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DREVANT (Town) FRANCE
Derventum (Drevant) Cher, France.
A village 2 km S of Saint Amand-Montron, on the Cher. The river separates it from
the La Groutte spur, which was the site of a very large Campignian station; this
was succeeded in the Bronze Age by an oppidum that was still inhabited in the
Early Iron Age and probably in the Late Iron Age.
The name Derventum comes from the Celtic dervos, one of the words
for oak. After Caesar's conquest the settlement was probably transferred from
the left to the right bank of the Cher. In Imperial times Derventum acquired a
forum, a theater, and two sets of baths.
The forum is roughly square, 80 m on each side, and surrounded by
a portico 3 m wide that was covered with tiles and had a concrete floor. The main
entrance was in the middle of the E portico, outside of which was a terrace 6
m wide, reached by a flight of steps opposite the gateway giving onto the portico.
The gateway had two bays separated by a pier; the socket holes and bolt frames
are still visible. The S portico had three gateways to the outside, on one level;
only the middle one had a matching, vaulted entrance on the square.
At each of the four outer corners of the building was a pavilion.
The two framing the main facade on the E side are rectangular and divided into
several rooms. The pavilion at the SE corner probably served essentially to take
the thrust of the structure since its rooms have curved walls tangent to one another
like the buttresses of the theater (see below). The three rooms in the NE pavilion
have doors facing N. These two pavilions flanking the E portico gave the facade
an appearance similar to that of many villa facades. The two on the W face are
square; the S one, which is reached from the gallery, contained a well. The N
pavilion apparently had no openings.
Towards the middle of the N half of the surrounding wall was a temple.
The cella was 7 m square with a gallery 3 m wide around it. The facade has two
antae framing a flight of steps, and faces W. The orientation of the temple wall
is different from that of the forum enclosure.
The Theater of Drevant is one of the best preserved of the rustic
theaters of Gaul, because of the size of the substructures supporting the cavea.
The latter surrounds a horseshoe-shaped orchestra with a podium 2.6 m high around
it. Encircling the outside of the cavea is a galleried passageway with seven vomitoria,
three of which descend to the praecinctio. The lower part of the structure is
strongly supported by two trapezoidal masses of masonry divided on the inside
into vaulted galleries. The stage is a rectangular building (20 x 5 m). Moderate
in dimensions (the greatest outer diameter is 85 m), this monument is a theater-amphitheater,
as the presence of a podium proves.
Derventum had two, almost contiguous, bath buildings, between the
theater and the forum. Hardly any traces of them can be seen today, but the plans
have been recovered. The first (ca. 50 x 35 m) belongs to the category of imperial
bath buildings. Apparently there was no natatio, unless it has not yet been located,
but the cella maxima, which opens onto two symmetrical frigidaria, each with an
apse on the exterior, can be clearly made out, as well as the caldarium, which
had three pools. In the second bath building a smaller frigidarium and the tepidarium
and caldarium are aligned on one side of a vast porticoed courtyard. It has been
suggested that these were double baths, intended for men and women, but they might
also be summer and winter bath buildings.
The nature of the Derventum settlement has been the subject of much
discussion, particularly as to whether the large space surrounding the temple
should be identified as a forum or as the temenos of a sanctuary. Derventum, however,
may well belong to the series of conciliabula, the complexes at Sanxay, Tours
Mirandes in Poitou, Chassenon in Charente, Champlieu S of the Foret de Compiegne,
and Genainville in Vexin, to mention only the best known. Derventum shows all
the characteristics of this architectural family peculiar to central and W Gaul.
It is situated on the edge of the territory of the Bituriges, in a wooded, damp
area beside a river. It contains typical urban monuments but no residential settlement
of any importance. We have a description of a complex of this type in the inscription
at Vendoeuvre en Brenne, which shows that the nucleus of these complexes was in
fact a forum. At both Sanxay and Tours Mirandes the forum is of a type very common
in Gaul, and Augusta Rauracorum (Augst) has the best-preserved example. The Forum
of Derventum is of a less highly developed type, like that of Champlieu.
Some scholars have taken the conciliabula to be pilgrimage sanctuaries.
I would suggest, however, that they may have been civic centers designed for a
rural population of small landowners, and that they had been established from
the Flavian period on in the outskirts of cities, on the site of public meeting
places which were semi-sacred in character and dated back to the time of independence.
The Vendoeuvre en Brenne inscription referred to above contains the deed setting
up one of these conciliabula which was also a part of the city of the Bituriges
Cubi.
C.C. Picard, 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.
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