page_title: Brenner Pass
section_title: Roman Empire
hierarchical_section_title: Brenner Pass / History / Roman Empire
caption_attribution_description: English: Part of the Roman road map Tabula Peutingeriana showing, among others, Vetonina (modern Innsbruck), Matreio (Matrei am Brenner) and Pontedrvsi (Bolzano). Suomi: Osa roomalaisesta tiekartasta Tabula Peutingerianasta, näkyvillä mm. Vetonina (nykyään Innsbruck), Matreio (Matrei am Brenner) ja Pontedrvsi (Bolzano).
context_page_description: The Brenner Pass is a mountain pass through the Alps which forms the border between Italy and Austria. It is one of the principal passes of the Eastern Alpine range and has the lowest altitude among Alpine passes of the area.
  Dairy cattle graze in alpine pastures throughout the summer in valleys beneath the pass and on the mountains above it. At lower altitudes, farmers log pine trees, plant crops and harvest hay for winter fodder. Many of the high pastures are at an altitude of over 1,500 metres; a small number stand high in the mountains at around 2,000 metres.
  The central section of the Brenner Pass covers a four-lane motorway and railway tracks connecting Bozen/Bolzano in the south and Innsbruck to the north. The village of Brenner consists of an outlet shopping centre, fruit stores, restaurants, cafés, hotels and a gas station. It has a population of 400 to 600.
context_section_description: The Romans regularised the mountain pass at Brenner, which had already been under frequent use during the prehistoric eras since the most recent Ice Age. The Brenner Pass, however, was not the first trans-Alpine Roman road to become regularised under the Roman Empire.
  The first Roman road to cross the Alpine range, Via Claudia Augusta, connected Verona in northern Italy with Augusta Vindelicorum (modern-day Augsburg) in the Roman province of Raetia. Via Augusta was completed in 46–47 AD; the route took its course along the Adige valley to the neighbouring Reschen Pass (west of the Brenner Pass), then descended into the Inn valley before rising to Fern Pass towards Augsburg.
  The Roman road that physically crossed over the Brenner Pass did not exist until the 2nd century AD. It took the "eastern" route through the Puster Valley and descended into Veldidena (modern-day Wilten), where it crossed the Inn and into Zirl and arrived at Augsburg via Füssen.
  The Alamanni (Germanic tribe) crossed the Brenner Pass southward into modern-day Italy in 268 AD, but they were stopped in November of that year at the Battle of Lake Benacus. The Romans kept control over the mountain pass until the end of their empire in the 5th century.
caption: Brenner and the surrounding Roman road network shown in the Tabula Peutingeriana. Brenner is between Matreio and Vepiteno.
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