Εμφανίζονται 100 (επί συνόλου 248) τίτλοι με αναζήτηση: Πληροφορίες για τον τόπο στην ευρύτερη περιοχή: "ΓΑΛΛΙΑ Χώρα ΕΥΡΩΠΗ" .
ΑΛΠΕΙΣ ΑΝΩ ΠΡΟΒΗΓΚΙΑΣ (Νομός) ΠΡΟΒΗΓΚΙΑ
ΣΤΡΑΣΒΟΥΡΓΟ (Πόλη) ΚΑΤΩ ΡΗΝΟΣ
ΑΛΠΕΙΣ ΑΝΩ ΠΡΟΒΗΓΚΙΑΣ (Νομός) ΠΡΟΒΗΓΚΙΑ
ΣΤΡΑΣΒΟΥΡΓΟ (Πόλη) ΚΑΤΩ ΡΗΝΟΣ
ΑΛΑΛΙΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΚΟΡΣΙΚΗ
Aleria or Alalia (Alalie, Herod.; Allalia, Steph. B.; Aleria, Ptol.:
Allaliaios, Steph. B.), one of the chief cities of Corsica, situated on the E.
coast of the island, near the mouth of the river Rhotanus (Tavignano). It was
originally a Greek colony, founded about B.C. 564, by the Phocaeans of Ionia.
Twenty years later, when the parent city was captured by Harpagus, a large portion
of its inhabitants repaired to their colony of Alalia, where they dwelt for five
years, but their piratical conduct involved them in hostilities with the Tyrrhenians
and Carthaginians; and in a great sea-fight with the combined fleets of these
two nations they suffered such heavy loss, as induced them to abandon the island,
and repair to the S. of Italy, where they ultimately established themselves at
Velia in Lucania. (Herod. i. 165-167; Steph. B.; Diod. v. 13, where Kalaris is
evidently a corrupt reading for Alapia.) No further mention is found of the Greek
colony, but the city appears again, under the Roman form of the name, Aleria,
during the first Punic war, when it was captured by the Roman fleet under L. Scipio,
in B.C. 259, an event which led to the submission of the whole island, and was
deemed worthy to be expressly mentioned in his epitaph. (Zonar. viii. 11; Flor.
ii. 2; Orell. Inscr. no. 552.) It subsequently received a Roman colony under the
dictator Sulla, and appears to have retained its colonial rank, and continued
to be one of the chief cities of Corsica under the Roman Empire. (Plin. iii. 6.
s. 12; Mela, ii. 7; Diod. v. 13; Seneca, Cons. ad Helv. 8; Ptol. iii. 2. § 5;
Itin. Ant. p. 85.)
Its ruins are still visible near the south bank of the river Tavignano:
they are now above half a mile from the coast, though it was in the Roman times
a seaport.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΚΟΡΣΙΚΗ (Νησί) ΓΑΛΛΙΑ
Corsica, called by the Greeks Cyrnus (Kurnos: Eth. Kurnaios: later
Greek writers, however, use also Korsis and Korsika; Dionys. Per.; Strab.; Ptol.,
&c.: the Latin Ethnic is Corsus, which Ovid uses also for the adjective: Corsicanus
is the adjective form in Servius and Solinus), one of the principal islands in
the Mediterranean, ranean, situated to the N. of Sardinia, from which it was separated
only by a narrow strait. It was generally rally reckoned the third in magnitude
of the seven great islands in that sea (Alexius, ap. Enstath. ad Dionys. Per.
4; Strab. ii. p. 123), though other authors gave it only the sixth place. (Diod.
v. 17; Scylax, § 113.) Pliny says that it was 150 miles long, and for the most
part 50 broad, and gives its circumference at 325 miles; Strabo, on the other
hand, states its length at 160 miles, and its greatest breadth at 70. (Plin. iii.
6. s. 12; Strab. v. p. 224.) Both these statements exceed the truth; the real
length of the island is just about 100 geographical (125 Roman) miles, while its
breadth nowhere exceeds 46 geographical or 58 Roman miles. Both Strabo and Diodorus
reckon it 300 stadia distant from the island of Aethalia or Ilva, which is very
little more than the truth; the former correctly states that it is visible from
the mainland near Populonium, but he was misled by his guides when they led him
to believe that Sardinia was so too. The northern extremity of Corsica, formed
by a narrow ridge of mountains, extending like a great promontory near 30 miles
from the main body of the island, is distinctly visible from many points on the
coast of Etruria, and even from that of Liguria. The distance of this part of
the island from Vada Volaterrana is correctly given by Pliny at 62 M.P., but it
is not more than 58 from Populonium, which is the nearest point on the mainland.
(Plin. l. c.; Strab. v. p. 223; Diod. v. 13.)
Almost the whole of Corsica is occupied by a range of lofty and rugged
mountains, extending from N. to S. from one extremity of the island to the other.
The highest summits of this range attain an elevation of from 8000 to 9000 feet,
and are in consequence covered with snow during the greater part of the year;
their sides are furrowed by deep torrents, and intersected by narrow, crooked
valleys or ravines, while they are covered almost throughout with dense forests.
The vast extent of these, and the magnitude and excellence of the timber which
they produced, have been celebrated in all ages. (Theophrast. H. P. v. 8. § §
1, 2; Dionys. Per. 460; Diod. l. c.) But notwithstanding this advantage, as well
as the excellent ports with which the W. and S. coasts of the island abound, its
rugged and inaccessible nature rendered it in ancient, as they still do in modern
times, one of the wildest and least civilised portions of Southern Europe. Theophrastus
says that the whole island was shaggy and savage, from the vast forests with which
it was covered (daseian kai hosper egriomenen tei hulei). Strabo speaks wilder
than the very beasts (agrioteroi therion, v. p. 224), and of so untameable a character,
that when they were brought to Rome as slaves it was impossible to make any use
of them, or accustom them to domestic habits. The judgment of Diodorus on this
point is more favourable. He says the Corsican slaves were very docile, and readily
adapted themselves to the ways of civilised life; and that the natives of the
island, though ignorant of tillage, and subsisting wholly on meat, milk, and honey,
were remarkable for their love of justice. (Diod. v. 13, 14.) Seneca, who was
banished to the island in A.D. 41, and lived there eight years in exile, naturally
takes an unfavourable view of it, and speaks in exaggerated terms of the barrenness
of its soil, as well as the barbarism of its inhabitants, and the unhealthiness
of its climate. (Sen. Cons. ad Helv. 6. § 4; Anthol. Lat. 129, 130.) In the latter
respect, however, it had greatly the advantage of the neighbouring island of Sardinia;
the low grounds on the E. coast are indeed very unhealthy, but the greater part
of the island is free from the scourge of malaria; and ancient writers speak of
the native Corsicans as remarkable for their longevity. (Eustath. ad Dion. Per.
458.)
We have very little information as to the origin of the native population
of Corsica, but there seems little doubt that it was derived principally from
a Ligurian source. This is the opinion of Seneca, though he tells us that there
were some tribes in the island of Spanish or Iberian extraction,whose manners
and dress resembled those of the Cantabrians, and appears inclined to regard these
as the earliest inhabitants, and the Ligurians as subsequent settlers. (Sen. l.c.
8.) Solinus, however, following authors now lost, who had written fully concerning
Corsica, expressly ascribes its first population to the Ligurians, and this is
confirmed by the legend which derived its name from a Ligurian woman of the name
of Corsa, who was fabled to have first discovered and visited its shores. (Solin.
3. § 3; Eustath. l. c.; Isidor. Origg. xiv. 6.) We are expressly told that Corsica
was the native name of the island, adopted from them by the Romans (Diod. v. 13;
Dionys. Per. 459); the origin of that of Cyrnus, by which it was known to the
Greeks, is wholly unknown, though late writers, as usual, derived it from a hero
Cyrnus, whom they pretended to be a son of Hercules.
The island appears to have been early known to the Greeks, and the
Phocaeans founded the city of Alalia on its eastern coast as early as B.C. 564.
(Herod. i. 165; Seneca, l. c.) Twenty years later they established themselves
in much greater force, but after a stay of only a few years were compelled to
abandon it again; and from this period we hear nothing more of Greek colonies
on the island. According to Diodorus, the Tyrrhenians, who had united their arms
with the Carthaginians to expel the Phocaeans, established their authority over
the island, in which they founded the city of Nicaea (a name that certainly appears
rather to point to a Greek origin), and exacted from the inhabitants a tribute
of resin, wax, and honey. (Diod. v. 13.) Their supremacy fell with the decline
of their naval power, and Corsica, as well as Sardinia, appears to have been in
a state of dependency, if not of subjection, to Carthage at the time of the First
Punic War. On this account it was attacked, in B.C. 259, by a Roman fleet under
L. Scipio, who took the city of Aleria, and compelled the inhabitants to acknowledge
the sovereignty of Rome, and give hostages for their fidelity. (Zonar. viii. 11;
Flor. ii. 2. § 16; Liv. Epit. xvii.; Orell. Inscr. 552.) It is probable that the
submission of the wild tribes of the native Corsicans was at this time little
more than nominal; and after the close of the First Punic War we find them again
repeatedly in arms, together with their neighbours the Sardinians; at length,
in B.C. 231, C. Papirius Maso is said to have effectually subdued them, for which
he claimed the honour of a triumph. (Zonar. viii. 18; Liv. Epit. xx.; Fast. Capit.)
Yet long after this, repeated revolts attest the imperfect nature of their subjection;
and the victories of the Roman praetors appear to have effected nothing beyond
a nominal submission, and the payment of an occasional tribute. (Liv. xl. 19,
34, xlii. 7, 21.) Before the close of the Republic, however, the maritime parts
of the island at least were brought under complete subjection, and two colonies
of Roman citizens were established on its E. coast, that of Mariana by Marius,
and Aleria by Sulla. (Plin. iii. 6. s. 12; Mel. ii. 7. § 9; Seneca, Cons. ad Helv.
8. § 2.) This example, however, was not followed; and under the Roman empire little
pains were taken to extend the civilisation of Italy to an island which was regarded
as wild and inhospitable. Even in the time of Augustus, Strabo describes the mountain
tribes of the interior as subsisting principally by robbery and plunder; while
the Roman governors from time to time made an attack upon their fastnesses, and
carried off a number of prisoners, whom they sold as slaves. (Strab. v. p. 224.)
The fact that it was selected as a place of banishment for political exiles (of
which Seneca was the most illustrious example) in itself shows the unfavourable
estimation in which it was held. Its name only once occurs in the history of this
period, during the civil wars of A.D. 69, when a vain attempt was made by Decimus
Pacarius to arouse the Corsicans in favour of Vitellius, though their coasts were
exposed to the fleet of Otho. (Tac. Hist. ii. 16.) Under the Roman Republic, Corsica
had been united in one province with Sardinia, and subject to the same praetor.
Tacitus speaks of it apparently as having then a separate Procurator, but this
was probably exceptional. After the time of Constantine, however, the two islands
were separated, and each had its own governor, with the title of Praeses. (Not.
Dign. ii. pp. 6, 64; P. Diac. ii. 22.) The seat of government was probably at
Aleria. On the fall of the Western Empire, Corsica fell into the hands of the
Vandals, from whom it was wrested by Belisarius, but was again conquered by the
Goths under Totila. (Procop. B. V. ii. 5, B. G. iv. 24.) It was, however, recovered
by the Exarchs of Ravenna, and continued a dependency of the Byzantine empire,
till it was conquered in the 8th century by the Saracens.
The physical character of Corsica has been already adverted to. The
great chain of mountains which fills up almost the whole island approaches, however,
somewhat nearer to the W. than the E. coast; the former is in consequence extremely
rugged, and broken by great mountain promontories, with deep bays between them,
many of which afford excellent harbours, though these are rendered comparatively
useless by the difficulty of communication with the interior. The E. coast, on
the contrary, is lower and more regular, presenting a nearly unbroken line for
a distance of 75 miles, from the neighbourhood of Bastia to the Gulf of Porto
Vecchio; but near its southern extremity this also is indented by two deep inlets,
one of which, called in ancient times the Portus Syracusanus (now Porto Vecchio),
constitutes a harbour of first-rate excellence. (Diod. v. 3.) The central mass
of the mountain chain, now called the Monte Rotondo, is apparently that which
is called by Ptolemy the Mons Aureus (to Chrusoun oros). It is in this group that
the two principal rivers of the island have their rise: the Rhotanus of Ptolemy,
now known as the Tavignano; and the Tuola or Tavola (Touolas or Tauolas), now
called the Golo. Both of these flow from W. to E., and enter the sea, the first
near the colony of Aleria, the second close to that of Mariana. The other rivers
of the island are of inferior magnitude; of those which flow to the W. coast,
Ptolemy mentions the Circidius (Kirkidios), which is probably the modern Liamone;
and the Locras, Ticarius, and Pitanus, which cannot be identified with any certainty.
The Hierus or Sacer fluvius (Hieros potamos), which he places on the E. coast,
S. of Aleria, may probably be the Fiume Orbo; and the Valerius (Oualerios or Ouolerios),
described by him as entering the sea in the middle of the N. coast, can be no
other than the small stream now called the Cigno, which flows by S. Fiorenzo.
The same author, to whom we are indebted for what little information
we possess concerning the ancient geography of Corsica, gives us the names of
a number of headlands, and bays or harbours; but very few of these can be identified
with any approach to certainty. A glance at a good map will show how irregular
and broken is the whole W. coast of the island, so that it is idle to choose a
few out of the number of bold headlands and deep inlets that it presents, and
assume them to be those intended by Ptolemy. The northernmost point of the island,
now called Capo Corso, appears to be that called by him the Sacred Promontory
(Hieron akron); and the southern extremity, near Bonifacio, may be that which
he calls Marianum, adjoining which was a city of the same name (Marianon akron
kai polis). Between these (proceeding from N. to S. along the W. coast of the
island) he enumerates: Tilox Pr., the Caesian shore (Kaisias aigialos), the Attian
Pr., the Gulf of Casalus, the Prom. of Viriballum, the Rhoetian mountain, the
Prom. of Rhium, the Sandy Shore (Ammodes aigialos), the Portus Titianus. The Portus
Syracusanus in the SE. part of the island is probably, as already observed, the
Gulf of Porto Vecchio. (Ptol. iii. 2. § § 3-5.)
Our knowledge of the internal geography of the island is extremely
vague and uncertain. Neither Strabo nor Pliny give us the names of any of the
tribes into which the native population was doubtless divided. The former says
merely that some parts of the island were habitable, and contained the towns of
the Blesini, Charax, Eniconiae, and Vapanes. (Strab. v. p. 224.) Pliny tells us
that Corsica contained thirty-three civitates, besides the two Roman colonies,
but without giving the names of any. Ptolemy, on the contrary, gives us the following
list: The Cervini occupy the W. side beneath the Golden Mountain; then follow
the Tarrabenii, the Titiani, the Balatonii. The most northerly promontory is occupied
by the Vanaceni; next to whom come the Cilebensii, then the Licnini, Macrini,
Opini, Simbri, and Comaceni, and furthest to the S. the Subasani (iii. 2. § 6).
Nothing more is known of any of these obscure tribes, who, as Ptolemy expressly
tells us, dwelt only in scattered villages; besides these, he enumerates 14 towns
in the interior, all of which are utterly unknown. Even those towns which he places
on the W. coast of the island cannot be determined with any approach to certainty,
their position depending on those of the promontories and bays, the geography
of which (as already observed) is extremely vague. The names of these places are
as follows: Urcinium (Ourkinion), Pauca (Pauka), Ficaria (Phikaria), and Marianum,
near the promontory of the same name. On the E. coast our data are rather more
precise; the site of the two Roman colonies of Aleria and Mariana being known
with certainty. The Itinerary of Antoninus also gives us a line of road (the only
one in the island) along this coast from Mariana to Pallae, a city mentioned also
by Ptolemy, which was probably situated at the head of the gulf called the Portus
Syracusanus. The intermediate stations between this and Aleria are the Portus
Favonii (still called Porto Favone, and probably identical with the Philoniou
limen of Ptolemy), and Praesidium, half way between Portus Favonii and Aleria,
probably, from its name, a mere military post. (Itin. Ant. p. 85; Ptol. iii. 2.
§ 5.) Besides these, Ptolemy mentions Rubra and Alista, which he places between
the Portus Syracusanus and Aleria; and the towns of Mantinum, Clunium, Centuria,
and Canelate, all of which are to be sought in the northern part of the island,
N. of Mariana. Nicaea, which from its name would appear to have been a Greek colony,
but is called by Diodorus (v. 13) a Tyrrhenian one, is not mentioned by any of
the geographers, and its position is quite unknown. It is a plausible conjecture
of Cluverius that it was the same place afterwards called Mariana.
Of the natural productions of Corsica, the chief, as already observed,
is timber, of which it furnished an almost unlimited supply. Theophrastus speaks
with especial admiration of the pine and fir trees that grew on the island, and
of which the Romans made great use for their fleets. (Theophr. H. P. v. 8. § 1.)
The same forests produced resin and pitch, and abounded in wild bees, so that
wax and honey were in all ages among the chief exports of the island, and we find
the Corsicans on one occasion compelled to pay 200,000 pounds of wax as a punishment
for their revolt. (Liv. xlii. 7; Diod. v. 13; Plin. xxi. 14. s. 49.) The longevity
of the inhabitants was supposed by some writers to arise from their abundant use
of honey as an article of food. (Steph. B. s. v. Kurnos.) Yet the Corsican honey
had a bitter taste, owing to the bees feeding on the box trees, which rendered
it unpalatable to strangers. (Theophr. H. P. iii. 15. § 5; Diod l. c.; Virg. Ecl.
ix. 30; Ovid, Amor. i. 12. 10.) Sheep, goats, and cattle were also abundant, though
the former were allowed to run almost wild about the mountains. (Pol. xii. 4.)
