Εμφανίζονται 1 τίτλοι με αναζήτηση: Πληροφορίες για τον τόπο στην ευρύτερη περιοχή: "ΑΜΙΕΝΝΗ Πόλη ΣΟΜ" .
ΑΜΙΕΝΝΗ (Πόλη) ΣΟΜ
Samarobriva or Samarabriva (Amiens) Somme, France.
City of the Belgica province of Gaul. The Gallic city of Samarabriva (bridge over
the Samara, or Somme) is mentioned several times in Caesar's Commentaries (BGall
5.24.1; 47.2; 53.3) yet its exact site is difficult to pinpoint (on a defensive
site as the oppida of the Ambiani generally were, i.e. on the arms of the Somme
or the high ground to the N?). It was succeeded during the 1st c. A.D. at the
latest by the Roman city of the same name, built on flat dry ground on the S bank
of the river. Situated at the point where the roads from Beauvais, Rouen, Senlis,
and Soissons converge before they cross the Somme and continue on to Boulogne
and Brittany or to the territory of the Morini and the lower Rhine, Samarobriva
under the Antonines became an important regional city. ca. 277-278, after the
first barbarian invasion (256), it withdrew inside a narrow surrounding wall and
in the 4th c. adopted the name of Civitas Ambianensium (or Ambianorum; Not. dig.
occ. 6.36), becoming an important military stronghold behind the threatened Rhine
frontier. It was near one of the city gates, ca. 334, that St. Martin, who was
garrisoned there, came across the beggar with whom he divided his cloak. Magnentius,
the usurper, was born in Amiens and set up a mint there, and here the emperor
Valentinian I, who spent several months in the city, proclaimed his son Gratianus
emperor Augustus 24 August 367. The fortified city succumbed to another barbarian
assault in 406. In the Merovingian period life went on in two sections: the count
took over the ancient civitas, whose fortifications had been restored, while a
quarter of merchants and artisans grew up around the bishop's residence, in a
suburb to the E. At the beginning of the 12th c. the two were joined by a new
rampart to form what was to become modern Amiens.
Very little is left of the monuments that adorned the Roman city.
The Passio S. Firmini recalls temples built in honor of Jupiter and Mercury; of
the altars consecrated to the eponymous goddess and a local divinity, Veriugodumnus,
only the dedications remain (CIL VIII, 3490, 3487). Some traces of the harbor
installations on the river (Rue des Tanneurs) and of two other buildings were
discovered in excavations undertaken in the 19th c. and resumed after the last
war: near the Hotel de Ville, substructures of a nearly circular (100 x 107 m)
1st c. amphitheater; in the Rue de Beauvais, two rectangular rooms with opposed
apses, the cold and heated pools (the latter with hypocausts) of a bath building
from the first half of the 2d c. In the foundations of these rooms were some carved
fragments originally used in a large public building of the preceding century.
The plan of the streets, however, can be traced exactly thanks to
recent finds. The city was designed on a grid plan oriented N-S and E-W. This
network enables us to trace the growth of the Empire city in its successive stages:
a narrower grid (insulae of 100 x 80 Roman feet, or ca. 160 x 125 m) in the NE
section represents the original urban center, which covered a modest area of 40
ha. This was the 1st c. city, at whose W limit stood the amphitheater. In the
2d c. the plan was modified and enlarged (to 105 ha) by the construction of new
residential sections made up of larger insulae (100 Roman feet or 160 m each side),
and an improved street and sewer system. The new city limits were extended W to
enclose the 1st c. amphitheater which ended up in the heart of the city, a most
unusual position; then to the S the city took in an area that had previously been
the cemeteries, as evidenced by traces of funerary buildings uncovered in the
foundations of the baths. No trace of the ancient grid has remained in the mediaeval
or modern streets, except for the decumanus, which is a continuation of the road
from Soissons (Rue des Trois Cailloux), and the cardo (Rue du Bloc, Rue de Flatters
and Rue des Sergents).
At the end of the 3d c. the city shrank inside a rampart. This plan,
too, can be traced. The walls, 1300 m long, enclosed an urban area of only ca.
10 ha. The fortified city was situated not to the E, around the cathedral, as
has long been believed, but actually W of the cardo (the great Beauvais-Boulogne
road), so that it overlooked the river to the N and was supported to the S by
the amphitheater, now a fortress. Three of the rampart gates can be approximately
located: the Porta Clippiana, mentioned in the Passio S. Firmini, stood to the
S, close to the amphitheater; the W gate, near the church of Saint-Firmin-a-la-Porte;
and the E gate was high up by Saint-Martin-au-Bourg (the episode of the charity
of St. Martin is supposed to have taken place beside this last gate).
Fewer traces of the Roman occupation are to be found in the environs
(poor remains of a dwelling near the modern Citadelle) but we know more about
the series of cemeteries that surrounded the city except in the marshy areas.
The cemeteries of the Empire (cremation and especially inhumation) contain some
rather poor monuments and grave gifts. As usual the necropoleis were along the
main access routes: to the W, along the Rouen road, to the E, on that of Noyon.
To the W, along the Senlis and Beauvais roads, are two series of burials that
together make up the largest cemetery, while the last one, to the N along the
road to Boulogne, was used up to the Constantinian era. In the Late Empire and
the Merovingian period the cemetery area shifted; as the city shrank it came closer
(to the area round the cathedral) and occupied an old quarter of the Empire city
that had been left outside the walls. To the E, conversely, a late Christian cemetery
grew up beyond the old Empire cemetery area, near the tomb of St. Firmin at Saint-Acheul.
The archaeological finds are in the Musee de Picardie at Amiens.
C. Pietri, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Feb 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Λάβετε το καθημερινό newsletter με τα πιο σημαντικά νέα της τουριστικής βιομηχανίας.
Εγγραφείτε τώρα!