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Lutetia Parisiorum later Parisius (Paris) France.
Chief city of the Gallic civitas Parisioruin in Lugdunensis Quarta, becoming Parisius
in the 5th c. A.D. The Gallic oppidum was on the Ile de la Cite, which at that
time was smaller than it is today and was linked to the riverbanks by two bridges;
it seems to have been occupied by the Parisii ca. 250-225 B.C. During the Gallic
Wars the inhabitants burned the bridges (52 B.C.). The Gallo-Roman city was rebuilt
on the island but it developed mainly on the hill on the S bank of the river (the
Montagne Sainte-Genevieve); here public buildings were put up, the N plain, low-lying
and in part easily flooded, remaining uninhabited in the Early Empire, the city's
prosperous period. Laid waste by the barbarians ca. A.D. 275, the city acquired
a fortified keep when a surrounding wall was built on the Ile de la Cite. Nevertheless,
contrary to what has long been stated, the Gallo-Roman city almost certainly was
not confined to the island in the Late Empire; on the contrary, a sizable part
of the S bank continued to be inhabited. Lutetia played an important military
role in the 4th c. Julian and Valentinian stayed there, and later Clovis made
it the cathedra regni.
During the Early Empire, the cardo, which was oriented N-S, joined
the road leading in one direction to Senlis and in the other to Orleans--the route
the Rue Saint-Martin and Rue Saint-Jacques follow today. Paving from the period
of the Early Empire has been found underneath the latter street. Several decumani
branched out from it to the S as well as some diagonal roads, necessitated by
the slope of the ground. It is not certain whether in the Late Empire a road was
built to the W leading to Saint-Denis, parallel to the N section of the cardo.
The Ile de la Cite has kept hardly any coherent remains from the Early Empire:
its topography was first completely changed and the ground level raised during
the rebuilding after the rampart was built in the Late Empire, then it was destroyed.
What remains are the foundations discovered in the Palais de Justice in 1848,
those uncovered in 1847 at the Parvis Notre-Dame, and in the same area a paved
floor and some walls excavated in 1965-70. There is nothing to prove there was
a temple underneath the present Cathedral of Notre Dame, the Nautae pillar--discovered
below the chancel in 1711--being made of reused blocks. The Early Empire necropolis,
which used to be known as fief des Tombes and was partially investigated in the
19th c., was excavated again in 1957-60. Situated to the S alongside the Orleans
road, it contained no tombs later than the end of the 3d c. All the public monuments
were on the S bank, the Montagne Sainte-Genevieve, while the new buildings spread
down the hill, not up it away from the island as used to be thought.
The forum, which was excavated in the 19th c. and whose S section
was again studied in 1970, seems to have replaced a circular building of the 1st
c. A rectangle 782 x 100 m, it gave onto the Orleans road on its small E side
and had a central platform, which no doubt served as the base of a temple or basilica,
with an open area around it edged by a wall; backed against the wall were stalls
with a portico above them. Graffiti make it possible to date the retaining wall
of the central platform from the beginning of the 2d c. at the latest. This wall
had a gallery, which was painstakingly filled in from the time it was built along
the greater part of its length.
Lutetia had three baths. Those to the N, the Cluny baths, are still
well preserved. They were built on a rectangular plan, the long side lying perpendicular
to the cardo, and measured 100 x 65 m on the exterior. Inside, the rooms were
laid out according to the circular type. The frigidarium still has its groined
vault; it is supported partly by large consoles representing ships' prows, no
doubt a link with the guild of the nautae pansiaci that put up a votive pillar
in Tiberius' reign, some elements of which were found to have been reused in the
Cite. Judging from their method of construction (walls of mortared rubble faced
with small blocks and banded with brick), these baths seem to go back to the last
quarter of the 2d c. or the first quarter of the 3d c. (excavations carried out
in the 19th c. and in 1946-56).
The E baths, which are close by but to the E of the cardo, were slightly
smaller (75-80 x 68 m), with circular hot rooms. Excavated in the 19th c. and
from 1935 to 1938, they are incompletely known. Built very probably a little earlier
than the N baths, they replaced an earlier building. Finally there are baths,
measuring 60 x 40 m, a little S of the forum. Long believed to be a villa, when
they were excavated in the 19th c. they were found to be decorated with painted
walls and marbles. They were built on the site of an earlier building and seem
to be later than the forum. They got their water from an aqueduct coining from
the S, which was 16 km long, with a 330 m bridge; traces of piers are still to
be seen. To the E was an amphitheater with a stage. Its oval arena measured 52
x 46 m. A 1st c. monument, it was discovered in the 19th c. and restored. Some
of the original parts are still standing, and some drums of the half-columns decorating
the cavea have been found. A small theater (72 x 49 m) was also built, probably
shortly after the N baths, W of the amphitheater near what is now the Jardin du
Luxembourg, which probably was the wealthiest section of the city. Seventy-three
Gallo-Roman votive deposits were excavated in 1972-73. The suggestion that there
was a circus, at least to the E on the banks of the Seine (the old Halle aux vins),
must in all reasonableness be rejected.
During the Late Empire, after the invasions of the late 3d c., a fortified
keep was built in the Cite. About 300 the Cite was enclosed in a rampart; its
foundations have been located to the N, E, and S (in the 19th c. and from 1965
to 1970). They were probably composed of layers of quarrystone bonded with mortar
and overlaid on top with a dry masonry of more or less recut blocks, many from
the monuments of the upper city (stelae, architectural fragments). Treasure dating
from ca. 275 was discovered in 1970 on the S side of the city outside the rampart.