But the island produced little corn, and even under the Roman empire the cultivation
of fruit trees, vines, and olives was almost wholly neglected. (Senec. Cons. ad
Helv. 9. § 2; Anthol. Lat. 130.) Of wild animals, according to Polybius, there
were found abundance of foxes and rabbits, but no wolves, hares, or deer; the
wild goat also was unknown, but the wild sheep or mousmon (mousmon) was found
in the mountains of Corsica, as well as of Sardinia. Strabo mentions it in the
latter island only, but it is still common to them both. (Pol. xii. 3, 4.) The
mines of Corsica seem to have been neglected by the Romans; but its granite, which
is of a very fine quality, was worked for architectural purposes; and the Roman
quarries in two little islets a few miles from Bonifacio, at the southern extremity
of Corsica, are still visible. (Valery, Voyage en Corse, chap. 80.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΝΙΚΑΙΑ (Πόλη) ΠΑΡΑΛΙΑ ΑΛΠΕΩΝ
Nicaea (Nikaia: Eth. Nikaieus: Nizza, in French Nice), a city on the
coast of Liguria, situated at the foot of the Maritime Alps, near the frontier
of Gallia Narbonensis. On this account, and because it was a colony of Massilia,
it was in early times commonly reckoned as belonging to Gaul (Steph. B. s. v.);
and this attribution is still followed by Mela (ii. 5. § 3): but from the time
that the Varus became fixed as the limit of Italy, Nicaea, which was situated
about 4 miles to the E. of that river, was naturally included in Italy, and is
accordingly so described by Strabo Pliny, and Ptolemy. (Strab. iv. p. 184; Plin.
iii. 5. s. 7; Ptol. iii. 1. § 2.) We have no account of its early history, beyond
the fact that it was a colony of Massilia, and appears to have continued always
in a state of dependency upon that city. (Strab. iv. pp. 180, 184; Plin. l. c.;
Steph. B. s. v.) It was situated on the borders of the Ligurian tribes of the
Oxybii and Deciates; and, as well as its neighbour Antipolis, was continually
harassed by the incursions of these barbarians. In B.C. 154 both cities were actually
besieged by the Ligurians; and the Massilians, finding themselves unable to repulse
the assailants, applied to Rome for assistance; the consul Q. Opimius, who was
despatched with an army to their succour, quickly compelled the Ligurians to lay
down their arms, and deprived them of a considerable part of their territory,
which was annexed to the dependency of Massilia. (Pol. xxxiii. 4, 7; Liv. Epit.
xlvii.) From this time, nothing more is heard in history of Nicaea, which continued
to belong to the jurisdiction of Massilia, and, even after it came to be subject
to the Romans, and included geographically in Italy, was still for municipal purposes
dependent upon its parent city. (Strab. iv. p. 184.) At a later period, the new
division of the provinces again transferred to Gaul the towns of Nicaea and Cemenelium,
together with the whole district of the Maritime Alps, westward of the Tropaea
Augusti. Hence, we find Nicaea described by Ammianus (xv. 11. § 15) as belonging
to Gaul; and during the decline of the Empire, after it had become an episcopal
see, the names of its bishops are found among the Gaulish prelates. It does not
appear to have ever been a town of much importance under the Roman Empire; and
was apparently eclipsed by the city of Cemenelium (Cimiez), in its immediate neighbourhood.
But it had a good port, which must always have secured it some share of prosperity,
and after the fall of Cemenelium, it rose to be the most important city in this
part of Gaul, and became the capital of an independent district called the Contado
di Nizza (County of Nice). This eventually fell into the hands of the House of
Savoy, and now forms part of the dominions of the king of Sardinia. Nice itself
is a flourishing place, with about 30,000 inhabitants, but has no remains of antiquity.
The ancient city probably occupied the height, now the site of the castle, and
the immediate neighbourhood of the port, which though small, is secure. Nice is
situated at the mouth of the river Paglione, a considerable mountain torrent,
evidently the stream called Paulo by Pliny and Mela. (Plin. l. c.; Mel. ii. 4.
§ 9.)
About 2 miles E. of Nice is a deep bay or inlet between two rocky
promontories, forming a spacious natural, harbour now known as the Gulf of Villafranca,
from a town of that name, which has however existed only since the 13th century.
This is probably the Portus Olivula of the Maritime Itinerary (p. 504). The Anao
Portus of the same Itinerary is probably a small cove, forming a well-sheltered
harbour for small vessels on the E. side of the headland, called Capo di S. Ospizio,
which forms the eastern boundary of the Gulf of Villafranca. A similar cove a
few miles further E. just below the modern village of Eza, is probably the Avisio
Portus of the same authority; but the distances given between these points are
greatly overstated.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΟΛΒΙΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΓΑΛΛΙΑ
Olbia (Olbia: Eth. Olbiopolites, and Olbianos). Stephanus (s. v. Olbia)
speaks of one city of this name as a Ligurian city, by which he means the Olbia
on the Ligurian coast of Gallia; for the name Olbia appears to be Greek. Mela
(ii. 5), who proceeds from east to west in enumerating the cities on the Mediterranean
coast of Gallia, places Olbia between Forum Julii (Frejus) and Massilia (Marseille).
The order of place is this: Forum Julii, Athenopolis, Olbia, Taurois, Citharistes,
Massilia. Strabo (iv. p. 184), who proceeds from west to east in his enumeration
of the cities of this coast, mentions Massilia, Tauroentium, Olbia, and Antipolis,
and Nicaea. He adds that the port of Augustus, which they call Forum Julii, is
between Olbia and Antipolis (Antibes). The Massaliots built Olbia, with the other
places on this coast, as a defence against the Salyes and the Ligures of the Alps.
(Strab. p. 180.) Ptolemy (ii. 10. § 8) places Olbia between the promontory Citharistes
(Cap Cicier) and the mouth of the river Argenteus (Argents), west of Frejus. There
is nothing that fixes the site of Olbia with precision; and we must accept D'Anville's
conjecture that Olbia was at a place now called Eoube, between Cap Combe and Breganson.
Forbiger accepts the conjecture that Olbia was at St. Tropez, which he supports
by saying that Strabo places Olbia 600 stadia from Massilia; but Strabo places
Forum Julii 600 stadia from Massilia.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΑΛΑΛΙΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΚΟΡΣΙΚΗ
One of the chief towns of Corsica, on the east of the island, founded by the Phocaeans in B.C. 564, and made a Roman colony by Sulla.
ΓΑΛΛΙΑ (Χώρα) ΕΥΡΩΠΗ
An extensive and populous country of Europe, bounded on the
west by the Atlantic, on the north by the Insula Batavorum and part of the Rhenus
(Rhine), on the east by the Rhenus and the Alps, and on the south by the Pyrenees.
The greatest breadth was 600 English miles, but much diminished towards each extremity.
Its length was from 480 to 620 miles. It was therefore more extensive than modern
France before the Revolution, though inferior to the Empire under Napoleon I.
Gaul was originally divided among the three great peoples--the Belgae, the Celtae,
and the Aquitani. The Romans called the inhabitants of this country by one general
name, Galli, while the Greeks styled them Keltai. The Greeks called the country
itself Galatia (Galatia) and Celtica (Keltike). Of the three great nations of
Gaul, the Celtae were the most extensive and the Belgae the bravest. The Belgae
and Celtae were of like blood, though differing in temperament, the Belgae being
more staid and less impulsive and vivacious, while the Celtae showed the mercurial
disposition of the modern French. The Aquitani, on the south, were of a different
(Iberian) stock, unlike the rest of the Gauls both physically and temperamentally,
being dark of complexion, less sociable, and somewhat less intelligent, but more
tenacious of purpose and enduring-- traits which still mark the inhabitants of
the Basque provinces to-day. The Celtae extended from the Sequana (Seine) in the
north to the Garumna (Garonne) in the south. Above the Celtae lay the Belgae,
between the Seine and the Lower Rhine. They were intermixed with Germanic tribes.
The Aquitani lay between the Garonne and the Pyrenees, and were intermingled with
Spanish tribes. These three great divisions, however, were subsequently altered
by Augustus (B.C. 27), who extended Aquitania into Celtica as far as the Liger
or Loire; the remainder of Gallia Celtica above the Liger was called Gallia Lugdunensis,
from the colony of Lugdunum (Lyons); while the territory towards the Rhine was
added to the Belgae under the title of Gallia Belgica. Lastly, the south of Gaul,
which, from having been the first provinces possessed by the Romans, had been
styled Gallia Provincia, was distinguished by the name of Narbonensis, from the
city of Narbo (Narbonne). This province was also anciently called Gallia Bracata,
from the bracae or trousers worn by the inhabitants; while Gallia Celtica was
styled Comata, from the long hair (coma) worn by the natives. These four great
provinces, in later ages, were called the four Gauls, and subdivided into seventeen
others.
As far back as one can penetrate into the history of the West,
we find the race of the Gauls occupying that part of the continent comprehended
between the Rhine, the Alps, the Mediterranean, the Pyrenees, and the Ocean, as
well as the two great islands situated to the northwest, opposite the mouths of
the Rhine and Seine. Of these two islands, the one nearer the continent was called
Alb-in, "White Island" (cf. the remark of Pliny, H. N. xiv. 16, Albion
insula, sic dicta ab albis rupibus quas mare alluit"). The other island bore
the name of Er-in, "Isle of the West" (from Eir or Iar, "the west").
The continental territory received the special appellation of Galltachd, "Land
of the Gauls." From this word the Greeks formed Galatia, and from this latter
the generic name of Galatai. The Romans proceeded by an inverse method, and from
the generic term Galli deduced the geographical denomination Gallia.
The population of Gaul was divided into families or tribes,
forming among themselves many distinct communities or nations. Oftentimes they
united together, in their turn, and formed confederations or leagues. Such were
the confederations of the Celtae, Aedui, Armorici, Arverni, etc.
The Gaul was robust and of tall stature. His complexion was
fair, his eyes blue, his hair of a blond or chestnut colour, to which he endeavoured
to give a red or flaming hue by certain applications. The hair itself was worn
long. The beard was allowed to grow by the people at large; the nobles, on the
other hand, removed it from the face, excepting the upper lip, where they wore
thick moustaches. The attire common to all the tribes consisted of trousers or
bracae (Armoric). These were of striped materials. They wore also a short cloak,
having sleeves, likewise formed of striped materials, and descending to the middle
of the thigh. Over this was thrown a short cloak or sagum striped like the shirt,
or else adorned with flowers and other ornamental work, and, among the rich, superbly
embroidered with silver and gold. It covered the back and shoulders, and was secured
under the chin by a clasp of metal. The lower classes, however, wore in place
of it the skin of some animal, or else a thick and coarse woolen covering. The
offensive arms of the nation were, at first, hatchets and knives of stone; arrows
pointed with flint or shells; clubs; spears hardened in the fire, and named gais
(in Latin gaesum, in Greek gaison and gaisos); and others called cateia, which
they hurled while on fire against the enemy. Foreign traffic, however, made them
acquainted, in process of time, with arms of iron, as well as with the art of
manufacturing them for themselves from the copper and iron of their own mines.
Among the arms of metal which thenceforward came into use may be mentioned the
long sabre of iron or copper and a pike resembling the halberd, the wound inflicted
by which was considered mortal. For a long time the Transalpine as well as the
Cisalpine warriors of the Gallic race had rejected the use of defensive armour
as inconsistent with true courage, and a point of honour had induced them even
to strip off their vestments and engage naked with the foe. This prejudice, however,
was almost entirely effaced in the second century when the military costume of
Rome and Greece formed a singular combination with the ancient array of the Gaul.
To a helmet of metal, of greater or less value according to the fortune of the
warrior, were attached the horns of an elk, buffalo, or stag; while for the rich
there was a headpiece representing some bird or savage beast, the whole being
surmounted by a bunch of feathers, which gave to the warrior a gigantic appearance.
Similar figures were attached to their bucklers, which were long, quadrangular,
and painted with the brightest colours. A buckler and casque after this model,
a cuirass of wrought metal, after the Greek and Roman fashion, or a coat of mail
formed of iron rings, after the manner of Gaul; an enormous sabre hanging on the
right thigh, and suspended by chains of iron or brass from a belt glittering with
gold and silver, and adorned with coral; a collar, bracelets, rings of gold around
the arm and on the middle finger; trousers; a sagum hanging from the shoulder;
and long red moustaches--such was the Gallic warrior.
Hardy, daring, impetuous, born, as it were, for martial achievements,
the Gallic race possessed, at the same time, an ingenious and active turn of mind.
They were not slow in equalling their Phoenician and Grecian instructors in the
art of mining. The same superiority to which the Spaniards had attained in tempering
steel, the Gauls acquired in the preparation of brass. Antiquity assigns to them
the honour of various useful inventions, which had hitherto escaped the earlier
civilization of the East and of Italy. The process of tinning was discovered by
the Bituriges; that of veneering by the Aedui. The dyes, too, of Gaul were not
without reputation. In agriculture, the wheelplough and boulter were Gallic discoveries.
With the Gauls, too, originated the employment of marl for enriching the soil.
The cheeses of Mount Lozere, among the Gabali; those of Nemausus; and two kinds
made among the Alps, became, in time, much sought after by the inhabitants of
Italy. The Gauls also prepared various kinds of fermented drinks, such as barley-beer,
called cervisia; and likewise another kind of beer, made from corn, and in which
honey, cumin, and other ingredients were mingled. The froth of beer was employed
as a means for leavening bread: it was used also as a cosmetic, and the Gallic
women frequently applied it to the face, under the belief that it imparted a freshness
to the complexion. It was from the Greeks of Massilia that they learned the process
of making wine, as well as the culture of the grape.
The dwellings of the Gauls, spacious and of a round form, were
constructed of posts and hurdles, and covered with clay both within and without;
a large roof, composed of oak-shingles and stubble, or of straw cut and kneaded
with clay, covered the whole. Gaul contained both open villages and cities: the
latter, surrounded by walls, were defended by a system of fortification, of which
we find no example elsewhere. Caesar gives a description of these ramparts . To
the north and east, among the more savage tribes, there were no cities properly
so called; the inhabitants resided for the most part in large enclosures, formed
of trunks of trees.
It was, as has been already remarked, in war, and in the arts
applicable to war, that the genius of the Gauls displayed itself to most advantage.
This people made war a regular profession, while the management of arms became
their favourite employment. To have a fine martial mien, to retain for a long
period strength and agility of body, was not only a point of honour for individuals,
but a duty to the State. At regular intervals, the young men went to measure their
size by a girdle deposited with the chief of the village, and those whose corpulence
exceeded the official standard were severely reprimanded as idle and intemperate
persons, and were, besides, punished with a heavy fine. In preparing for foreign
expeditions, a chieftain of acknowledged valour generally formed a small army
around him, consisting, for the most part, of adventurers and volunteers who had
flocked to his standard; these were to share with him whatever booty might be
obtained. In internal wars, however, or defensive ones of any importance, levies
of men were forcibly made; and severe punishments were inflicted on the refractory,
such as the loss of noses, ears, an eye, or some one of the limbs. If any dangerous
crisis arrived, the supreme chief convened an armed council. All persons able
to bear arms were compelled to assemble at the place and day indicated, for the
purpose of deliberating on the situation of the country, of electing a chief,
and of discussing the plan of campaign. It was expressly provided by law that
the individual who came last to the place of rendezvous should be cruelly tortured
in the presence of the assembled multitude. This form of assembly was, however,
of rare occurrence, and was only resorted to in the last extremity. Neither infirmities
nor age freed the Gallic noble from the necessity of accepting or seeking military
commands. Oftentimes were seen, at the head of the forces, chieftains hoary and
almost enfeebled by age, who could even scarcely retain their seats on the horse
which supported them. This people would have believed that they dishonoured their
aged warriors by making them die elsewhere than on the field of battle.
To the ferocity of the attack and to the violence of the first
shock were reduced nearly all the military tactics of the Gauls on level ground
and in pitched battle. In the mountainous regions, on the other hand, and especially
in the vast and thick forests of the North, war had a close resemblance to the
chase: it was prosecuted in small parties, by ambuscades and all sorts of stratagems;
and dogs, trained up to pursue men, tracked out and aided in conquering the foe.
A Gallic army generally carried along with it a multitude of chariots for the
baggage, which embarrassed its march. Each warrior bore a bundle of straw, put
up like a sack, on which he was accustomed to sit in the encampment, or even in
the line of battle while waiting the signal to engage.
The Gauls, like other nations, for a long period were in the
habit of killing their prisoners of war, either by crucifixion, or by tying them
to trees as a mark for their weapons, or by consigning them to the flames amid
cruel rites. Long prior, however, to the second century of our era, these barbarous
practices were laid aside, and the captives of transalpine nations had nothing
to fear but servitude. Another custom, not less savage, that of cutting off the
heads of their slain enemies on the field of battle, was not slower in disappearing.
It was long a settled rule in all wars that the victorious army should possess
itself of such trophies as these; the common soldiers fixed them on the points
of their spears, the horsemen wore them suspended by the hair from their horses;
and in this way the conquerors returned to their homes, making the air resound
with their triumphal shouts. Each one then hastened to nail up these hideous testimonials
of his valour to the gate of his dwelling; and, as the same thing was done with
the trophies of the chase, a Gallic village bore a strong resemblance to a charnel-house.
Carefully embalmed and saturated with oil of cedar, the heads of hostile chieftains
and of famous warriors were deposited in large coffers, and arranged by their
possessor according to the date of acquisition. Sometimes the skull, cleansed
and set in gold or silver, served as a cup in the temples, or circulated in the
festivities of the banquet, and the guests drank out of it to the glory of the
victor and the triumphs of their country. These fierce and brutal manners prevailed
for a long period over the whole of Gaul. Civilization, in its on ward march,
abolished them by degrees, until, at the commencement of the second century, they
were confined to the savage tribes of the North and West. It was there that Posidonius
found them still existing in all their vigour, when the sight of so many human
heads, disfigured by outrages and blackened by the air and the rain, roused in
him mingled emotions of horror and disgust.
The Gauls affected, as more manly in its character, a strong
and rough tone of voice . They conversed but little, and by means of short and
concise phrases, which the constant use of metaphors and hyperboles rendered obscure
and almost unintelligible to strangers. But, when once animated by dispute, or
incited by something that was calculated to interest or arouse, at the head of
armies or in political assemblies, they expressed themselves with copiousness
and fluency.
