquer this territory. But they met with resistance from the Slav princes Mojmír and Pribina, who were not on particulary good terms with each other either. When the Moravian prince defeated his rival Pribina from Nitra and drove him out of the country, he built the stable foundations of the powerful though not long existing Empire of Great Moravia. a large portion of the populations of this new state formation, which reached its apex in the second half of the 9th century, inhabited forts. Two of them were constructed in the territory of Bratislava. One was situated below the Devín castle rock, and the second occupied the castle hill of Bratislava.