status of a colonia and it received a new name, Colonia Ulpia Oescensium ("Ulpia" after Trajan's middle name, Ulpius). Veterans of the VI Macedonica and the Legio I Italica Legions may have been settled here as shown by archaeology. The city was built on top of the legionary fortress. In 167, Oescus received the unique additional privilege of being granted all Roman rights. In 190–191, the city dedicated a pagan temple to the goddess Fortuna, who was designated as protector of the city. There also existed a temple of the Capitoline Triad (Jupiter, Juno and Minerva). The city's economy included manufacturing of jewellery, bronze statuettes bronze brooches and other metal objects and vessels, glass, ceramics (terra sigillata, red slip pottery and other), metal and bone articles. It was also home to one of the largest sculpture workshops in the region. After 271, the Legio V Macedonica returned and built a second fortress, called Oescus II. An aqueduct was built to deliver fresh water from springs 20 km away, and a stone wall was constructed to protect the site from invaders and from the Danube floods. On 5 July 328 emperor Constantine I personally opened and consecrated the Constantines's Bridge, the biggest and most famous stone bridge on the Danube. The crossing linked Oescus with Sucidava to the north and, measuring 2.5 km long (1.3 km over the river) by 5.7 m wide, was the largest river bridge in ancient times. However, the span was only used for about 27 years; it was destroyed during a barbarian invasion in 355. In 411, the Huns destroyed Oescus, and in 444 an attempt was made to resettle it as a Hun settlement, named Hunion. Emperor Justinian I rebuilt the city's defensive wall, in an attempt to re-establish Oescus as the stronghold of the Danube defense system, but all the efforts were stopped in late 585 and early 586 by the invasion of the Avars. Middle Ages A Bulgarian village existed on the site during the 10th–14th centuries. Archaeology Oescus is one of the biggest and most continuously studied ancient cities of the Lower Danube. Archaeological excavations began at the site in 1904, carried out by Vaclav Dobruski. Remains of the legionary fortress's defensive wall are still visible and areas to the east-northeast (Pyasutsite and Prez Livada) show signs of the presence of a necropolis from this period, containing epigraphic monuments of veterans. The