The Gauls, in general, were accused of drinking to excess--a
habit which took its rise both in the grossness of their manners and in the wants
of a cold and humid climate. The Massilian and Italian traders were not slow in
furnishing the necessary means for the indulgence of this vice. Cargoes of wine
found their way, by means of the navigable rivers, into the very heart of the
country. Drink was also conveyed over land in wagons. About the first century,
however, of our era, drunkenness began gradually to disappear from among the higher
classes, and to be confined to the lower orders, at least with the nations of
the South and East. Milk and the flesh of animals, especially that of swine, formed
the principal food of the Gauls. A curious account of their repasts is given by
Posidonius. After an excessive indulgence in the pleasures of the banquet, they
loved to seize their arms and defy each other to the combat. At first it was only
a sportive encounter; but, if either party chanced to be wounded, passion got
so far the better of them that, unless separated by their friends, they continued
to engage till one or the other of them was slain. So far, indeed, did they carry
their contempt of death and their ostentatious display of courage, that they might
be seen agreeing, for a certain sum of money or for so many measures of wine,
to let themselves be slain by others; mounted on some elevated place, they distributed
the liquor or gold among their most intimate friends, and then reclining on their
bucklers, presented their throats to the sword. Others made it a point of honour
not to retire from their dwellings when falling in upon them, nor from the flames,
nor from the tides of ocean and the inundations of rivers; and it is to this foolish
daring that the Gauls owed their fabulous renown of being an impious race, who
lived in open war with nature.
The working of mines, and certain monopolies enjoyed by the
heads of tribes, had placed in the hands of some individuals enormous capital;
hence the reputation for opulence which Gaul enjoyed at the period of the Roman
invasion, and even still later. It was the Peru of the ancient world. The riches
of Gaul even passed into a proverb. Posidonius makes mention of a certain Luern
or Luer, king of the Arverni, who caused a shower of gold and silver to descend
upon the crowd as often as he appeared in public. He also gave entertainments
in a rude style of barbarian magnificence; a large space of ground was enclosed
for the purpose, and cisterns were dug in it, which were filled with wine, mead,
and beer.
Properly speaking, there was no domestic union or family intercourse
among the Gallic nations; the women were held in dependence and servitude. The
husband had the power of life and death over his wife as well as over his offspring.
When a person of high rank suddenly died, and the cause of his death was not clearly
ascertained, his wife or wives (for polygamy was practised among the rich) were
seized and put to the torture; if the least suspicion was excited of their having
been privy to his death, the victims perished in the midst of the flames, after
the most frightful punishments. One custom, however, shows that even then the
condition of women had undergone some degree of melioration: this was the community
of goods between husband and wife. The children remained under the care of their
mother until the age of puberty.
Among some nations of Belgic Gaul, where the Rhine was an object
of superstitious adoration, a curious custom prevailed; the river was made the
means of testing the fidelity of the wives. When a husband had doubts respecting
its paternity, he took the new-born infant, placed it on a board, and exposed
it to the current of the stream. If the plank and its helpless burden floated
safely upon the waters, the result was deemed favourable, and all the father's
suspicions were dissipated. If, on the contrary, the plank began to sink, the
infant perished, and the parent's suspicions were confirmed.
Government and Religion.--Two privileged orders ruled in Gaul
over the rest of the population --the priests and the nobles. The people at large
were divided into two classes--the inhabitants of the country and the residents
of cities. The former of these constituted the tribes or clients appertaining
to noble families. The client cultivated his patron's domains, followed his standard
in war, and was bound to defend him with his life. To abandon his patron in the
hour of peril was regarded as the blackest of crimes. The residents of cities,
on the other hand, found themselves beyond the control of this system of clientship,
and, consequently, enjoyed greater freedom. Below the mass of the people were
the slaves, who do not appear, however, to have been at any time very numerous.
When we examine attentively the character of the facts relative
to the religious belief of Gaul, we are led to recognize the existence of two
classes of ideas, two systems of symbols and superstitions entirely distinct from
each other; in a word, two religions--one, altogether reasonable in its character,
based on the personification of natural phenomena and recalling by its forms much
of the polytheism of Greece; the other, founded on a material, metaphysical, mysterious,
and sacerdotal pantheism, presenting at least a superficial conformity with the
religions of the East. This latter has received the name of Druidism, from the
Druids, who were its first founders and priests; the other system has been called
the Gallic Polytheism. Druidism was said to have been established in Gaul by Heus
or Hesus, a warrior and law-giver who was subsequently deified. The polytheistic
system which prevailed, more especially in Southern Gaul, was fundamentally like
that of the Greeks and Romans themselves. In its list of deities were Tarann,
the god of thunder, the Gallic Zeus, though in parts of Gaul Hesus held this supremacy;
Pennin, the god of the mountains; Bel or Belew, the sun-god, the Gallic Apollo;
Teutates, the Gallic Hermes, presiding over the useful arts and commerce; Ogmius,
represented as leading a train of captives by chains of gold and amber proceeding
from his mouth, typifying the power of eloquence; and Arduenna, the goddess of
the forests. These deities, as was natural, were identified by Caesar with the
gods of the Roman system.
This resemblance between the two systems of religion changed
into identity when Gaul, subjected to the dominion of Rome, had felt for some
years the influence of Roman ideas. It was then that the Gallic polytheism, honoured
and favoured by the emperors, ended its career by becoming totally merged in the
polytheism of Italy; while, on the other hand, Druidism, its mysteries, its doctrine,
and its priesthood, were utterly proscribed.
General History.--The history of Gaul divides itself naturally
into four periods. The first of these comprises the movements of the Gallic tribes
while yet in their nomadic state. None of the races of the West ever passed through
a more agitated or brilliant career. Their course embraced Europe, Asia, and Africa;
their name is recorded with terror in the annals of almost every nation. They
burned Rome; they wrested Macedonia from the veteran legions of Alexander; they
forced Thermopylae and pillaged Delphi; they then proceeded to pitch their tents
on the plains of the Troad, in the broad parks of Miletus, on the borders of the
Sangarius, and those of the Nile. They besieged Carthage, menaced Memphis, and
numbered among their tributaries the most powerful monarchs of the East; they
founded in Upper Italy a powerful empire, and in the bosom of Phrygia they reared
another--Galatia, which for a long time exercised its sway over the whole of Lower
Asia.
During the Second Period--that of their sedentary state--we
see the gradual development of social, religious, and political institutions,
conformable to their peculiar character as a people; institutions original in
their nature, and a civilization full of movement and of life, of which Transalpine
Gaul offers the purest and most complete model. One might say, in following the
animated scenes of this picture, that the theocracy of India, the feudal system
of the Middle Ages, and the Athenian democracy had met on the same soil for the
purpose of contending with each other and reigning by turns. Soon this civilization
undergoes a change; foreign elements are introduced, brought in by commerce, by
the relations of neighbourhood, by reaction from subjugated nations. Hence arose
and multiplied a variety of social combinations. In Italy it is the Roman influence
that exerts itself on the manners and institutions of the Gauls; in the south
of Gaul it is that of the Massiliots; while in Phrygia one finds a most singular
compound of Gallic, Grecian, and Phrygian civilization. To this succeeds the Third
Period in the history of the Gallic race--that of national struggles and subjugation.
By a singular coincidence, it is always by the Roman sword that the power of the
Gallic tribes is destined to fall; in proportion as the Roman dominion extends,
that of the Gauls recedes and declines. It would seem, indeed, that the victors
and the vanquished, in the battle on the banks of the Allia, followed each other
over the whole earth to decide the ancient quarrel of the Capitol. In Italy, the
Cisalpine Gauls were reduced, but only after two centuries of obstinate resistance.
When the rest of Asia had submitted to the yoke, the Galatae still defended against
Rome the independence of the East. Gaul eventually fell, but through complete
exhaustion, after a century of partial conflicts and nine years of general war
under Caesar. Finally, the names of Caractacus and Galgacus shed a splendour on
the last and ineffectual efforts of Keltic freedom. It is everywhere an unequal
conflict between ardent and undisciplined valour on the one hand, and cool and
steady perseverance on the other. The Fourth Period comprehends the organization
of Gaul into a Roman province, and the gradual assimilation of transalpine manners
to the customs and institutions of Italy--a work commenced by Augustus and completed
by Claudius.
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ΚΟΡΣΙΚΗ (Νησί) ΓΑΛΛΙΑ
An island of the Mediterranean, called by the Greeks Kurnos.
Its inhabitants were styled by the same people Kurnioi; by the Romans, Corsi.
In later times the island took also the name of Corsis (he Korsis). The inhabitants
were a rude race of mountaineers, indebted for their subsistence more to the produce
of their flocks than to the cultivation of the soil. Seneca, who was banished
to this quarter in the reign of Claudius, draws a very unfavourable picture of
the island and its inhabitants; describing the former as rocky, unproductive,
and unhealthy, and the latter as the worst of barbarians . His lines upon the
character of the Corsicans are still remembered by them with resentment, and are
as follows:
Prima est ulcisci lex, altera vivere raptu,
Tertia mentiri, quarta negare deos.
The Corsi appear to have derived their origin from Ligurian
and Iberian (called by Seneca Spanish) tribes. Eustathius says that a Ligurian
woman, named Corsa, having pursued in a small boat a bull which had taken to the
water, accidentally discovered the island, which her countrymen named after her.
The Romans took the island from Carthage in B.C. 231, and subsequently two colonies
were sent to it--one by Marius, which founded Mariana, and another by Sulla, which
settled on the site of Aleria. Mantinorum Oppidum, in the same island, is now
Bastia; and Urcinium, Ajaccio.
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ΜΑΣΣΑΛΙΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΓΑΛΛΙΑ
called by the Greeks Massalia (Marseilles). A Greek city in
Gallia Narbonensis, on the coast of the Mediterranean, in the country of the Salyes,
founded by the Phocaeans of Asia Minor about B.C. 600. It was situated on a promontory,
connected with the mainland by a narrow isthmus, and washed on three sides by
the sea. Its excellent harbour (Lacydon) was formed by a small inlet of the sea,
about half a mile long and a quarter of a mile broad. This harbour had only a
narrow opening, and before it lay an island, where ships had good anchorage. At
an early period the Massilienses cultivated the friendship of the Romans, to whom
they always continued faithful allies. Massilia was for many centuries one of
the most important commercial cities in the ancient world, and founded a number
of other towns, such as Antipolis (Antibes) and Nicaea (Nice). In wealth and power
it even excited the jealousy of Carthage, which led to a war between the two cities,
in which the Massilienses won a naval victory. Because of its friendship for Rome,
the Romans left it independent with its own constitution and government, which
was aristocratic or oligarchic, the city being ruled by a Senate of 600 called
Timuchi, who acted through smaller councillors. In the civil war between Caesar
and Pompey (B.C. 49) it espoused the cause of the latter, but after a protracted
siege, in which it lost its fleet, it was obliged to submit to Caesar. Its inhabitants
had long paid attention to literature and philosophy; and under the early emperors
it became one of the chief seats of learning, to which the sons of many Romans
resorted in order to complete their studies.
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ΜΠΟΡΝΤΩ (Πόλη) ΖΙΡΟΝΤ
Burdigala. The modern Bordeaux; the chief town of the Bituriges Vivisci,
on the left bank of the Garumna (Garonne). Under the Empire it was a place of
great commercial importance. Ausonius, who was born there, describes it in his
little poem entitled Ordo Nobilium Urbium. The only remaining Roman monument in
the town is the amphitheatre locally known as the Arenes, or Palais Gallien. It
is in a greatly damaged state.
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ΣΤΡΑΣΒΟΥΡΓΟ (Πόλη) ΚΑΤΩ ΡΗΝΟΣ
The modern city of Strasburg; a Roman municipium in Gallia Belgica,
on the Rhine. The Romans had a manufactory of arms here; and here, also, the emperor
Julian defeated the Alemanni. In the sixth century we find it called Stratisburgium,
whence comes the modern name.
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ΑΒΑΛΛΟΝ (Πόλη) ΓΑΛΛΙΑ
Aballo (Avallon) Yonne, France.
Called Aballo in the Peutinger Table, its location at the edge of limestone and
granite deposits and its proximity to the Agrippan road made it a much-frequented
place in antiquity. Statues, pottery, and coins have been found by chance in the
town itself, and two pink marble columns from an unknown temple were reused in
the church of St-Martin du Bourg.
The Roman city has been located on a rocky spur overlooking the Cousin
valley. A temple of the 1st c. A.D. was discovered in the 19th c. It consists
of a room (17 m square) surrounded by a gallery that contained the remains of
some fine white marble statues (among them a head of Minerva) and fragments of
an incomplete dedication. The god that was worshiped here has not been identified:
the inscription was long thought to be a dedication to Mercury, but a recent study
has suggested that the god's name begins with NURC or NERC. . . . Avallon has
a local museum.
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ΑΓΝΤΕ (Πόλη) ΓΑΛΛΙΑ
Agatha (Agde) Herault, France.
Massalian trading post (Scymn. V. 208; Strab. 4.1.5-6; Plin. 3.33; Pompon. 2.5;
Ptol. 2.10.2; Steph. Byz. s.v.) at the head of the delta of the Herault on a low
butte which has been inhabited continually since antiquity. It is a few km S of
the important native oppidum of Bessan. While the Massaliots possessed several
trading posts on the shores of Provence and the E coast of Spain, Agatha, which
was founded in the 6th c. B.C. shortly after the installation of the Phokaians
at Marseille, was the only town on the Gulf of Lion which was occupied by the
Greeks in the pre-Roman period. There were several complementary motives for its
foundation: a military one, raised by Strabo, for the protection of Greek commerce
from barbarian incursions, and above all an economic reason. Agde, at the mouth
of the coastal river which, with the Aude, is the most important of all Languedoc,
was particularly well placed to serve as a way-station and intermediary between
the Mediterranean lands and the interior of Gaul, including the Cevennes Massif,
famous in antiquity for its mineral wealth. Agde was both a river and seaport,
and played a commercial role of the first importance in the W Mediterranean, a
role apparently maintained under the Romans, despite the fact that the town was
some distance from the great highway of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, which ran close
to the neighboring city of Baeterrae (Beziers) and not far from the great port
of Narbonne. In the 5th c. Agde became the center of a small diocese, and a council
was held there in 506. Sporadic explorations during the last few decades have
shown that the Greek town was situated on the highest (16 m) part of the site
of the mediaeval and modern town. Aerial reconnaissance and study of the topography
indicate that it was a true citadel, probably laid out in a checkerboard pattern
measuring 200 m a side. This is very similar to the plan of Olbia in Provence
and Emponon in Catalonia. It was surrounded by a rampart of which some vestiges
probably remain. The few soundings which have been made confirm these observations.
They have also led to the discovery of some interesting ceramics and three Greek
inscriptions, the only ones so far discovered in Languedoc. The extent of the
Roman town is uncertain, but appears to have been no greater than that of the
Greek town. Under the Late Empire, two Early Christian funerary basilicas, St.
Andre and St Sever, were established outside the walls, SW of the agglomeration.
The principal discoveries testifying to the commercial activity of
Agde in antiquity have been made not in the town itself, but in the bed of the
Heault and at sea off Cape Agde (brass and lead ingots, imported amphorae and
ceramics, metal dishes, basalt millstones made near Agde). It was in the river
bed at Agde that a magnificent bronze statue was discovered in 1964. It is 1.4
m high, and believed to be the portrait of a Hellenistic prince.
All the archaeological finds made at Agde, in the surrounding area,
and at sea, are preserved in the local Archaeological Museum.
G. Barruol, 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.
ΑΖΕΝ (Πόλη) ΛΟΤ Ε ΓΚΑΡΟΝ
Aginnum (Agen) Lot-et-Garonne, France.
Agen was first the capital of the Nitiobrigi, a Celtic people established on the
borders of Aquitaine on both sides of the Garonne. Originally settled on the oppidum
of the Plateau de l'Ermitage and doubtless possessing an important market place
at the foot of the slope, the Nitiobrigi established themselves definitively in
the plain, in the Roman period, in the triangle formed by the Garonne and the
Masse. Augustus' establishment in A.D. 27 of the Civitas Aginnensis in Aquitaine
put an end to their kingdom. According to the Notitia provinciarum, by the 4th
c. the prosperous Aginnum, served by several major routes, had become the second
city of Aquitainia II.
For a long time the site of the imperial town was thought to be in
the S area of the present town and its suburbs, for in the 18th c. there were
still visible in this large open space the vestiges of large monuments (a Temple
to Diana, an amphitheater), luxurious habitations, and artisans' quarters. But
more recent discoveries of equally important monuments (a temple to Jupiter, another
to the Iunones Augustales, perhaps a forum) and evidence of occupation (altars,
inscriptions, statues, mosaics, and furniture now in the museum of Agen), have
proved that the city of that period extended as far N as the modern one. Contrary
to earlier conjecture that, from 276 on, it was merely a tongue of land on the
promontory lying farther N, it now appears that the whole site was permanently
occupied from the 1st c. until the invasions at the beginning of the 5th.
M. Klefstand-Sillonville, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Jan 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
ΑΙΜ (Πόλη) ΓΑΛΛΙΑ
Axima (Aime) Savoie, France.
Ancient capital of the Ceutrones, who inhabited the Tarentaise region (valley
of the Isere). Conquered by Caesar and subdued by Augustus, the region became
a procuratorial province of the Alpis Graia. Darantasis (Moutiers) was the first
capital, then Axima, which was on the Roman road leading from the Val d'Aoste
to Vienne and Lyon by the Little Saint-Bernard Pass. Under Claudius it was known
as Forum Claudii. At Aime the present national highway closely follows the Roman
road, which used to be lined with funerary monuments. Many ancient remains and
inscriptions have been unearthed in different areas.
In the Saint-Martin district, 3.3 in below the Romanesque basilica,
is a rectangular Roman building which may have been a temple of Silvanus or, more
likely, a secular basilica from the late 1st or early 2d c., judging from the
base of a statue of Trajan found there. It was destroyed, and replaced in the
5th c. by an apsed Early Christian basilica (22.9 x 9.1 m). In the Saint-Sigismond
district, on the hill above Saint-Martin, the traces of a temple with an altar
dedicated to Mars can still be seen. Under the chapel is a necropolis. In the
Poencet district, between the Grande Rue and the Tessens road, many inscriptions
and architectural fragments have been found; they are now in the Saint-Martin
church. In the Replat district, between Saint-Martin and the national highway,
are some tombs in which have been found epitaphs, pottery, and many other objects
now at the Musee de l'Academie du Val d'Isere at Moutiers.
