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ROUEN (Town) SEINE MARITIME
Rotomagus (Rouen) Seine-Maritime, France.
A city of Gallia Lugdunensis, on the Seine ca. 50 km from its estuary. The second
part (magus) of the Celtic place name indicates that this was a trading post,
possibly under the protection of a hypothetical local divinity. From earliest
times the site was linked geographically to the Loire and central Gaul by the
Seine and Eure waterways, and it was particularly favored by its situation on
the ancient axis which, crossing the Channel and following the valley of the Seine,
links the British Isles with the territories of the Saone and the Rhone.
Little is known of the Gallic occupation of the site, the only evidence
being a necropolis on the lowest slopes of the N hills and some scattered finds
of potsherds and late coins. The name Rotomagus appears in the texts, including
the 2d c. Geography of Ptolemy. Believed to be the capital of the civitas of the
Veliocassi, it owed its development to Romanization.
It is not known whether it had a port, but the Roman road network,
duplicating and completing that of the waterways, made the city an important road
junction and gave it its structure. The decumanus maximus (now the Rue du Gros
Horloge) starts at the outlet of the Iuliobona (Lillebonne) road, to the W, and
in the E joins the road from Lutetia (Paris). The cardo (now the Rue des Carmes
and Rue Grand-Pont) proceeds in its N section from a crossroads leading to Portus
Itius (?) or toward the Rhine along a strategic highway W-E (Caesaromagus--Beauvais,
Augusta Suessionum--Soissons, etc.) then bridges the Seine and joins the road
leading to the regions of the Loire (Genabum--Orleans, Suindinum--Le Mans) by
way of the city of the Aulerci Eburovices.
In the city center the planners succeeded fairly well in retaining
the grid system of Roman streets set parallel to the two great axes. However,
nothing remains of its monuments. We do not know where the forum, the theater,
or the baths stood. Three old churches or chapels, now gone, apparently took the
place of two sanctuaries of Roth (?) and Venus (?), the latter being at the NW
corner of the cardo and decumanus. The lives of St. Romain and St. Ouen contain
mention of a huge amphitheater inside which was an altar, also dedicated to Venus.
The foundations of this monument are buried underneath the Jeanne d'Arc tower
in the NW section of the city.
During the 1st c. the Roman settlement seems to have grown chiefly
N of the decumanus and particularly, from Claudius' reign, in the NW quarter near
the Iuliobona road. In the 2d c. and the first half of the 3d c. the number of
houses increased and the residential quarter expanded, particularly to the N and
E. We know how far this expansion went from the necropoleis found in the Boulevard
des Belges (the modern Rectorat) to the W, the Rougemare quarter to the N and
the Robec river to the E.
Evidence shows that the area S of the decumanus was settled from the
beginning of the Roman period. Its main period of growth apparently was in the
3d c. The 3d c. rampart has been traced to the N (Rue des Fosses Louis VIII) and
has been fairly well determined to the W and E, slightly back from the banks of
the Renelle and the Robec. However, no trace has yet been found of the S part;
the same is true for the ancient river banks. Some carved blocks have been found,
reused to build the rampart which, according to archaeologists, formed a quadrilateral
covering 15-20 ha--a fourth of the area of the earlier city.
After the invasions of 253-277, the city recovered rapidly, most probably
around 280. Diocletian made it the capital of Lugdunensis Secunda, which was modified
by Gratian in the 4th c. and corresponded exactly to what would later become the
province of Normandy.
In the 4th c. Rotomagus became a religious center. Tradition attributes
to St. Mellon the building of the first cathedral church between 260 and 270.
Rebuilt by St. Victrice at the beginning of the 5th c., it may have stood on the
site of the present cathedral or outside the city walls in the Saint-Gervais quarter
W of the city, where an important interment cemetery has been found (sarcophagi
in the museum). Two more cemeteries, in the Rue d'Ernemont to the N and in the
Saint-Hilaire quarter to the E, no doubt mark the limits to which the city spread
in the 4th and 5th c. The amphitheater most probably dates from this reconstruction
period.
Both an administrative capital and a religious center, Rotomagus was
also a garrison city and along with Coutances and Avranche served as a base of
operations for those troops (Ursarienses) responsible for defending this section
of the litus saxonicum against the invasions of pirates. The defeat of Syagrius
at Soissons in 486 marked the end of the Roman presence and the coming to power
of the Merovingians.
M. Mangar, 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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