The island buildings were replaced by new ones erected on the risen earth, which
caused the ground level to rise from 0.80 to 2 m. Various fragments of these buildings
have been unearthed: two rooms heated by a hypocaust are preserved in the Parvis
Notre Dame along with the furnace (excavations of 1965-70), and in particular,
a well-built wall of mortared rubble faced with small blocks and flanked by five
large buttresses; it stands at one end of the S bridge (the Petit Pont) and looks
as if it had once been part of a public building.
A Christian cemetery was located on the S bank, to the extreme E (Saint-Marcel),
when the area was excavated. A late hypocaust floor was discovered in the Jardin
du Luxembourg in 1957. These finds, together with a study of the building of sanctuaries
in the Merovingian period, have recently led to the conclusion that Lutetia still
remained on the S bank in the Late Empire while some construction started to develop
on the N bank. In the Early Empire a sanctuary dedicated to Mercury stood outside
the city, on the Montmartre hill, and next to it some buildings and a small necropolis.
M. Fleury, 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.
Despite strong pressures from Greece for the exclusivity in
the rights of organizing the Games in the future, Baron de Coubertin's instigation
won over and the 1900 Olympics were voted to be held in Paris. But de Coubertin
made a serious mistake in having the Games as part of the 1900 Paris Universal
Exposition. Within this event the Games were shrunk to a mere sideshow of the
exposition. Generally there were few and not really enthusiastic spectators
who became less enthusiastic and much fewer when the '96 discus Olympic winner
dispatched the emplement, on all three throws, into the crowd!
France, the host country, appeared with a record-size team numbering
884, while the Americans were still represented by college students and a few
club athletes. There was some friction created when some student athletes refused
to compete on Sundays, having come from church controlled universities. A mystery
that hasn't yet found a solution is that of the leader of the Dutch coxed pairs.
The team won easily the gold medal but the boy that led them to the victory
(some said that he was only ten years old) disappeared right after the event
and he was never to be found. A detail that adds to the mystery is that his
name was also erased from the official Olympics participation list...
Press coverage was barely apparent, with many events not even being
mentioned and for years later there was much confusion and dispute as to the
names and the nationalities of even the gold medalists. Thus, it was that the
first Olympic medals won by Canada, a gold along with a bronze given to George
Orton, were not discovered for some years as Orton, being an American University
student, was billed as American! Even more recently it has been discovered that
the marathon winner, Michel Theato, who was believed to run for France, was
actually a citizen of Luxembourg. That's a mistake that France never bothered
to correct. While the Athens Olympics left a pleasant taste to all, in the contrary
the Paris Games had the world to wonder whether the Olympics would ever find
their Ancient Greek Spirit identity...
Text by Dimitri N. Marcopoulos
Paris 1900
Links with various Organizations' WebPages:
The Olympic Movement
American Sport Art Museum and Archives , a division of the United States Sports Academy
International Sailing Federation
Paris 1900
Links with various Media's WebPages:
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
British Broadcasting Corporation
1900 Paris Olympics: Various WebPages
Originally scheduled for Amsterdam, the Olympiad was transferred
to Paris after de Coubertin's persistence, in the hope that the dark image he
caused in 1900 could be erased.
In the Paris Games we get acquainted with the newly instituted
Olympic motto CITIUS, ALTIUS, FORTIUS attributed to Father Henri Didon.
Paris Olympics give us also the first black American to win the
long jump. That was William DeHart Hubbard (leap: 7.44m). The track events were
dominated by the Finns with their resurgent stars Paavo Nurmi and Ville Ritola.
Nurmi was the first athlete to win five gold medals in one Olympiad, a record
then. Nurmi was worshipped as a semi-god in his native Finland. A statue of
oversized dimensions still catches the visitor's eyes when entering the City
of Helsinki. It is of Nurmi, the Finns' idol. Oddly enough Nurmi had received
money to advertise a well-known milk brand. And again oddly enough the IOC did
not bother, while 12 years earlier the same people voted against Jim Thorpe
to retain his medals...
In 1924 Olympics we see the rise of a new swimming star. That was
tall and handsome Johnny Weissmuller who collected three golds. Johnny took
part and won more golds in the next Olympics also. But this time, on his return
to the U.S. among the cheering fans there was also Mel Rothstein, a shrewd Hollywood
scout. He approached the tall champion and gave him his card. "Call me", he
said, "not later than tomorrow, I'm only in town for two days". Three years
later the world was charmed by the best Tarzan that came out of Hollywood. Weissmuller
acted in more than fifteen Tarzan pictures and his phrase "Me, Tarzan... You,
Jane" is still quoted on several occasions.
We have another American gold winner in the Amsterdam Olympics,
Benjamin Spock of the boat-race team. Years later, Spock managed to become world
famous for his radical theories in his bestseller book about child behavior,
a book that brought a real revolution among child psychologists, pediatricians
and school teachers. His theories are still recognized today by many and his
book, though not a bestseller anymore, is still on sale...
Text by Dimitri N. Marcopoulos
Paris 1924
Links with various Organizations' WebPages:
The Olympic Movement
American Sport Art Museum and Archives , a division of the United States Sports Academy
International Sailing Federation
Paris 1924
Links with various Media's WebPages:
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
British Broadcasting Corporation
1924 Paris Olympics: Various WebPages
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