M. Petit, 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.
ΑΙΞ ΛΕ ΜΠΑΙΝ (Πόλη) ΣΑΒΟΙΑ
Aquae (Aix-les-Bains) Savoie, France.
A district (vicus) of the city of Vienna, governed by 10 delegates (decemlecti)
designated as landlords (possessores Aquenses): CIL XII, 2459, 2460, 5874; AEpigr
(1934) 165.
Three monuments are well known. First is a funerary arch known as
the Campanus arch because of an inscription mentioning that L. Pompeius Campanus
had the monument erected in honor of all his relatives. This type of tomb is very
unusual. It is 9.15 m high, 6.7 m wide, and has a 3 m span. Built of finely cut
stone, it has an entablature terminating in a projecting cornice and topped by
an attic. On the E side of the arch are eight niches, alternately rectangular
and curved, for the busts of the dignitaries listed below, while those of the
other six mentioned on the attic were probably on the top of the arch.
The next monument is called a temple, a rectangular building (17 x
13 x 14.5 m); its walls, built of large stones, still stand 9.75 m high. According
to local tradition this was a temple to Diana, but the tradition is unfounded.
Finally, the baths, remodeled since antiquity and incompletely excavated,
consist of three frigidaria, two adjacent tepidaria, and two pools and one room,
all heated. The pools were faced with marble and the walls with painted stucco.
The healing god Bormo (or Borvo) was worshiped at Aix.
The town museum has inscriptions, sculptures (Constantine? a Muse?)
and other finds from the surrounding area.
M. Leglay, 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.
ΑΙΧ ΑΝ ΠΡΟΒΑΝΣ (Πόλη) ΜΠΟΥΣ ΝΤΙ ΡΟΝ
Aquae Sextiae Salluviorum (Aix-en-Provence) Bouches-du-Rhone, France.
The town derives its names from its hot springs and its founder. Caius Sextius
Calvinus created it in 122 B.C. on the territory of the indigenous confederation
of the Salluvii, whose capital of Entremont nearby he had just destroyed (Livy
Epit. 61; Vell. Pat. 1.15; Strab. 4.15). Originally Aix was a castellum occupied
by a garrison which was supposed to watch over the routes leading from Marseille
to the Durance and from the Rhone to the Italian frontier. It is the oldest Roman
foundation in Gaul. The presence of a Roman garrison must quickly have attracted
merchants and businessmen, and it was probably Caesar who made it the capital
of a civitas after 49 and divided the territory of Marseille between it and Arles.
A Latin colony under Caesar, it later became a Roman one, perhaps under Augustus.
Around 375 it became the capital of provincia Narbonensis secunda.
Rather few archaeological remains have been found in situ. The area
occupied by the castellum and the colonia respectively is a subject for discussion.
The most generally accepted opinion identifies the Roman castellum with the Bourg
Saint-Sauveur, which was the capitulary residence in the Middle Ages. Its location
somewhat higher than the rest of the site and its dimensions (ca. 400 m N-S and
300 E-W) would correspond fairly well with characteristics of a fortified post.
Unfortunately, archaeological proof is lacking and reconstruction of the fortifications
remains hypothetical. Only some stretches of road have been noted. Similarly,
the course and extent of the wall of the colony are the subject of various hypotheses.
Ancient documents allow one to place the S gate. Its arrangement as a half-moon
shape protected by two round towers, analogous to gates at Freus and Arles, may
indicate that it dates to the Augustan period. The Via Julia Augusta entered the
town by this gate, and in the past tombs and a mausoleum have been noted in the
vicinity. Two pieces of wall found long ago, burials, and funerary inscriptions
permit the approximate reconstruction of an enclosure with a perimeter of some
3 km. It was elongated along an E-W axis and very much off center with respect
to the original castellum. However, the details of the topography still remain
to be specified. Sections of the cardo have been known for a long time and recent
excavations have reconstructed the axis of the decumanus. There are remains, some
of them sizable, of five aqueducts.
According to different indications there probably were an amphitheater
and an arch of triumph or trophy. Three villae urbanae have been partly excavated
in the Grassi gardens. One of them, probably Augustan, included two peristyles.
Of Early Christian Aix there remains the baptistery of Saint-Sauveur
cathedral. It can be dated to the end of the 4th or beginning of the 5th c. Eight
unmatching columns in it were borrowed from pagan buildings. The seat of the archbishopric
has not yet been found.
There is a Gallo-Roman collection at the Musee Granet.
C. Goudineau, 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.
ΑΛΑΛΙΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΚΟΡΣΙΚΗ
Half way down the E coast of Corsica, opposite the W shores of Etruria,
it was first a Greek, then a Roman colony. According to Herodotos (1.162-67),
a group of settlers from Phokaia established themselves on the site about twenty
years before the campaigns conducted by the Persian king Cyrus against the Greek
cities of Ionia, in other words about 565-560. They were joined around 545-540
by part of the population of the besieged Phokaia. By practicing piracy in Etruscan
territory and among the Carthaginian possessions in Sardinia, the Greeks of Alalia
provoked a punitive expedition by the Punic and Etruscan fleets. The battle of
Alalia (about 535) was a costly Pyrrhic victory for the Phokaians. Contrary to
Herodotos' assertions, it does not appear that the whole population then left
Alalia, first for Rhegion, then Velia (Elea). Certainly Etruscans, and possibly
Carthaginians, came to join the Greek and native elements. They made Alalia a
very active, cosmopolitan port. After a short period of Carthaginian control,
Rome took the town ca. 259 B.C. (the epitaph of L. Cornelius Scipio: HEC CEPIT
CORSICA(M) ALERIA(M)QUE URBEM: CIL 1.32). In 81 Aleria, which had resisted Sulla,
became a military colony. First Caesar, then Augustus made new settlements and
the town took the name of Colonia Veneria Julia Pacensis Restituta Tertianorum
Aleria. Augustus established a detachment of the Misenum fleet there. The development
of the port of Ostia led little by little to the economic decline of Aleria, but
it remained the political and administrative capital of Corsica under the Empire.
The town and its vicinity have been systematically explored since
1955. The first phase of occupation of the site by the Phokaians has left no remains
except for a stratigraphic level found in deep test pits made under the Roman
town. It corresponds to the 6th c. B.C. and is characterized by sherds of Ionian,
Phokaian, Rhodian, and Attic black-figure ware. Neither the dwellings nor the
tombs of this period have been brought to light as yet. However, the excavation
of the necropolis of Casabianda, whose access road has been cleared, has permitted
the discovery of tombs cut into the rock. They include a dromos, an antechamber
(sometimes double), and a chamber furnished with benches. Low brick walls blocked
the entrances. Some of these tombs retain traces of pictorial decoration. The
oldest goes back to the end of the archaic or the beginning of the Classical period.
The grave goods include works of the very first rank: jewels, weapons, metal artifacts,
bronze and ceramic plates and dishes--in particular, Attic cups, rhytons, kraters
with little columns, etc. They are decorated by artists such as the painters of
Pan, Alkimakos, Kalliope, Myson, and many others. They are all exceptional works
which are not found in such abundance except on the largest Etruscan sites, and
can be seen in the Aleria Museum.
In addition to the Casabianda necropolis, others prove the continuity
of occupation. No break appears in the material from the 5th c. B.C. until the
3d or 4th c. A.D. Even more, the enormous quantity and high value of the grave
goods show that before the Roman conquest Alalia was a center of importance. Further
excavations should permit the extrication of the sites and architecture of the
Greek and Hellenistic town. At the same time, they should provide an answer to
a difficult problem: what importance should be assigned to an Etruscan presence,
attested until now only by a very small proportion of the finds and by graffiti
still under study. The Roman town (no doubt like the earlier settlements) grew
up on a plateau ca. 3 km long. At its foot the river Tavignano describes a large
curve, and the commercial port was established inside this elbow. In relation
to the port a mansio was created, the baths of which have been discovered (the
so-called Baths of Santa Laurina). The war fleet anchored in the pool of Diana.
The Roman colony is still only incompletely excavated. A part of the
ramparts is visible to the W, on both sides of the Praetorian Gate which passed
over the decumanus. This last has been followed until it crosses the cardo just
outside the forum on its S side. The forum has the shape of a slightly irregular
trapezoid 92 m long, orientated E-W. After its founding by Sulla, it underwent
numerous rearrangements.
The E side is occupied by a temple, whose podium in opus incertum
has survived. Probably it was a Temple to Augustus and Rome (an inscription to
a flamen of Caracalla), and raised in the time of Hadrian. The N and S sides of
the square are adorned with porticos with brick columns. The W ends of the porticos
stand against two monuments of uncertain nature (a small temple to the N and an
office of the aediles to the S ?). Near them are two arches: a S arch marking
the beginning of the cardo and a second one, to the N and orientated to the W,
which gives access to the praetorium. This edifice occupies all of the W part
of the forum, to a depth of about 50 m. There are three porticos surrounding a
vast central court with a complex system of basins, cisterns, and nymphaea. The
NW corner contained chambers possibly used as strong rooms. The W portico was
altered at a late date in order to permit the construction of a new tribunal.
Several buildings have been excavated outside the forum. The most
important of these is located N of the praetorium and stands 5 m higher than it.
It includes two large cisterns, chambers adorned with mosaics, tabernae, and bath
pools with hypocausts. Tradition places the apartments of the governor there;
it is certain that this bath could not have been public. Perhaps it was the theater
of the events reported by Tacitus (Hist. 2.16), the assassination in the baths
of the procurator Decimus Pacarius. To the W was an establishment which included
many basins and contained an enormous quantity of shells; it must have been a
preserving and salting factory. North of the Temple of Augustus and Rome, the
so-called House of the Dolium has been excavated. Its oldest level has pavings
of opus signinum decorated with white lapilli and goes back to the period of Sulla.
A second level dates to the 1st c. A.D. and contains the outline of a house with
a peristyle. South of the temple another house (the House of the Impluvium) has
been only partly excavated. Also noteworthy are the foundations of a small Early
Christian chapel with an apse, on top of the remains of the N portico and virtually
touching the temple. Other monuments have been identified but not cleared. Notable
examples are the amphitheater, near the S gate of the ramparts, and a mausoleum
situated outside the W sector of the fortifications.
In the modern village the fort of Matra contains the museum, where
the rich collections from the necropoleis and the products of the excavations
in the town are on exhibit.
C. Goudineau, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
ΑΛΕΡΙΑ (Πόλη) ΚΟΡΣΙΚΗ
Alalia later Aleria Corsica, France. Half way down the E coast of Corsica, opposite
the W shores of Etruria, it was first a Greek, then a Roman colony. According
to Herodotos (1.162-67), a group of settlers from Phokaia established themselves
on the site about twenty years before the campaigns conducted by the Persian king
Cyrus against the Greek cities of Ionia, in other words about 565-560. They were
joined around 545-540 by part of the population of the besieged Phokaia. By practicing
piracy in Etruscan territory and among the Carthaginian possessions in Sardinia,
the Greeks of Alalia provoked a punitive expedition by the Punic and Etruscan
fleets. The battle of Alalia (about 535) was a costly Pyrrhic victory for the
Phokaians. Contrary to Herodotos' assertions, it does not appear that the whole
population then left Alalia, first for Rhegion, then Velia (Elea). Certainly Etruscans,
and possibly Carthaginians, came to join the Greek and native elements. They made
Alalia a very active, cosmopolitan port. After a short period of Carthaginian
control, Rome took the town ca. 259 B.C. (the epitaph of L. Cornelius Scipio:
HEC CEPIT CORSICA(M) ALERIA(M)QUE URBEM: CIL 1.32). In 81 Aleria, which had resisted
Sulla, became a military colony. First Caesar, then Augustus made new settlements
and the town took the name of Colonia Veneria Julia Pacensis Restituta Tertianorum
Aleria. Augustus established a detachment of the Misenum fleet there. The development
of the port of Ostia led little by little to the economic decline of Aleria, but
it remained the political and administrative capital of Corsica under the Empire.
The town and its vicinity have been systematically explored since
1955. The first phase of occupation of the site by the Phokaians has left no remains
except for a stratigraphic level found in deep test pits made under the Roman
town. It corresponds to the 6th c. B.C. and is characterized by sherds of Ionian,
Phokaian, Rhodian, and Attic black-figure ware. Neither the dwellings nor the
tombs of this period have been brought to light as yet. However, the excavation
of the necropolis of Casabianda, whose access road has been cleared, has permitted
the discovery of tombs cut into the rock. They include a dromos, an antechamber
(sometimes double), and a chamber furnished with benches. Low brick walls blocked
the entrances. Some of these tombs retain traces of pictorial decoration. The
oldest goes back to the end of the archaic or the beginning of the Classical period.
The grave goods include works of the very first rank: jewels, weapons, metal artifacts,
bronze and ceramic plates and dishes--in particular, Attic cups, rhytons, kraters
with little columns, etc. They are decorated by artists such as the painters of
Pan, Alkimakos, Kalliope, Myson, and many others. They are all exceptional works
which are not found in such abundance except on the largest Etruscan sites, and
can be seen in the Aleria Museum.
In addition to the Casabianda necropolis, others prove the continuity
of occupation. No break appears in the material from the 5th c. B.C. until the
3d or 4th c. A.D. Even more, the enormous quantity and high value of the grave
goods show that before the Roman conquest Alalia was a center of importance. Further
excavations should permit the extrication of the sites and architecture of the
Greek and Hellenistic town. At the same time, they should provide an answer to
a difficult problem: what importance should be assigned to an Etruscan presence,
attested until now only by a very small proportion of the finds and by graffiti
still under study. The Roman town (no doubt like the earlier settlements) grew
up on a plateau ca. 3 km long. At its foot the river Tavignano describes a large
curve, and the commercial port was established inside this elbow. In relation
to the port a mansio was created, the baths of which have been discovered (the
so-called Baths of Santa Laurina). The war fleet anchored in the pool of Diana.
The Roman colony is still only incompletely excavated. A part of the
ramparts is visible to the W, on both sides of the Praetorian Gate which passed
over the decumanus. This last has been followed until it crosses the cardo just
outside the forum on its S side. The forum has the shape of a slightly irregular
trapezoid 92 m long, orientated E-W. After its founding by Sulla, it underwent
numerous rearrangements.
The E side is occupied by a temple, whose podium in opus incertum
has survived. Probably it was a Temple to Augustus and Rome (an inscription to
a flamen of Caracalla), and raised in the time of Hadrian. The N and S sides of
the square are adorned with porticos with brick columns. The W ends of the porticos
stand against two monuments of uncertain nature (a small temple to the N and an
office of the aediles to the S ?). Near them are two arches: a S arch marking
the beginning of the cardo and a second one, to the N and orientated to the W,
which gives access to the praetorium. This edifice occupies all of the W part
of the forum, to a depth of about 50 m. There are three porticos surrounding a
vast central court with a complex system of basins, cisterns, and nymphaea. The
NW corner contained chambers possibly used as strong rooms. The W portico was
altered at a late date in order to permit the construction of a new tribunal.
Several buildings have been excavated outside the forum. The most
important of these is located N of the praetorium and stands 5 m higher than it.
It includes two large cisterns, chambers adorned with mosaics, tabernae, and bath
pools with hypocausts. Tradition places the apartments of the governor there;
it is certain that this bath could not have been public. Perhaps it was the theater
of the events reported by Tacitus (Hist. 2.16), the assassination in the baths
of the procurator Decimus Pacarius. To the W was an establishment which included
many basins and contained an enormous quantity of shells; it must have been a
preserving and salting factory. North of the Temple of Augustus and Rome, the
so-called House of the Dolium has been excavated. Its oldest level has pavings
of opus signinum decorated with white lapilli and goes back to the period of Sulla.
A second level dates to the 1st c. A.D. and contains the outline of a house with
a peristyle. South of the temple another house (the House of the Impluvium) has
been only partly excavated. Also noteworthy are the foundations of a small Early
Christian chapel with an apse, on top of the remains of the N portico and virtually
touching the temple. Other monuments have been identified but not cleared. Notable
examples are the amphitheater, near the S gate of the ramparts, and a mausoleum
situated outside the W sector of the fortifications.
In the modern village the fort of Matra contains the museum, where
the rich collections from the necropoleis and the products of the excavations
in the town are on exhibit.
C. Goudineau, 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.
ΑΛΙΣ ΣΤΗ ΡΕΙΝ (Χωριό) ΧΡΥΣΗ ΑΚΤΗ
Alesia (Alise-Ste-Reine) Cote d'Or, France.
An oppidum of a Gallic tribe, the Mandubii, situated 260 km SE of Paris and 65
km NW of Dijon. Here Caesar besieged Vercingetorix in 52 B.C.; a large Gallic
army tried in vain to raise the siege and Vercingetorix was forced to surrender.
This is the most famous episode of the Gallic Wars, thanks to Caesar's account
of it (BGall. 7.68-90).
Thereafter as a small Gallo-Roman town Alesia prospered in the 1st
and 2d c. A.D., owing largely to its craftsmen working in bronze, silver, and
iron (Plin. HN 34.162). Completely destroyed towards the end of the 2d c., the
city was rebuilt, perhaps after being abandoned for a few years. It was Christian
from the 3d c. on, and disappeared gradually in the Late Empire.
The oppidum occupied the plateau (2 km x 800 m maximum), on top of
Mont Auxois (Mons Alisiensis). Its natural defenses were formidable: rising between
the valleys of the Oze and the Ozerain, the slopes were topped by a steep limestone
cliff; only the W and B ends (La Pointe and La Croix-St-Charles) required artificial
defenses (at La Pointe there are traces of a dry stone wall). There is a water-bearing
stratum on the plateau (Croix-St-Charles springs) and some tributary springs at
the foot of the cliff, outside the oppidum but beyond the range of the Roman projectiles.
Moreover, Mont Auxois is ringed with hills of the same height (Montagne de Flavigny,
Mont Pennevelle, Montagne de Bussy, Mont Rea), except to the W where the plain
of Les Lauines begins (3000 Roman feet long).
