Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "BORDEAUX Town GIRONDE" .
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.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Burdigala (Bordeaux) Dept. Gironde, France.
A port on the estuary of the Garonne, 90 km from the Atlantic, this was the chief
city of the Celtic tribe of the Bituriges Vivisci. It was founded in the 3d c.
B.C. for the purpose of controlling the Gallic isthmus which was on the route
of the tin trade. The city was almost certainly a municipium under Vespasian,
then became the capital of the province of Aquitania. Still later, in the period
of the Tetrarchy, it was the capital of the second Aquitania province, the vicarius
of the diocese of Gaul having his residence there. The Vandals seized it in 409
and the Visigoths in 414.
Very little is known of the town plan of Burdigala or its first monuments;
the original forum (on Mont Judaique?) has not been located, and the plan of the
streets is conjectural. From Ausonius' writings and from chance finds and excavations
we know more about the city rampart: in the Tetrarchy it confined what had been
an open city in the Early Empire (125 ha) within an area of only 31 ha. This small
castrum formed an almost regular oblong. The river was connected to the inland
port by the Navigere gate; the city got its water supply from a tributary of the
Garonne, the Deveze, which was canalized. And according to Ausonius, a certain
fountain of Divona captured the waters of a sacred spring and spewed forth abundant,
swift torrents of water from its 12 bronze mouths. Both the quays and the rampart
of the port had strong foundations resting on wooden piles and girders. The foundations
were made from the debris of all sorts of monuments, piled up skillfully, as a
precaution, into a mass 6 m high and S m thick. The wall proper was 3 m high and
built of mortared rubble-work faced on either side with small blocks, every 10
or 12 rows being banded with three rows of brick. The rampart was strengthened
by semicircular towers that were set every 50 m; the four corners were fortified
by larger towers, the wall having only three gates (Porta lovia to the W and two
gates dominating the principal cardo).
Outside the rampart is the amphitheater known now as the Palais Galien,
the only monument that has left any lasting trace of the monumental splendor of
the Severan age; still visible in the cellars of some Bordeaux buildings today,
it was ruined in the Germanic invasions of A.D. 276. Seven rings of arcaded walls
of ellipsoidal plan supported the wooden tiers. These walls have a core of rubble
faced with small blocks, with a triple band of brick every seven courses. The
15,000 spectators, divided among three caveae, reached their seats by a skillful
arrangement of sloping corridors, wooden stairs, and passageways. On the long
axis (132.30 m; small, 110.60 m) are some monumental entries over 22 m high, the
design of whose inner walls recalls the frontes scenae. They led to some carceres
under the podium steps. For draining the arena, which measured 69.80 x 46.70 m,
there was a carefully built stone sewer which ran to the foot of the podium.
Another Severan monument, the so-called Piliers de Tutelle, disappeared
in the 17th c. These piers have no connection with any temple of Tutela but look
as if they belonged to the portico that ran around the Severan forum.
A Christian quarter grew up outside the Porta lovia around the Saint-Etienne
church and the necropolis, which flourished in the 4th c. Architectural and sculptural
finds are housed in the Musee d'Aquitaine.
R. Etienne, 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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