Caesar's siege-works are known from his account, from excavations
(1861-65 by order of Emperor Napoleon III), and from some recent digs. The arms
and coins found in 1861-65 are in the Musee des Antiquites Nationales at St-Germain-en-Laye;
on the site itself can be seen casts of weapons, the outline of some of the Roman
trenches.
The Gallo-Roman city was also on the summit of Mont Auxois. The forum
and the area around it are the chief elements that have been excavated. A large
architectural complex has been uncovered (mid 2d c. A.D.) including a basilica
with three apses and a portico surrounding an earlier temple, some houses with
shops opening under colonnades in front of them, a theater (end of 1st c. A.D.)
with a cavea of more than a semicircle, and a house that probably was the corporate
headquarters of the bronze- and silver-workers, who also worked extensively in
iron. The principal streets, oriented E-W by the lay of the land, were frequently
lined with galleries of shops. At Croix-St-Charles there was a large sanctuary
built around a healing spring, with baths dedicated to Apollo Moritasgus. The
houses, built around a central courtyard on no regular plan, often had one room
heated by hypocaust and always had a basement with one or more niches, which served
as a sanctuary for domestic cults rather than as a cellar. Objects found on the
site are in the two museums in the village of Alise: like the monuments, they
reflect a mixed civilization, at once Gallic and Roman, in which the Gallic tradition
was for a long time the dominant influence, especially as to religion.
The Gallic oppidum seems to have been simply a fortress-refuge; not
until the early stages of the Roman occupation did a sizable population live there
permanently, and the huts of dry stone and mud were replaced by masonry buildings
during the 1st c.
In Frankish times only a church and a cemetery stood on the site.
In a Gallo-Roman well at Alesia a eucharistic service was found, made of lead
and identified by a chrism bearing several graffiti with the name Regina. The
service dates from the 4th c. A.D. and is one of the earliest pieces of archaeological
evidence for the cult of a saint in Gaul.
J. Le Gall, 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.
ΑΛΜΠΑ (Πόλη) ΑΡΝΤΕΣ
Alba Helviorum (Alba) Ardeche, France.
The capital of the Helvii, in Gallia Narbonensis. Their territory on the right
bank of the Rhone corresponds almost exactly to the department of Ardehe. A Roman
colony under Augustus, the Alba prospered from the 1st c. until it was sacked
by the Alemanni in the 3d c. The city owed its prosperity to its location in the
fertile plain below the basalt massif of the Coiron, which shields it on the N
and makes it a rich wine-growing region; Pliny (HN 14.43) mentions a local wine
of good repute. It was also important as a road junction: three major roads go
from Alba to Lugdunum, Nemausus, and Gergovia. A Christian community grew up there
in the 4th c.; it was the seat of the first five bishops, but in the 5th c. the
bishopric was transferred to Viviers. At that time the city belonged to the Viennoise
province.
The earliest of the principal monuments, excavated 1935-39 and from
1964 on, is a theater (65 m in diam.) built under Augustus. It could hold 5000-6000
spectators. The cavea, which is built against a hill, is edged by two parallel
semicircular walls; five entrances give access from the top. Between the radiating
walls piles of basalt blocks supported the seats, which have nearly all disappeared.
The orchestra level was recently determined by the discovery of a number of stone
slabs. The scena has mostly disappeared, but the back wall of the stage qas uncovered
in 1968. On the W side of the two lower qntrances are some unusual semicircular
abutments. Behind the scena is a large monument, not yet identified; in the Late
Empire some little shops were put up against its S wall.
At the spot known as La Planchette are some small baths consisting
of five adjacent rooms (apodyterium, frigidarium, two tepidaria, caldarium) with
apsidal and kidney-shaped pools. A curious water system 150 m W of the theater
includes a principal main, one wall of which has small openings in its upper section
while the other discharges at floor level into small, steeply sloping arched channels.
This arrangement made it possible to recover the infiltrating water and use it
for irrigation elsewhere. The forum has been only partly uncovered. On a slight
rise 150 m NW of the theater, it is a huge esplanade 42.8 m wide, with porticos
the back walls of which are decorated with alternately rectangular and semicircular
exedras. The W side of the piazza is lined with shops and to the N is a large
monument (temple or curia?).
In the center of the city are two houses, separated by a road running
E-W. One of them has 13 rooms, seven of them with mosaics; it is set in the middle
of a peristyle with an oblong pool. The cardo maximus has been located for 150
m, and one section paved with massive polygonal stone slabs has been uncovered.
The sidewalks are made of the same hard limestone blocks as the curbstones. The
road crosses the city N-S and runs along the W side of the forum. The forum and
all other monuments excavated or located have the same orientation--Alba was laid
out on a grid.
At the spot called Saint-Pierre, NW of the town, is a monument built
over two others. At the bottom level is a Severan building with a portico 3.5
m wide, which has been traced for over 23 m. It has a gutter on either side, and
runs around an esplanade with a large pool (10.75 x 7 m). The portico opens onto
some large rooms, many of them with mosaic floors; according to two inscriptions
citing the presence at Alba of four corporations associated with viticulture--the
dendrophori, fabri, centonarii, and utriclarii--this may have been a building
reserved for collegia, possibly a meeting-place for corporations. This monument
was destroyed at the end of the 3d c. In the 4th-5th c. an Early Christian group
of buildings was erected: a baptistery (?) approached by a corridor and a small
courtyard, both paved; adjacent to it and reached by a long paved corridor, a
central building (18 x 17 m) which has a raised presbyterium with a flat chevet
(martyrium?); and N of this monument and reached by the same corridor, the cathedral
with three aisles, the floor crammed with tombs. These tombs are on two levels:
some are tile-covered tombs in the Roman tradition, others are Merovingian sarcophagi,
nearly all made of reused material. Finally, a Romanesque chapel was added in
the 12th c. over the N part of the church.
A small museum is being set up to house the mosaics, inscriptions,
and other objects. Various finds are in the British Museum, the Musee Calvet at
Avignon, and in private collections.
M. Leglay, 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.
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.
ΑΝΖΕΡ (Πόλη) ΚΕΝΤΡΙΚΗ ΕΠΑΡΧΙΑ
Juliomagus (Angers) Maine et Loire, France.
Near an important ford on the Maine, Juliomagus is believed to have been the original
capital of the tribus Andes, and epitomized the provincial Gallo-Roman city. It
was occupied from the 1st c. A.D. to the 4th c. and thereafter in the Merovingian
period.
In the Late Empire it acquired many public monuments, erected near
the great approach roads and on the boundary of the ancient settlement. They consist
of an amphitheater to the NE, as well as a circus, a forum, and huge bath buildings
to the SW. Towards the end of the 3d c. a fortified rampart ca. 1000 m in circumference
was built on top of the rock overlooking the city and the ford. Flanked by round
towers, traces of which can still be seen, the wall had two main gates to the
E and a postern gate to the W. In the 4th c. the lower city was occupied again,
as evidenced by the great polychome geometric mosaic discovered in the Place du
Ralliement. Many objects from ancient Juliomagus are now in the Musee Archeologique
St. Jean at Angers.
M. Petit, 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.
ΑΝΝΕΣΥ (Πόλη) ΑΝΩ ΣΑΒΟΙΑ
Boutae (Annecy-Les-Fins) Haute-Savoie, France.
A small Allobrogian settlement at the outlet of an Alpine valley. It developed
into a Gallo-Roman vicus of the city of Vienne under Augustus, when construction
of the route from the Little St. Bernard Pass to Geneva began (completed under
Claudius by a road linking it to Aix). The center of many industries, Boutae reached
its apogee in the 2d c. Destroyed in the 3d c. by the German invasions, it recovered
somewhat under Constantine but was conquered by the Burgundians in the 5th c.
At its height, the vicus covered a triangular area of 25 ha, the base
of the triangle corresponding to the modern Avenue de Geneve. Three cardines running
NE-SW were crossed by the decumani, marking off regular insulae. In the N section
of the settlement, where the N decumanus crossed the W cardo, was the forum, which
was paved, first under Hadrian and twice thereafter, and surrounded by porticos.
Close by on the NE side is a rectangular building (46 x 22 m) uncovered in 1959-66;
inside it is a peripheral portico 3.7 m wide with a wall of mortared rubble faced
with small blocks; the portico encloses a hall with a nave (35 x 11 m). A rectangular
room (9 x 6 m) with a tiled floor extends into the axis of the long N side facing
the forum; thls has been ldentified as the curia of the vicani Boutenses (CIL
XII, 2532). On either side of the curia, in an unusual arrangement, is a semicircular
exedra. The dimensions of the building, the strength of its foundations, its location
on the edge of the forum, and the absence of domestic pottery all suggest that
it may be the [basi]lica cum p[orticibus] mentioned in an inscription (CIL XII,
2533), a dedication dating from the reign of two emperors, perhaps Marcus Aurelius
and Lucius Verus.
In the same N section of the vicus several houses have been found:
the House of the Gold Coins, the House of the Galleries, the House of the Columns,
and the Double House; farther S are the Hypocaust House and the House of the Fresco.
A number of workshops have also been located.
To the SE are a temple attributed to Mercury and, close by it, a little
theater, recognized by a fragmentary inscription (CIL XII, 2539) and by the discovery
of some curved tiers at the edge of an open area that had sometimes been thought
to be a second forum. Several pottery strata, S of the theater, have yielded quantities
of potsherds from different workshops; this S section of Boutae seems to have
been mainly industrial in character.
A peculiarity of this vicus is that it got its water supply not from
an aqueduct but from wells; some 40 have been located.
At the W end of the vicus on what is now the Boulevard de Rocade,
between the Avenue des Iles and the Avenue des Romains, is a large inhumation
necropolis that was used in Roman times and again in the Burgundian era.
Terraced on the neighboring hillsides are luxurious villas. A suburb
also grew up on the Thiou river around a port, indicated by the tiles frequently
unearthed in the center of the modern city of Annecy, around the Rue J. J. Rousseau.
Objects found on the site are housed in the Annecy museum.
M. Leglay, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Jan 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
ΑΝΣ (Πόλη) ΡΟΔΑΝΟΣ
Asa Paulini (Anse, La Grange-du-Bief) Rhone France.
A station mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary, in Gallia Lugdunensis near the
confluence of the Saone and the Azergues. Traces of a pre-Roman settlement have
been excavated on this site, a focus of roads and waterways.
Some mosaics were first discovered, then a large Gallo-Roman villa
(owned by Paulinus?) which has been under excavation since 1964. The villa is
of a type frequently found in Gaul, with a galleried facade (175 m long at least)
to the E. The colonnades are of brick faced with stucco and covered with tiles.
Eleven of its rooms have been excavated, several of them with frescos and mosaics.
In the middle of the facade is room IX, the oecus of the villa, where the main
mosaic was found in 1843 (now in the Hotel de Ville at Anse). There are several
apsed rooms that probably served to receive guests. Each end of the gallery is
extended by a perpendicular wing containing rooms with mosaics and painted walls.
Room VII of the S wing, which contained an Early Christian tomb, is decorated
with stuccos painted in different colors, with flower and bird motifs. The finds,
the construction of the buildings, and the style of decoration indicate two periods:
a 1st c. rustic villa was replaced by a villa urbana in the early 2d c.; the latter
was torn down at the end of the 2d c., then partly rebuilt and lived in until
the 4th c.
An oval-shaped castellum was built to the E in the Late Empire.
M. Leglay, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Jan 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
ΑΝΤΙΜΠ (Πόλη) ΠΑΡΑΛΙΑ ΑΛΠΕΩΝ
Antipolis (Antibes) Alpes-Maritimes, France.
Town on the French Riviera between Nice and Cannes, with a protected
harbor and a small promontory. It was in the Ligurian territory of the Deciates,
and was inhabited from the 10th c. B.C. on. A Greek outpost, established here
by Massilia or Phokaia, left pottery dating from the 6th c. The area has yielded
more and longer Greek inscriptions than anywhere else in S France: the Terpon
stone, a lead curse tablet, the victory monument at Biot, and many sherds with
names of divinities and worshipers. Local coinage, with ANTIP and LEPI in Greek
and a victory trophy (rev.), and head of Apollo (obv.), dates from the 2d c. B.C.
The consul Q. Opimius drove off besieging Ligurians in 154 B.C., and
thereafter Antipolis was protected and developed by Rome; although in Gallia Narbonensis,
it was treated as an Italiote city and given ius Latii. Coin finds indicate its
importance in the Empire, especially in the time of Constantine and the so-called
Gallic usurpers.
Exploratory excavations have located the acropolis under the cathedral
and the adjacent Grimaldi Castle. Here were two Roman cisterns with octagonal
stone columns, and probably the city's main temple; there are Roman houses nearby.
The lower town and port area were expanded in Roman times. Ruins of the theater,
demolished in 1691, lie under the bus station; an amphitheater was apparently
near Rue Fersen. Parts of the ancient ramparts and port jetties survive. Baths
and aqueducts are known, and shipwrecks have been explored. At nearby Vaugrenier
are extensive Roman ruins, and evidence suggesting a Greek shrine of an earth
cult. Finds from the whole area are in the two local museums.
R. V. Schoder, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
ΑΝΤΡΑΙΝ (Πόλη) ΝΙΕΒΡ
Intaranum (Entrains) Dept. Nievre, France.
The site is halfway between Cosne-sur-Loire and Clamecy-sur-Yonne. The ancient
name is attested by a marble marker discovered at Autun, the capital of the Aedui.
Roads radiated from Entrains to Auxerre, Autun, and Bourges through Mesves or
Cosnes and to Orleans through St. Amand and Neuvy-sur-Loire. The city was built
on an overhanging rock where the valleys of the Trelong and the Nohain meet, along
the edge of which are two parallel fault lines. These valleys also bounded the
cities of the Aedui, Biturigi, and Senoni, and constituted a border region that,
in turn, came under the authority of Autun, Auxerre, then Nevers.
Although no ancient monument has been preserved, the modern city bears
traces of an amphitheater, some baths, and many temples. Inhabited since Gallic
times but built up chiefly from the 2d c. onward, Entrains has yielded 120 carved
stone fragments--more than the whole of the Nievre territory combined. Colossal
limestone statues of Apollo (2.65 m) and very probably of Jupiter, Mithraic bas-reliefs
as well as a great many traces of indigenous cults testify to the religious fervor
of the inhabitants, who also included in their pantheon the gods Borvo and Candidus,
as is shown by a bronzeworkers' dedication. Still, Entrains was not just a city
of temples; at the same time it was an active commercial and industrial center.
Spanish amphorae have been found there, along with terra sigillate ware from S
and central Galhia, Argonne pottery decorated with the pestle, gray crackleware
from ha Villeneuve au Chatelot, and even ocellated ware that shows how Celtic
decorative motifs still persisted in the 1st c. Also in the region were sculptors'
and weavers' workshops; work in bronze and iron was also extremely important.
Since 1965 excavations at the "chantier Chambault" have uncovered an
insula belonging to ancient Intaranum. A blacksmith's forge, some vaults, a well,
cesspools, and ancient roads have also been discovered. Stratigraphical studies
and an examination of the objects found on the site make it possible to date the
period of activity of this district between the 1st c. and the end of the 4th.
J.-B. Devauges, 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.
ΑΡΑ (Πόλη) ΠΑ ΝΤΕ ΚΑΛΑΙ
Nemetacum later Atrebatum (Arras) Pas de Calais, France.
Mentioned by Caesar in the Gallic Wars, in the 4th c. it adopted the name of the
civitas, Atrebatum, of which it was chief town. Situated on a high plateau, it
has no navigable waterway; the Scarpe, at the N boundary of the city, is navigable
only below Douai. At the confluence of the Gy and the Scarpe, W of Arras, was
an important oppidum, the so-called Camp de Cesar at Etrun, which is still remarkably
well preserved.
The city is divided into three unequal sections: the city proper,
the Baudimont quarter, which was ringed with a rampart in the Late Empire; the
sector separated from the city by the Grinchon creek, which appears to represent
the Roman city at its period of greatest expansion under the Empire; and finally
the Meaulens quarter to the NW, at the confluence of the Scarpe and the Baudimont
creek, where the Cassel and Therouanne roads apparently met in Roman times. There
is no trace of any place of amusement or prestige monument, no theater, basilica,
or forum. Some sections of streets were located in the 19th c., but it was not
until 1946 that systematic excavations began, in particular in the Baudimont quarter.
These excavations have located houses along with their cellars, determined the
extent of the city and, especially, uncovered a late 2d c. stratum destroyed by
fire, perhaps as a result of the Chauci invasion of 172-174.
Salvage work in the last few years has clarified certain elements
of the topography of the ancient city. In 1965 an important fragment of the wall
of the Late Empire city was discovered under the Prefecture, tucked away in the
center of the strongly fortified city of Baudimont. This would indicate a castrum
with a total area of 8 ha, and the discovery of a trench E of the castrum confirms
its boundaries.
At Les Blancs Moats on the Saint Polsur Ternoise road a complex of
potter's kilns was found accidentally, and nearby several ditches of early date.
A tomb of the Late Iron Age has also been located. All the finds are now in the
Arras museum. The textile industry of the Late Empire is known to us chiefly from
texts, no archaeological remains having been found. Finds made below ground suggest
that building stones were quarried here. Very recently an aerial survey has located
some ancient agricultural complexes E of Arras.
C. Pietri, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Jan 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
ΑΡΛΣ ΣΥΡ ΡΟΝ (Πόλη) ΓΑΛΛΙΑ
Arelate (Arles sur Rhone) Bouches-du-Rhone, France.
Situated 90 km W of Marseille on a rocky spur overhanging ancient marshland. The
first Phokaian settlement was destroyed by the Ligurians in 535 B.C. Revived in
the 4th c. B.C., the settlement developed considerably after Marius had built
the Fossae Marianae, the canals linking Arles with the Golfe de Fos (104 B.C.).
In 49 B.C. the city provided Caesar with seagoing ships for the siege of Marseille,
and in 46 the Colonia Julia Paterna Arelate Sexterum was founded opposite the
Gallo-Greek city. An important seaport and naval shipyard grew up on the Via Aurelia.
The city was developed under Augustus and Christianized under Constantine. The
Council of 314 took place here. About A.D. 400 Arles became the residence of the
Prefect of the Gauls, replacing Lyon, and ca. 480 the city was laid waste by the
Visigoths.
The most important extant monuments date from the Augustan and Constantinian
periods. From the first we have the earliest surrounding wall, with its decumanus
gate of half-moon plan marking the beginning of the Aurelian Way to the E; to
the SE is a well-preserved section ca. 200 m long. The rest of the wall must have
formed four more sides, one of them running parallel to the Rhone. Two municipal
arches, now gone but known from descriptions and drawings, marked the limits of
the pomaerium to the NE and SW--the Arcus Admirabilis and the so-called Arch of
Constantine, both dating from the late Republican era. At that time the city probably
was slightly less than 20 ha in area. The modern streets reflect the grid pattern
of the rectangular insulae, as well as the cardo and decumanus, at the crossing
of which was the forum. Its site is marked by huge cryptoporticos, very well preserved,
built below ground on three of its sides. The complex is U-shaped and opens to
the E, 90 x 60 m. It was lit by vents, the outer ends of which terminated at the
base of a podium built inside the U. Traces were found of the fourth side of the
forum and some remains indicate a date from the Augustan period. The N gallery
is lined with a row of stalls set up below the forum.
Outside the forum, to the W, are remains of a large paved courtyard
bounded to the S by a wall that forms a huge exedra with a monumental gate cut
in it. At either end are remains of colonnades leading N. These may indicate the
peribolos of a temple of ca. the 2d c. A.D.
The theater (diam. 102 m) is ca. 300 m E of the forum and fits into
the plan of the ancient city: its scaenae frons is aligned with a cardo. Although
the theater is on the W slope of the city escarpment, every part of it is built;
the cavea was supported by a continuous system of radiating arches, demonstrated
by a modern restoration in situ. The outer walls are almost completely destroyed
except at two points, one of which, known as Roland's Tower, shows three superimposed
architectural orders framing the arcades. The scaenae frons is in ruins except
for two columns which, with their architrave, remain in situ to the right of the
site of the valvia regia. The complex of the postscaenium and the parascaenia
could be restored, and the stone floor of the orchestra is well preserved. Three
altars have been excavated and some statues, among them the famous Venus of Arles
and a torso, with head, of a colossal statue of Augustus. The outer architectural
decoration together with the continuing use of Doric elements suggest that the
theater may have been begun under the second triumvirate, while the statue of
Augustus suggests that it was completed during that emperor's reign.
The amphitheater is less than 100 m from the theater in an oblique
SE-NW position relative to the grid of the insulae. The great axis of the ellipse
is 136.2 m, the small axis 106.75, and the arena 69.10 by 39.65 m. The outer wall
is well preserved up to the first-story entablature; the attic has gone. Two stories
of 60 arcades with two superimposed architectural orders are still standing, among
them four lower ones for entrance on the axes. The lower arcades open on to a
wide gallery with a stone ceiling that serves as the floor of a second gallery
one story above. Corridors and stairways lead to more galleries, then to more
stairways, so as to serve the entire cavea. Many of the seats in the lower section
are still preserved, as is the podium, originally covered with slabs of marble.
Part of the wall surrounding the colony had to be pulled down to build the amphitheater.
Its position in the city and certain details of its structure date it to the Flavian
period.
The circus was outside the city along the Rhone, downstream and ca.
500 m from the surrounding wall (outside width 100 m; inner width 83.3 m; width
of spina 6.00 m; total length probably 400 m). An obelisk found there is now in
the Place de la Republique. Built in the 1st c. A.D., this circus was still in
use in the 6th and 7th c.
Remains of minor monuments were noted in the 17th and 18th c. E of
the theater, at the city's highest point. There were probably two temples here,
one of them consecrated to the Good Goddess. There were doubtless other sanctuaries,
large or small, for indigenous cults and for those from the Orient and Rome, first
pagan, then Christian.
In the Constantine period the N gallery of the crytoporticos was duplicated
by an arcaded gallery that curved back E and W to encircle a second courtyard,
or another forum. This new gallery and that of the cryptoporticos were interrupted
along the axis by the foundations of a monument with a vestibule of four columns,
two of which are still standing in the modern Place du Forum. The frieze and architrave
had an inscription in bronze letters alluding to Constantine II (A.D. 337-340).
Farther N are the remains of a monument (94 x 47 m) that terminates, quite near
the Rhone in a huge, well-preserved, vaulted apse. These are the remains of baths
with several heated rooms; but modern building makes it impossible to tell whether
there were porticos surrounding a vast courtyard, or a basilica. The use of brick,
more systematic than in the arcaded gallery, suggests that the complex dates from
the beginning of the 4th c. A.D.
The city received its water from two aqueducts that came from the
Alpilles and met at Barbegal, where remains of a flour mill can still be seen.
Opposite Arles, on the right bank of the Rhone, was a sizable settlement
now known as Faubourg de Trinquetaille. It was approached by a pontoon bridge;
the remains of one of the first stone arches are still to be seen on the left
bank. This suburb included a seaport and docks; farther off were houses of ship
fitters, merchants, and landowners, and, farther still, farms and villas. The
remains of a cella can be seen 1 km from the river bank. The area of this second
Arles is still to be determined.
Since the left-bank city was partly surrounded by marshlands, the
necropoleis could not be extended along the roads, but spread out parallel to
the SE and S surrounding walls. The largest one, to the SE, famous in legend in
the Middle Ages and known since then as Les Aliscamps, contained several layers
of tombs. Stone and marble sarcophagi have been found there, also funerary monuments,
stelae, cippi, and mausoleums.
There is a museum rich in Roman antiquities and a museum of Christian
art containing a number of marble sarcophagi.
R. Amy, 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.
ΒΑΙΖΟΝ ΛΑ ΡΟΜΑΙΝ (Πόλη) ΠΡΟΒΗΓΚΙΑ
Vasio Vocontiorum (Vaison-la-Romaine) Vaucluse, France.
On the right bank of the Ouveze ca. 20 km from the colony of Arausio (Orange),
Vaison was the capital of the civitas of the Vocontii. These people, who occupied
a large territory between the Durance and the Isere, were defeated in 124 and
123 B.C. by M. Fulvius Flaccus and C. Sextius Calvinus. They rebelled in 78 B.C.
and were harshly treated by the governor, Fonteius (Cic. Font.). However, after
individual favors accorded by Pompey, they obtained the privileged status of civitas
foederata (Strab. 4.6.4; Plin. HN 3.37; 7.78) at an unknown date (perhaps under
Caesar). The first text which mentions Vaison itself is barely earlier than the
middle of the 1st c. A.D.: Pomponius Mela (2.5.75) calls it one of the urbes opulentissimne
of Gallia Narbonensis. Strabo does not refer to it, although a poor reading of
the text has sometimes suggested that he did. The complete name was presumably
Vasio Iulia Vocontiorum.
Vaison was probably the capital of the Vocontii when they were independent.
However, no prehistoric settlement has yet been found in the immediate vicinity,
and the development of the town must be placed in the Augustan period. The choice
of the site is something of a mystery, since Vaison is on the periphery of the
territory of the Vocontii, far from the great routes, and the valley of the Ouveze
does not lead to an important outlet. Thus Vaison was supplemented by a religious
capital farther N, Lucus Augusti, which during the Late Empire was replaced by
Die (Colonia Dea Augusta Vocontiorum). At that time the territory of the Vocontii
was split into two civitates, and Die was the larger one; both towns, however,
became the seats of bishoprics. A number of well-known men were born in the area
of Vaison, including S. Afranius Burrus, Nero's tutor; L. Duvius Avitus, consul
and legate of Aquitaine; C. Sappius Flavius, military tribune; and the historian
Cn. Pompeius Trogus, whose grandfather, according to Justinus, received Roman
citizenship from Pompey.
The excavations of Vaison, conducted for half a century from 1906
onward, indicate that in size (several ha), in variety (public and private buildings),
and in the richness of artistic and epigraphic finds, Vaison outstrips other Gallo-Roman
sites. Unfortunately, however, it is practically impossible to reconstruct a reliable
chronology for the growth of the town, because early excavations were not sufficiently
concerned with method and stratigraphy.
The oldest remains have been found recently under the House of the
Dolphin, where levels dating to the beginning of Augustus' rule have appeared
beneath floors of the Flavian period. Terraces were found, bordered by retaining
walls of irregular masonry. On one of them, utilitarian constructions (workshop,
basin-reservoir) stood next to a house of Greek type: three sets of rooms arranged
around a peristyle, and the fourth side closed by a blind wall. The plan is exactly
like that of certain houses at Delos or Glanum (Saint-Remy-de-Provence), but the
construction resembles that of the traditional walls built by the natives of Provence.
The only trace of Romanization is the use of a very thin mortar of lime and sand.
The differing orientations of the terraces and the irregular masonry of the walls
suggests that the first Vaison was more native than Roman; moreover its growth
was not controlled as severely as that of other cities of Provence which were
Roman colonies. Truly Roman techniques appeared only during the 1st c. A.D., particularly
the use of opus vittatum, rubble fill faced with small stones.
These remains of the Augustan period, so far removed from traditional
Roman technique and regularity, explain a number of Vaison's singular features.
First, no remains of an enclosing wall have been found, probably because the Vocontii
were a civitas foederata. Since it was not a colony, the town was open and had
no ramparts. Moreover, since there is no regular checkerboard plan with parallel
or perpendicular streets, one cannot recognize a regular cardo on the map: there
are distinct differences in orientation between houses and public buildings. An
attempt has been made to reconstruct the main axes and an orthogonal plan, based
on the arrangement of the main public sewers, but the result is inconclusive.
Only at a later date, perhaps at the end of the 1st c. A.D., was city planning
attempted, and it could not entirely correct the original irregularity. The forum,
for example, has not been found, and cannot be located by studying the plan. At
least two sites are possible: along the S extension of the Street of the Shops
or directly E of the cathedral. Finally, the Hellenistic plan of the house which
preceded the House of the Dolphin may be classed with other arrangements which
seem more Greek than Roman: the predominance of peristyles over atria (House of
the Silver Bust with no atrium), the absence of an atrium-tablinum-peristyle axis
(House of the Messii), the presence of hypostyle rooms (House of the Messii, House
of the Silver Bust), and the importance of the vestibule (idem).
Apparently the earliest Roman remains are those of the bridge crossing
the Ouveze. It is a single semicircular arch with a span of 17 m, and is built
of large blocks on which ruts have been found. No Gallo-Roman remains have appeared
on the left bank of the river; on the right bank are two excavation zones, Puymin
to the NE and La Villasse to the SW.
The largest building in the Puymin district is the theater (diam.
95.9 m). Only a few tiers of seats and the foundations of the stage wall have
survived, but it has now been completely restored. It was built on bedrock in
the 1st c. A.D. and was repaired in the 3d c. Several imperial statues have been
found there, including those of Sabina, Tiberius, and Hadrian.
Another public building, S of the theater, is called the Portico of
Pompey and is surrounded by a wall 52 m on a side. The gallery, 4 m wide, had
columns with Tuscan capitals and niches holding statues, among them the statue
of the Diadumena now in the British Museum. In the middle of the courtyard was
a large basin.
Buildings E of the portico have been interpreted as tenements. Farther
N is a monument called the nympheum (insufficiently studied), and to the NE a
small district on two terraces includes a house with 2d c. A.D. mosaic floors
and a series of shops opening on a street paved with stone.
The House of the Messii, named for an inscription to Messia Alpina,
is W of the Portico of Pompey. Excavation is incomplete but one may note the absence
of alae in the atrium (the impluvium is no longer visible), the trapezoidal vestibule,
and the hypostyle room decorated with painted stucco, where the head of the Venus
of Vaison was found. The house also included private baths and some marble opus-sectile,
well preserved. In spite of the complete lack of stratigraphic information, the
house must date from the 2d c. A.D.
Finally, two series of buildings occupy the W flank of the Puymin
hill. Their plan is not clear, but they probably consist of two houses of somewhat
unusual type; one has been called, without foundation, a praetorium.
The second excavation sector extends over the S flank of the Villasse
hill, and is crossed by two streets, not parallel, oriented ca. NE-SW. The first,
the Street of the Shops, 4.2 m wide, is paved in stone and covers a main sewer
1.1 m deep. On the E side of the street is a series of shops, and then a group
composed of a large building and four smaller rooms. The large hall could not
be completely cleared: only its width (12.5 m) is known. The back wall to the
N is interrupted by a recess (1.5 x 5.3 m). The recess is framed by two pilasters
with fluted and cabled shafts supporting an arch which once framed a statue. The
building, which has been restored, has been interpreted as a commercial basilica.
The very careful decoration, the floor of opus-sectile, and the architectural
and sculptural fragments attest the importance of the monument, which may go back
to the 1st c. A.D. The building was surrounded by a drainage ditch. Small narrow
rooms bordered it to the W, among them a latrine. In contrast, to the E a spacious
room with an apse probably belonged to a large bath, now buried under the modern
town.
The W side of the Street of the Shops is bordered by a portico running
downward, with a series of levels intended to compensate for the steep slope of
the street. The bases of the columns of the portico are set in a wall which helps
to support the roadway. Eight shops open on this portico, as does the door to
one of the richest houses, the House of the Silver Bust. This house has a triple
entrance: two lateral corridors frame a spacious vestibule with a porch in front
of it. The vestibule (10.5 x 6.5 m and paved with stone) had three doors separated
by two massive piers. This very un-Roman arrangement led to a peristyle of the
Tuscan order, in which five altars, several oscilla, and fragments of sculpture
have been found. To N and S were private apartments. A second peristyle SW of
the first, more spacious but with only three branches, includes a large pool.
To the N, approximately along the axis of this peristyle, are found a room with
columns, an oecus with a large bay, and other fairly large rooms.
A third peristyle has been accredited to the House of the Silver Bust.
It was very large (3.4 m wide and over 130 m around) with 38 Doric columns. It
has an irregular plan and a large central pool. North of this portico a staircase
led to a court behind which were small baths. It is far from certain that this
vast construction was private.
Elements of another house have been partly cleared, S of the portico
and nearly 2 m lower. It had an irregular peristyle, mosaic pavements, and frescos,
and has been called the House of the Atrium. Another building farther E, has produced
two rooms decorated with mosaics and frescos with figures.
Finally, the House of the Dolphin lies to the W. The original house,
of Hellenistic type, was changed in the 1st c. by the addition of a tetrastyle
atrium, several rooms to the W, and a series of shops, variously oriented. The
floor was raised ca. 0.9 m. The remodeling can be linked to the opening of a street,
called the Street of Columns because of the portico which borders it to the W.
There is a perfect atrium-tablinum-peristyle axis; the atrium, however, lacks
alae. Baths and latrines accentuate its Roman character. To the S a large court,
adorned with a basin with niches, opens directly on the street; it could be either
a public promenade or a part of the house.
An area as yet little explored extends W on the other side of the
Street of Columns. It mixes elements of various periods: structures of the time
of Augustus, altered or buried, and basins of later date, one of which was remodeled
with a niche in the 4th c. On the N slope of the hill, N of the Chateau de la
Villasse, some modest dwellings have been cleared, including some with irregular
masonry.
Outside the two large excavation areas there are the remains of baths
ca. 1.5 km to the N, which include a large portico with a mosaic floor. Three
other public baths have been found: one under the Place de la Poste, another in
the Roussillon district, a third in the La Tour district. Under the floor of the
cathedral are large architectural fragments (column drums, double columns, capitals).
There are buildings on piles on the right bank of the Ouveze (wharves?). Finally,
tombs, both cremation and inhumation, indicate the approximate boundaries of the
settlement.
There is no archaeological evidence for the devastation of the city
in the second half of the 3d c., although such an event cannot be ruled out. It
did not, however, mark the end of the town. A bishop of Vaison was present at
the council of Arles in 314, another at the Riez council in 439. In 442 a regional
council was held in the town, and a bishop is recorded about 475.
Epigraphically, Vaison is rich in documents of all kinds, especially
Gallo-Greek inscriptions (IG XIV, 890; CIL XII). Many of the inscriptions and
artifacts are scattered in different museums, but a collection is being reassembled
in a museum on the site.
C. Goudineau, 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.
ΒΑΛΕΝΣ (Πόλη) ΝΤΡΟΜ
Valentia (Valence) Drome, France.
A city of the Segovellauni in Gallia Narbonensis, situated on the Rhone at an
important crossroads where the N-S road of Agrippa branched off towards Italy
by way of the Drome valley, and secondary roads led towards the Isere valley and
the Vivarais region. The Roman colony, which may have been founded by Caesar,
is mentioned in Pliny's list of cities that received Roman citizens. At the latest
it was founded in Augustus' reign.
Traces of Roman city planning are still to be seen in the grid plan
of the old quarter of the modern town; remains of the cardo maximus pavement and
the S city gate have been found. The decumanus and cardo probably met near the
modern Place de la Visitation. Several Roman burials have been discovered in the
Saint-Jacques suburb, indicating that the area of the ancient city was ca. 30
ha. The city had a number of surrounding walls: the first one, dating from the
Republican era, was razed and reused in the foundations of the second, which goes
back to the Early Empire. The foundations of a tower 7 m in diameter have been
unearthed; the walls were 1.6 m thick.
Almost nothing is known of the forum, temples, baths, or houses. However,
the outer theater wall has been found near the Place Saint-Jean in the modern
Saint-Ursule quarter, and perhaps a trace of an amphitheater. The cathedral apparently
stands on the remains of a pagan temple, as does the Chapelle Saint-Martin. A
Temple of Kybele and a Mithraeum are known from inscriptions.
Christianity was introduced at the end of the 2d c. by the priest
Felix and his deacons Fortunatus and Achilleus, martyred in 212. The first bishop,
as evidenced by the texts, was Saint Aemilian (362-374). The only known Christian
monument of the period is the baptistery (13 x 17 m), discovered in 1886 and explored
in 1952, near the modern cathedral. Designed in the form of a cross around an
octagonal pool, it was probably built in the 4th c., of material from Roman baths
(?); mosaics were added in the 5th-6th c., and in the 7th-8th c. it was made into
a chapel by the addition of an apse (mosaic of Eve). Finally, in the Early Middle
Ages it was covered by the Chapelle des Penitents.
The museum has architectural remains, fragments of statues, a Christian
sarcophagus and bas-relief, altars, and inscriptions.
M. Leglay, 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.
ΒΑΝ (Πόλη) ΜΟΡΜΠΙΑΝ
Darioritum (Vannes) Morbihan, France.
The chief city of the powerful Gallic tribe, the Veneti, Darioritum spread out
over a series of small hills separated by inlets. From its site inside the Morbihan
gulf, the city probably witnessed the naval encounter between the Roman fleet
and that of the Veneti, in 56 B.C., mentioned by Caesar (B.Gall. 2.34; 3.7-16).
Like most Romanized cities, Darioritum prospered under the Pax Romana but suffered
from the troubles of the late 3d c.; according to the Notitia Dignitatum, a garrison
of Moorish soldiers was installed there.
It was in this late period that a circuit wall was erected; traces
of it have been found in the substratum of the modern town. Enclosing only a small
part of the Roman city, the wall was more than 4 m thick and made of a coarse
core of rubble faced on either side with small blocks banded with brick. Only
a few sections of this Late Empire rampart can be seen today, intermixed with
the mediaeval fortifications.
M. Petit, 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.
ΒΕΝΤΕΝ (Πόλη) ΠΡΟΒΗΓΚΙΑ
Vedene ("Vindalium") Vaucluse, France.
A commune 9 km NE of Avignon. It has been identified by certain scholars with
the ancient Vindalium of Strabo, where the famous battle was fought in 120 B.C.
between the Roman legions of consul Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus and the Gallic army
of the Allobroges aided by the Voconces. In 1965, at the place called Confines,
Aiguille quarter, several large blocks of calcareous sandstone, in a row, were
uncovered. Hasty probes carried out underwater revealed no archeological deposit
but confirmed the existence of the foundations of two parallel walls of considerable
height running NE-SW, ca. 1.5 m apart and constructed of stone blocks arranged
either lengthwise or as headers. One of the blocks is decorated on one side, above
two string moldings and one level molding, with a plant scroll with rosettes and
quadrilobate flowers. This is apparently a rampart wall, with some reused materials,
perhaps belonging to the monument erected by the Romans to commemorate their victory
(according to the Latin historian Annius Florus).
A. Dumoulin, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Jan 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
ΒΕΡΤΩ (Πόλη) ΧΡΥΣΗ ΑΚΤΗ
Vertillum (Vertault) Cote-d'Or, France.
Located 20 km NW of Chatillon-sur-Seine, the Gallo-Roman town of Vertillum is
situated on a spur of a plateau on the site of a Celtic oppidum of promontory
fort type. The Gallo-Roman built-up area covers about 25 ha and has been known
since 1651. Excavations were conducted from 1846 to 1853 and from 1882 to 1940.
The spur on which the town stood is enclosed by a wall of murus gallicus
type with wooden posts. It merely served to hold back earth and to set the boundaries
of the city established after the conquest. The town was oblong in shape and was
built according to an irregular plan. Several districts were separated by paved
streets whose width varied from 3 to 8 m. The main artery, 350 m long, was orientated
NW-SE. The forum was located approximately in the middle of the city. It was bordered
to the E by a series of shops, to the N by a portico, and to the S by another
portico and a temple. It had an area of more than 1 ha, out of proportion with
the size of the town.
The density of the built-up areas is extremely variable. To the W,
near the end of the spur, dwellings are spaced out and one finds numerous remains
of the workshops of smelters and bronze-workers. Cellars are very well built with
carefully pointed walls. They may have been used as winter quarters since the
climate in this region is harsh. Heating was particularly well worked out. There
are many fireplaces with round hearths as well as hypocausts with small pillars.
The baths occupied more than 600 m sq. and represent the most notable
and complete building on the site. However, we have yet to solve the problem of
their water supply, which is posed by the baths' location on a spur with no known
water sources. Many pits, 3 to 8 m deep, have been excavated, but they were rubbish
pits, meant to receive sewage and garbage.
A building located at the very center of the town may be considered
a temple. It was a parallelogram in shape. Its S facade was fronted by a colonnade.
Several hemicycles or apses were set up at the back of the building.
The systematic exploration of the site has produced a considerable
number of various artifacts, statues, inscriptions (the most important of which
gives the name of the site), tools, instruments. As far as the pottery is concerned,
one should note the relative abundance of products of the Arezzo workshops. This
attests to the prosperity of this settlement from the start of the 1st c. A.D.
on.
The town underwent two destructions. The first can be dated to about
276, at the time of the great invasion. It was rebuilt and survived until the
beginning of the 5th c. The most recent coins collected were of Honorius (395-423).
Then the ruined town was completely abandoned and the modern village of Vertault
was set up at the foot of the promontory. At present, no ancient remains can be
seen on the site, since the excavations were filled in as they proceeded.
The artifacts collected before 1882 are to be found in the Musee Archeologique
at Dijon. Those found in later investigations are in the Musee Municipal at Chatillon-sur-Seine.
J. Joffroy, 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.
ΒΙΒΡΑΚΤ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΒΟΥΡΓΟΥΝΔΙΑ
Bibracte Mont Beuvray, Saone-et-Loire, France.
Situated in the Morvan region near the SE edge of the massif, 27 km from Autun.
The importance of Bibracte--“by far the largest and the best provided of the Aeduan
oppida” (Caes. BGall 1.23)--in Gaul in the last years of independence is stressed
by the "council of all Gaul" held there in A.D. 52, which appointed
Vercingetorix commander-in-chief of the Gaulish armies (BGall 7.63). Excavations
carried out over a period of 30 years, to 1898, have left no doubt as to the site:
the oppidum covered the more or less flat summit of Mont Beuvray, which dominates
the surrounding hills and provides easy access to the Yonne, the Saone, and even
the Loire. Further, despite the rampart (of the murus gallicus type) which runs
nearly 5 km around the mountain, Bibracte's primary importance most probably was
as a center of crafts and trade.
Excavation around a large temple, which may have been dedicated to
a goddess after whom the city was named (two dedications have been found at Autun),
has revealed rectangular dwellings of the Gaulish type, half buried underground
and enclosed in walls of dry stone, as well as some houses with hypocausts, of
the Mediterranean type. The main road, also uncovered, is lined with shops. Workshops
for metalworking take up several sections; in a number of them the owner's ashes
were buried beneath his forge. Objects found here are evidence of links with Marseille
(coins, amphorae) and Italy (so-called "Campanian" ware with a black
glaze, Arretine bowls, including some goblets signed ACCO).
The city, whose finds have served as a basis for characterizing the
period as "La Tene III", was occupied at least to the founding of Augustodunum
(Autun), which later took its place (5 B.C.). Thereafter the temple continued
to be used, probably especially during annual fairs. In fact, only new excavations
would make it possible to determine precisely which buildings and objects actually
date to the period before the Roman Conquest.
C. Rolley, 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.
ΒΙΕ (Πόλη) ΝΟΡΜΑΝΔΙΑ, ΚΑΤΩ
Aregenua (Vieux) Calvados, France.
Site of the chief city of the civitas of the Viducasses, in the commune of the
Evrecy canton on the left bank of the Guine, a tributary of the Orne, 10 km SE
of Caen. The valley of the Guine was occupied at a very early date and three prehistoric
stations have been located: Mousterian at the confluence of the Orne and the Guine,
Robenhausian in the fields beside the Saint-Germain road, and Chellean at La Croix
des Flandriers.
Aregenua is mentioned on Ptolemy's map and in the Peutinger Table.
The ancient remains have been known for centuries but there has been no systematic
excavation. The city, though not large, had a temple, several baths, a theater,
private houses, underground water pipes, an aqueduct, and burial grounds on its
outskirts. It was never walled. Traces of the old city have been found N and S
of the Chemin Hausse, the ancient Roman road, and in subfoundations in the Saint-Martin
and Bas de Vieux quarters.
On the Chemin Hausse SE of Vieux a dump was found containing more
than 40,000 kg of animal bones, piled up with coins, potsherds, and fragments
of glass and iron. On the other side of the Chemin Hausse was the spot where the
aqueduct ended; it passed underneath the old Chateau de la Palue and then down,
to the SE, to the Fontaine des Mareaux. A mosaic was found to the left of the
Chemin Hausse, but all that was left was the mortar section that supported it.
Two small border fragments, however, are in the museum of the Societe des Antiquaires
in Caen; it is a mediocre work of irregular cubes of red standstone and white
dice.
Some baths were uncovered to the W, in the Champ des Cretes, in the
mid-19th c. A first group of buildings (62 x 30 m) had two parts: the baths, with
remains of marble facings and a semicircular, carefully paved pool with three
steps leading into it, then a rectangular courtyard terminating in a semicircular
wall that served as a palestra. A huge bowling ball of micaceous quartz was found
in it. The second group (29.45 x 6.50 m) contained two circular pools surrounded
by several small narrow rooms, along with a drainage pipe going down to the Guine,
and a large paved room. Later another series of rooms was found, with some hypocausts
and heating pipes in the walls.
To the NE of the Champ des Crees, near the Chemin Hausse, were found
traces of cement floors and subfoundations of ancient houses; one room had a hypocaust.
To the right of the Chemin Hausse beneath the choir of the Eglise Notre-Dame were
found what may be the remains of a temple along with some sculptures. A corner
capital was discovered amid the debris, as well as a stone decorated with two
badly damaged bas-reliefs.
The site of a large monument oriented S has been recognized in the
garden of the Chateau La Palue; the ruins have not yet been identified. To the
E, in the Jardin Poulain, are the foundations of the theater. The site is inclined
slightly NE-SW and dominates the surrounding area. The tiers faced SW. Masonry
has been found below ground at depths ranging from 0.2 to 1.5 m. Excavation was
carried out down to the 2 m level, the usual depth of the wall bases, which were
set on a mortar floor 0.4 m thick. The stage, orchestra, and hemicycle of tiers
were uncovered. Three corridors, to the right and left of the stage and in the
middle of the hemicycle, led to the orchestra. The vertical sections were probably
built largely of wood. The monument measured 236 m around, 80 m at its widest
point and 67 m at the narrowest. The stage was 60 by 18 m, the orchestra was oval,
30-35 m in diameter, and the podium gallery was 55 m in circumference and 5 m
wide. The tiers were raised 20 m high and measured 80 m around; the theater could
seat 3500. The walls of the orchestra formed a complete circle, so that the theater
could serve as an amphitheater and the orchestra as an arena. A study of the masonry,
however, has shown that the Vieux theater was not originally built for a double
purpose: the S semicircular wall of the orchestra-arena is not nearly as well
built as the right rear wall, which it joins; it may be a later addition. Two
more peculiarities have been noted: the inner wall of the circular gallery at
the top of the hemicycle is 2.2 m thick for 22 m to the E, but not more than 0.9
m thick everywhere else. There may have been a box at this point. Also, six semicircles
of stone, 0.75 m thick and well built on both sides, are supported by the S end
of the E wall. These structures have not been identified.
In the Saint-Martin quarter N of the village, on Le Grand Champ, some
column stumps have been excavated, along with several fragments of Corinthian
friezes, and a rectangular building 13 by 9 m. Its function has not been determined.
The city was destroyed at the end of the 3d c., probably by Saxon
pirates; the proximity of the Orne probably facilitated these raids. A few families
may have gone on living in the ruins, judging from the 4th and 5th c. coins found
on the site. Some Merovingian tombs found in eight places seem to represent burials
of a later period (end of the 7th and 8th c.), but at present it is not known
whether or not the city was abandoned from the 5th to the 7th c.
C. Pilet, 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.
ΒΙΕΝ (Πόλη) ΙΖΕΡ
Vienna (Vienne) Isere, France.
In Gallia Narbonensis, a bridge site in a bend of the Rhone, dominated by five
hills. On the left bank of the river are the Gere pass and the alluvial terraces
of the Gere and the Rhone; on the right bank the Rhone foothills lead to the Gier
valley and the W. Hence it was a meeting-place for trade routes from the Rhone
to the Loire (Strab. 4.1.2, 14): the E-W road ran from the Alps to the Massif
Central, and the S-N road followed the Rhone on the left bank and crossed it at
Vienne to avoid the marshes in the Lyon area.
When Gaul was independent, the Allobroges had two settlements on the
left bank at Vienne. The oppidum-refuge was on the Sainte-Blandine hill, where
material from Iron Age III was found from 1895 to 1955; the trading-post was lower,
on the banks of the Gere. Here a fragment of an Attic cup of the early 4th c.
was discovered in 1968 in a stratified site; 11 strata, from the 4th c. B.C. to
the end of the 1st c., were identified. Two layers showing traces of fire and
destruction probably mark the attack of the Cimbri and Teutoni in 105 B.C., then
the revolt of the Allobroges in 62-61 B.C. and its repression. Vienna was conquered
by Rome in 121 B.C. and absorbed into the Narbonensis province. Caesar passed
through it in 58 and 52, and made it a colony under Roman law. In 43 a revolt
of the Allobroges uprooted the Roman citizens, who left to found the colony of
Lyon; Vienna lost its rights. Augustus restored them, and in A.D. 40 Caligula
made the city a colony with full rights: colonia Iulia Augusta Florentia Vienna.
It soon became prosperous, and in his speech to the Senate in 47-48 Claudius described
it as "ornatissima ecce colonia ualentissimaque Viennensium". Martial
called it "pulchra Vienna" and Ausonius praised its opulence. Capital
of the Viennois diocese from the reign of Diocletian on, and of the Viennois province
from the reign of Constantine, it is given the title of metropolis in the Notitia
Galliarum 11.3; it was then the second Gallic city, after Treves, and it remained
so until superseded by Arles at the end of the 4th c. After suffering in the Germanic
invasion of 275, the city was seized by the Burgundians ca. 468 and became one
of their royal residences.
Vienna had three successive surrounding walls. The 1st c. wall, which
Augustus presented to the city in 16-15 B.C., measured 7250 m (the longest in
Gaul) and gave the city an area of over 200 ha. This impressive fortification
had 54 towers 8-12 m in diameter surrounding the five hills: Mont Salomon, Mont
Arnaud, Sainte-Blandine, Saint-Just, and Pipet in the middle, overlooking the
theaters. A 1 km length on Mont Salomon still stands 4-5 m high and 2.5 m thick,
built of quarry stones with gates of large blocks. In the 4th or late 3d c., after
the invasion of 275, a second, much smaller wall was erected (1920 m), enclosing
only the heart of the city--Mont Pipet and the middle and upper parts of the deposit
mound of the Gere, an area of 36 ha. It survives in four places and one can see
the opus-mixtum, a mixture of quarry stones and brick. In the Middle Ages a third
wall was built, which at first followed the same line, but later was enlarged
to NE and SW.
Chief among the well-preserved major monuments is the Temple of Augustus
and Livia in the city center, near the crossroads of the cardo and decumanus;
it can be compared with the Maison Carree at Nimes. Dedicated first to Rome and
Augustus in the emperor's lifetime, and then, under Claudius, to the Divine Augustus
and Divine Livia, it later underwent another modification: the inscriptions, of
which traces can be seen on the frieze and architrave (nail holes where the bronze
letters were attached), are subject to debate. The dimensions of the temple (23.85
x 14.25 m) are nearly the same as those of the Maison Carree. Hexastyle and partly
peripteral, it has a flight of 12 steps, a pronaos with two intercolumniations
and a cella against the rear wall.
Not far from the temple are the theater and odeum: Vienne and Lyon
are the only cities in Gaul to possess two such theaters. The theater, discovered
and restored between 1922 and 1938, is built against the W flank of Mont Pipet.
With a diameter of 130.4 m and space for 13,500 spectators, it is the largest
Gallic theater after that of Autun. The cavea has two maeniana and 46 tiers; the
first maenianum is divided into four cunei by five flights of steps, the second
into ten, with as many vomitoria. A portico around the top was reached by double
stairways built against the outer wall. In the axis of the theater stood a temple
(13.85 x 8.8 m) dedicated to Apollo (a tripod and capitals with serpentiform volutes
are in the Musee Saint-Pierre). In the lower part of the cavea four low seats
of white marble were separated from the rest by a balustrade of green cipollino.
The orchestra was paved with yellow and pink marble slabs; it had two entrances
5.2 m wide to N and S, which served the cavea stairways and two foyers adjacent
to the stage. The stage (72 x 5 m) has the customary three doors at the back.
The pulpitum has seven semicircular and rectangular niches, and above them a frieze
decorated with reliefs (satyrs' heads, lions, mastiffs, a bull, panthers, ibexes).
The theater can be dated from the Augustan period. Nearby, on a slight
rise to the S and perpendicular to it is an odeum from the period of Hadrian,
similar to that at Lyon but less well preserved. Excavated in 1960, it includes
a cavea hollowed out of the hillside, its floor covered with a layer of masonry
to receive the tiers. The orchestra was decorated with marble slabs which have
disappeared, but their traces can be seen in the tile mortar covering the floor.
The substructures of the stage building are still visible. In front is a pit for
the curtain, worked by a mechanism of which some elements remain. Several pieces
of decorative sculpture have been found, including fragments of the pulpitum frieze,
an altar base ornamented with foliated scrolls and rams' heads, and the fragment
of the bust of an emperor (young Nero?). The whole structure was 73 m in diameter
and could accommodate 3000 people. A fragment of an inscription bearing ODE, marks
the first appearance in Latin epigraphy of the word odeum.
Vienna had a third theater, part of a complex of buildings attributed
to the cult of Magna Mater. Near the theaters, on the site of the old hospital,
the following buildings have been excavated: first, a rectangular (15.9 x 10.6
m) temple with a flight of seven steps and a podium supporting the pronaos and
cella. Apparently dating from Claudius' reign, it was then embellished with mosaics
in the 2d c. and enlarged (18.5 x 10.6 m) in the late 2d or early 3d c.; the mosaics
were covered with three layers of stones and a layer of limestone slabs, making
a new pavement for the raised podium. Adjacent to this temple is an underground
room with pools (purification chamber?), then to the E three little rooms with
hypocausts and a number of pools connected by piping systems. Next to the rooms
with the hypocausts is a small building that may have been used for initiations.
These rooms seem to have been linked by an underground passage to a building consisting
of curved tiers enclosed by three long blind walls, and facing a stage built of
large cut stones. Several inscriptions, reliefs, and carvings suggest a theater
reserved for the mysteries of Kybele.
There was also a circus, located in 1903-7 on the banks of the Rhone
S of the city. Built of masonry at the beginning of the 2d c. (455.2 x 118.4 m),
it must have taken the place of a smaller monument made of wood. It was used until
the end of the 4th c. and then disappeared, except for the pyramid known as L'Aiguille
which adorned the center of the spina. The pyramid (23.35 m high) consists of
a square base with an arch cut on each face, on which was built a pyramidal spire
of 24 courses of cut stones. Apparently unfinished (some decoration on the base
is merely rough-hewn), the monument dates from the time the circus was restored,
after the invasion of 275.
Separated from the Kybele theater by a paved street is a monumental
double arcade that goes back to the 2d c. Recent excavations indicate it should
be related to baths.
The Capitolium may have stood on Mont Pipet. There are no traces of
it, but in excavations ca. 1935 a castrum of the Late Empire was revealed: a rectangle
(95 x 87 m) closed to the W by a semicircular wall that gives the complex the
plan of a basilica. The entrance is to the E, through a semicircular arched doorway.
Built of small quarry stones with bands of brick, it dates from the beginning
of the 4th c. and was enclosed within the surrounding wall built in the Late Empire.
In the same period the city must have had two palaces: a palatium, the residence
and offices of the vicarius, and a praetorium for the provincial governor. Neither
has been located.
The general plan of the streets and the orientation of the monuments
changed in different periods. Beneath the temple in the Kybele quarter the 1st
c. B.C. buildings are oriented obliquely to the temple axis, but from the reign
of Claudius on the orientations are clearly N-S and E-W (modern streets frequently
follow the ancient plan). The decumanus maximus ended at the bridge over the Rhone,
the cardo maximus led to a narrow passage between the river and the Batie-Montsaleon
hill N of the city. They crossed near the Temple of Augustus and Livia, in the
forum. Many traces of the decumani and cardines have been found.
A number of houses of the classical type have been uncovered in different
places, many of them with mosaic floors. Among the most recent discoveries is
a house S of the underground room in the Kybele quarter, across a narrow street.
A gold and jade necklace from the 2d c. was found in one of the rooms. A villa
in the Place Saint-Pierre, excavated in 1967, contained frescos and mosaics, including
the mosaic of the victorious athletes.
The city received water through a system of at least 10 aqueducts,
five parallel to each other on the left bank of the Gere. All of them began in
the region E of Vienne. Many remains have been located. The water-tower, where
four of the aqueducts ended, was near Saint-Andre-le-Haut. The oldest date from
the beginning of the 1st c., other more complicated ones from the 2d c. At least
one, dating from the first half of the 1st c., was erected, according to the inscriptions,
by private enterprise.
The official city with its public buildings spread out on the left
bank of the Rhone, but from the 1st c. on the chief residential section developed
on the right bank, at the end of the bridge linking the two city centers. The
bridge, built of cut stones, had five arches and was decorated with dolphins of
gilded bronze (now in the municipal museum).
At least three complexes developed on the right bank: a residential
quarter at Saint-Romain-en-Gal (see below), a port, and some baths. The port,
with its docking basins and quays, was discovered in 1964-65 on the site of the
modern Olympic swimming pool. Behind it to the W is the Palace of Mirrors, actually
a complex of sumptuous bath buildings. (Among the works of art found there are
a Nemesis-Tyche, the crouching Venus now in the Louvre, and a torso of Venus.)
The buildings extended over an area more than 116 m long and 100 m wide; they
included a large frigidarium with two pools, underground piping systems, and to
the E a garden esplanade ending in two great semicircular apses. The other parts
of the monument have not been excavated.
It is not known where the first Christian community had its meeting-place,
but 10 Christian buildings from the Late Empire and Early Middle Ages have been
located, only one of which is inside the 4th c. rampart. The earliest place of
worship was perhaps in the Place Aristide-Briand, where two subterranean rooms
have been discovered: one of them is square (4 x 4 m) and vaulted, and leads into
another smaller room (3 x 3 m), also vaulted, with an apse to the S. The only
church inside the city was that of the Sept Freres Macchabees, which at some time
from the 4th c. on became the cathedral. A rectangular building (23 x 16 m) with
three aisles and oriented E-W, it took the name of Saint-Maurice in the early
8th c.
Early churches outside the rampart include SS Gervais and Protais
S of the city (5th c. on); around it lay a necropolis where ca. 100 tombs have
been excavated. The church was destroyed in the 8th c. by the Saracens and never
rebuilt. To the N lay Saint-Severe (5th c.; some remains can be seen), and Notre-Dame-d'Outre-Gere,
known from three inscriptions of the 5th-6th c.
The finds are housed in three museums. The small objects (pottery,
bronzes, bones, and tools) are mainly in the municipal museum. The Musee Saint-Pierre,
in the church of the same name, contains the mosaics and sculpture (statue of
Nemesis-Tyche and the bronze statue said to be that of Pacatianus), the reliefs,
and capitals. In the cloister of Saint-Andr&e-le-Bas are the later monuments and
Christian inscriptions.
Saint-Romain-en-Gal
A residential quarter of Vienna on the right bank of the Rhone, excavated since
1967. Houses, workshops, and commercial buildings are grouped around three streets,
one of which is a part of the route to Lugdunum. These three streets, one at right
angles to the others, have been excavated along a 150-200 m length. The pavements
of all three are intact (large polygonal blocks of granite), and each one has
a portico on one side. A sidewalk of large slabs covers a deep drain designed
to carry off excessive water from the soil. The sewers (1.7-2 m high) are vaulted
and follow the street plan. At the crossing of the N-S and E-W roads is a semicircular
nymphaeum, projecting into the street.
Twelve peristyle villas have been partially excavated. In some the
atrium, which serves chiefly as a reception room, is raised to avoid the damp
ground. The walls, which are very thick, are strengthened with relieving arches.
Between two of the buildings, instead of party walls there are walls separated
by drainage pipes. The peristyles or garden-courts have three-lobed pools; the
lobes are horseshoe-shaped, and the living rooms are on two sides only. The many
fragments of marble and mosaics found there indicate that these were luxurious
houses. Over 20 mosaics have been located in an area of almost 400 sq. m. Few
sculptures have been found, but there are some capitals, Corinthian or decorated
with aquatic foliage, statue fragments, and a stele to the god Sucellus.
Next to the houses are three commercial establishments. One is a small
market, at least one of whose rooms was used to store goods that had to be kept
dry (grain or salt). Its basement is filled with rows of earthenware jars placed
necks down, tips up, so as to create a vacuum. Also on the W side of the quarter,
but farther N, is an immense warehouse; its huge rooms open on a wide central
avenue leading to a peristyle courtyard with two fountains and a U-shaped pool.
This warehouse served as both a trading center and a meeting place for the guilds
(attested at Vienne by inscriptions). On the other side of the N-S street is a
market; its 12 rooms (workshops and shops) are arranged on either side of a central
passageway opening on two streets.
Next to the market on the N and between the same two streets is an
industrial establishment. Five large pools, exceptionally well preserved, two
drying areas, and an extremely complex piping system, suggest that it is a fullonica--apparently,
judging from its size, on an industrial scale.
The abundance and variety of the finds indicate great activity: weavers'
counterweights, stamped lead pipes, engraved glasses, pottery of all sorts, appliqued
medallions, Allobrogian pottery, coins, and objects of iron, bronze, and bone.
Contrary to the accepted view that Vienna did not spread out on the
right bank of the Rhone until the 2d c., these latest excavations show that this
section and its street plan go back to the beginning of the 1st c. The 2d c.,
however, was the period of its greatest prosperity, and it lasted until the early
3d c. (no coins have been found later than Caracalla).
There is a temporary storehouse for the finds on the site.
M. Leglay, 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 47 image(s), bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
ΒΙΣΥ (Πόλη) ΑΛΛΙΕ
Aquis Calidis (Vichy) Allier, France.
Roman baths mentioned in the Peutinger Table. No visible traces remain except
for a well faced with marble, which is badly damaged. Marble architectural fragments
have been found, and the necropolis, with the stele of a soldier of Cohors XVII
Lugdunensis. A milestone of A.D. 248-49 has also been found.
Excavation has revealed a number of ancient sculptures and bronzes,
including 10 statuettes in bronze, 25 cm high, of Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury;
a seated Dionysos (31 cm high), Minerva, a dancing girl, a Hellenistic bronze
of a woman drinking water and another representing the Labors of Hercules, two
bronze circlets (2.5 kg), one with the dedication MARTI VOROCCIO, the other to
Diana. Native gods are represented by a crouching god and a god with a mallet,
Oriental divinities by 80 thin slabs of silver dedicated to Jupiter Sabazius,
made by a Gaul called Carassounos.
Evidence of industrial activity is provided by bronze founders' molds,
forging material, and coin molds, but the most important industry was that of
the potters, several of whose workshops have been located. They turned out terra
sigillata, both molded and plain, and clay figurines (Venus, mother goddesses,
animals; noteworthy is a torso of Apollo), as well as lead-glaze bowls, others
slip-decorated or mica-coated, and coarse and fine wares. Most of the evidence
dates the work from the period of the Flavians to the end of the 2d c.
H. Vertet, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Jan 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
ΓΚΕΝΑΙΝΒΙΛ (Πόλη) ΓΑΛΛΙΑ
Petromantalum (Genainville) Dept. Val d'Oise, France.
The site, known locally as Les Vaux de la Celle, has been excavated systematically
since 1961. It consists of a temple with two cellae (28 m sq) fronted by a flagstone
path and with a nymphaeum on one side and a huge theater nearby. A few outlying
buildings have been located in the vicinity.
From the coins and potsherds found on the site it is clear that it
was inhabited from the Gallic period on. Both the theater and temple appear to
have been built in the second half of the 2d c. The carved blocks discovered just
near the temple facade show that in a place of a colonnade the monument had arched
bays alternating with piers with niches carved in them, and several series of
entablatures (architrave, frieze, cornice). A bronze statuette of Mercury was
discovered inside the temple. In 1968 a collection of sculpture was found in the
nymphaeum on the S side of the same temple: a group showing a seated god holding
a patera and scepter with a child at his feet and a nymph beside him; another
group representing a recumbent nymph with a child behind her, a child holding
a tortoise, and a small figure offering a bird. Many pieces of wall paintings
have been found near the temple (both white and colored), showing that it was
no doubt richly ornamented. Like Chateaubleau, the site of Genainville belongs
to the series of monumental complexes built in the countryside of Gaul after the
conquest. But where the Genainville monuments appear isolated, with no residential
quarters nearby, those of Chateaubleau are built next to a true vicus.
A. Dimoulin, 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.
ΓΚΡΑΝΤ (Πόλη) ΛΩΡΡΑΙΝΗ
Grand, Vosges, France.
This was an important Gallo-Roman town of the civitas Leucorum, its ancient name
is not now known. Possibly Grand was the locality cited in the Peutinger Table
under the name of Andesina.
The built-up area, of indisputably urban character, is situated on
a forested plateau, away from major strategic and commercial routes of the Empire.
Grand undoubtedly owed its growth to the existence of a cult to a native healing
deity (Grannus?), which was replaced after the Roman conquest by a Sanctuary to
Apollo. A passage of the Alethia (3.204-9) by Claudius Marius Victor (5th c.)
very probably alludes to the divinity of Grand. Perhaps the emperor Constantine
came to pray to the Apollo of Grand when, according to the Panegyric of 310 (Paneg.
lat. 7.21), he made a detour to visit “the world's most beautiful temple” and
to receive the prophetic vision which revealed to him his future power. One may
suppose that, from the end of the 1st c., a center of national independence and
resistance developed around the temple of Celtic origin. Essentially for this
reason the Romans chose to make Grand an example of the town-making which was
the sign of their presence and authority. Although excavations have shown that
the town was destroyed several times, there was no break in occupation from the
time of Gallic independence to the Merovingian period.
Today one can still see the remains of a certain number of monuments
at the ancient site. The great mosaic, preserved in situ, was discovered in 1883.
The excavation of 1961-62 proved that it formed part of a basilica of eastern
type. The proportions of the basilica are about the same as those of the one built
by Vitruvius at Fano (De Arch. 5, § I), but it is of smaller size. The walls were
built of small, regular, quarry-stone ashlars with buttresses on the other side
and interior compartments. They were faced with marble slabs, several of which
are still in place. Possibly the floor was paved in marble too. Fragments of fluted
columns and of capitals of composite Classical style have been discovered. The
building was roofed with limestone slabs, using the technique alluded to by Pliny
the Elder (HN 1.36). A large thoroughfare passed in front of the basilica; possibly
it was the town cardo. It appears to us as a covered gallery giving access to
both sides of the facade and forming with it a large monumental ensemble.
On the other side of this thoroughfare was built a monument whose
plan and purpose are still little known. However, the nature of the remains found
with it and its location at the official center of the ancient town suggest that,
if it was not the very Temple of Apollo to which the town owed its fame, it was
at least an important part of a great cult complex lasting until the presentday
church. To date only the NW corner of a platform has been excavated. On the platform
were raised bases apparently intended to carry the decoration of marble and of
stone sculpture. Indeed, all around the masonry there extended a layer of broken
soft stone in which more than 1500 sculptural and architectural fragments of all
sizes were gathered. A great number of them present the usual motifs of Graeco-Roman
decorative sculpture. Some small figures in medium or high relief seem to have
formed part of a retinue of Bacchus, with his customary acolytes and animals.
Certain sculptures are of larger size, in particular a child's head presumed to
be a portrait of Geta, son of Septimius Severus. Finally, a very few pieces belonged
to a colossal statue, most notably a left hand whose gesture recalls the imperial
posture known from statues and medals. The presence of such a statue in the monument
or its immediate vicinity leads to the supposition that an imperial personage,
perhaps one of the Severans, took an interest in the Grand sanctuary. In this
connection one must recall the monumental inscription found in the 19th c. (CIL
XIII, 5940). In any event, the style of all these sculptures and their expert
technique, unrelated to provincial products, prove that this is an imported, commissioned
work, intended as propaganda, no doubt to consecrate the memory of a political
event and to serve as an accessory to the imperial cult.
Recent excavations inside the village have further revealed foundations
and sculptures which perhaps belonged to the public baths. A large network of
water channels and wells has been discovered, as well as the course of a rampart
very carefully built with small ashlars.
At the E end of the village is the monument usually called the amphitheater.
It is really a hybrid edifice intended to combine two functions, originally different
in intention and characteristics: on the one hand, a theater reserved for dramatic
productions; on the other, an amphitheater with an arena designed for the maneuvers
of gladiators and hunts of wild animals. The long axis measures 149.5 m, the short,
ca. 65 m. Inexpensively built, the cavea takes advantage of the slope (ca. 15
m) of a small valley. Eight vomitoria open in the interior wall. The cavea is
divided into three sectors by two radiating walls. Three zones are set off by
two boundary walls bordered by a terrace. At the bottom of the small valley the
elliptical arena communicates to the exterior by two monumental corridors furnished
with buttresses, the ones to the W built of large ashlars, the ones to the E made
of small regularly hewn quarry stones. The tiers of seats passed above these corridors
and were held up by the arches decorating the monument's N facade. Only two of
these arches survive today. Two masonry blocks, symmetrical with respect to the
arena, contained carceres, which opened in the N walls of the two corridors. Below
these corridors and the arena itself ran a sewer. Recent excavations have contributed
evidence that the theater was no longer in use after 170-80.
The artifacts recovered before 1960 are deposited in the Epinal Museum.
Those collected since then are kept at Grand, in cases around the mosaic, pending
the construction of a local museum.
R. Billoret, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Jan 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
ΓΚΡΕΝΟΜΠΛ (Πόλη) ΙΖΕΡ
Cularo (Grenoble) Isere, France.
A city of Gallia Narbonensis in the territory of the Allobroges on the Isere.
Apparently mentioned by Cicero (Ad fam. 10.23.7): Civarone (for Cularone) ex Allobrogum
finibus; cited in the Peutinger Table as Culabone; and by the Geographer of Ravenna
(4.27) as Curarore. The Celtic oppidum was probably situated on a hill close to
the river. It was a customs post of the Quadragesima Galliarum. Between 288 and
292 a rampart was built to protect the city against the barbarian invasions. Under
Gratianus it became Gratianopolis, whence the modern name Grenoble (Not. Gall.
11.5; Sid. Apoll. Epist. 3.14.1).
The surrounding wall was oval and had two gateways, known by their
inscriptions (CIL XII, 2229): one, known as the Rome gate (near the Freres Precheurs),
was called the Gate of Jove; the other, the Vienne gate near the cathedral, was
called the Gate of Hercules. They seem to mark an oblique axis oriented nearly
E-W; the corresponding N-S road has not yet been found.
Slightly to the N along the Isere, the surrounding wall stood until
the city was seized by the Protestant forces of Lesdiguieres in 1591. A few fragments
can still be seen, especially under the Treille de Stendhal (Jardin de Ville).
Its circuit can be traced almost in its entirety, thanks to ancient plans. Several
fragments have recently been unearthed: near the cathedral parts of the wall and
two towers have been preserved, but in the Rue de la Republique and Rue Lafayette
quarter the fragments were destroyed after excavation. The towers, three of which
have been found, are 22-24.4 m apart and 7.8 m in diameter; the foundations are
very solid. The walls, 4.5-5 m thick at the bottom, are faced on both sides with
small rectangular mortared stones; the core consists of irregular blocks and other
material bedded in a mortar of broken tiles. The foundations have four main elements:
wooden supports 40-50 cm apart (which make it a wall on piles); above these a
regular layer of boulders; then some rubble; and finally a course of flat stones.
Outside the wall there was probably a ditch.
The main Christian monument is the Saint-Laurent crypt on the right
bank of the Isere. The building has been variously dated: from the late 6th to
the late 8th c. Some of the capitals follow Graeco-Roman models, others are clearly
Roman, and several columns are made of reused material. A 4th c. Gallo-Roman mausoleum,
destroyed at the time of the Lombard invasions in 574, and a burial vault of the
same period have also been found.
The museum contains inscriptions, pottery, and architectural and sculptural
fragments.
M. Leglay, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Jan 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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