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Lugdunum (Lyon) Rhone, France.
Federal capital of the Tres Galliae (Lugdunensis, Aquitania, Belgica), at the
confluence of the Saone and the Rhone. When Gallic independence came to an end
there were two Celtic settlements: an oppidum on the morainal hill of Fourviere
(on the right bank of the Arar, mod. Saone) that grew up around the sanctuary
of Lug, the Gallic god of light(?); and a village in the plain at Condate, between
the Rhone and the Saone (Strab. 4.186). A Roman colony was founded in 43 B.C.
(Tac. Hist. 1.65.2). In 12 B.C. it became the seat of the provincial concilium
of the 60 Gallic civitates and the federal center of the imperial cult. Seneca
(Ep. 91) calls it “maxima et ornamentum trium provinciarum.” After a fire in A.D.
65 and the disorders of 68-69, the colony flourished again, especially under Hadrian.
Partly destroyed in 197 during the war between Septimius Severus and Clodius Albinus,
it declined, to the benefit of Treves. The colony had been extremely important
economically because it was the center of Agrippa's road system, and because of
the commercial activity on the two rivers. Oriental cults took root there in the
1st c., followed by Christianity in the 1st-2d c. In 470 the Burgundians occupied
the town and in 725 it was plundered by the Saracens.
A large number of monuments have been located and preserved, particularly
on the Fourviere hill. Vienne (in Gallia Narbonensis) and Lyon are the only cities
in Gaul that possess two theaters: a large theater and an odeum. The theater,
the oldest in Gaul, was located in 1914 and excavated 1933-50. It was built under
Augustus in 16-14 B.C. with stones imported from Glanum; it was 90 m in diameter,
had two maeniana, and could accommodate 4500 spectators. Under Hadrian the addition
of a third maenianum (108.5 m in diameter), increased its capacity to 10,700.
The stage was rebuilt and embellished with columns and statues, and a pit was
provided to receive the curtain (a model of the mechanism is in the museum). The
cavea, against the hill and facing E, is supported by two galleries of 25 arches
and by concentric or radiating walls. A balustrade of green cipollino marble separates
the cavea from the orchestra; the latter is 25.5 m in diameter and has four rows
of low tiers with a polychrome floor paved with green cipollino, pink breccia,
and gray granite in front of them. Two great lateral corridors, vaulted and paved,
link the orchestra to the outside. At the rear of the stage (56.5 x 6.25 m) three
semicircular exedras took the place of the customary doorways.
Near the theater, on the other side of a square, is the odeum. Used
for music and recitations, it was partly roofed, hence the wall, 6.45 m thick,
surrounding the cavea. The semicircle (73 m diam.) includes two maeniana, seating
3000. Built against the same hill and supported by vaults in the same manner as
the theater, the cavea also faces E, but around the orchestra there are just two
low tiers, faced with white marble. Remains of the stage area include the front
wall of the pulpitum; the pit into which the curtain was lowered, which was covered
with 11 slabs with a square hole cut through them; the hyposcaenium (3.85 m wide)
and the base of the scaenae frons which still rises ca. 7 m from the bottom of
the facade. A street encircled the upper section of the cavea; entrance to the
theater from this side was by five monumental doors and in the lower section by
two passageways that still have their white marble floors and stucco-faced walls
on either side. Under the street at the upper level is a large vaulted sewer,
the wooden lining of which is amazingly well preserved. Elegantly luxurious, with
its orchestra paved with 11 different materials including polychrome marbles,
its carved balustrade, its pulpitum of white marble decorated with vines and cherubs
gathering grapes, and its outer two-story portico built against the scaena wall,
this little theater dates from the time of Hadrian.
Lugdunum had a circus, as we know only from a number of inscriptions
and a mosaic of a chariot race; according to an 18th c. drawing it must have been
in the Trion district.
The federal amphitheater, however, has been partly excavated on the
Croix-Rousse hillside. Built in A.D. 19 under Tiberius by C. Julius Rufus, a priest
of Rome and Augustus and a native of Saintes, the amphitheater had only one maenianum
at that time; the seats were reserved for the delegates of the Gallic tribes and
marked with their names. Entrance was by stairways leading from the upper level
to the lower tiers, which held the spectators' seats. The cavea was ringed with
a continuous outer wall. The arena was leveled out of the rock and the podium
built partly on the ground, partly on an annular vault. This vault, half-circular
in plan, is interrupted at the doors and is built right on the ground, a design
that occurs only in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, never in an amphitheater
of the Republican period. In its original form, this building was closely linked
with an Ara Romae et Augusti and had an essentially federal and religious purpose.
It was enlarged under Hadrian and underwent important changes. Great radiating
arches were built to support new tiers of seats: the quarry-stone piers of these
arches have leveling courses of double rows of brick (at Lyon, an indication of
Hadrianic work). At that time the structure measured 135 x 115.5 m and the arena
59 x 39.5 m. It was here that the martyrs of 117 met their deaths, notably Bishop
Pothinus, Attalus, Maturus, and Blandina.
Close to the amphitheater was the Altar of the Imperial Cult (Ara
Romae et Augusti), inaugurated in 12 B.C. by Drusus. It is known from a brief
description by Strabo (4.3.1) and from its representation on the reverse of coins
minted in Lugdunum from 12 B.C. on. The altar stood on a pedestal bearing the
inscription ROM·ET·AVG· decorated in front with a crown of oak leaves flanked
by two laurels and tripods topped by crowns. Framing the altar were two columns,
each supporting a Victory 3.5 m high. Originally 10.5 m high and made of Egyptian
granite from Syene, these columns now stand (sawn in half) in the church of Saint-Martin
d'Ainay, where they have supported the baldacchino since the 11th c. The Victory
statues have disappeared, but a small model in bronze was found in 1886 in the
Saone (now in the Fourviere museum). An element from the crowns that the figures
held aloft in their right hands was discovered in 1961: it is a half-crown 0.46
m in diameter, consisting of 10 rows of triple spear-shaped leaves in gilded bronze.
This form of the altar represents a Hadrianic embellishment.
Lugdunum had two forums. On the hill is the Augustan forum known as
Forum Vetus (whence the modern name Fourviere). Built on the flattened summit,
it had powerful subfoundations, remains of which are still standing. According
to calculations, as yet unconfirmed, it measured 140 x 61.5 m. Under Hadrian this
forum was restored and enlarged, along with its two temples: a colossal temple
with columns 20 m high (the Capitolium?) and what was probably the municipal Temple
of Augustus. Several inscriptions, by Augustan seviri or relating to the imperial
municipal cult, suggest this identification. This temple stood on an esplanade
supported by a terraced wall (known today as the Mur Cleberg, from the name of
the street where it was found); 48 m long and 15 m high, the wall is braced by
strong buttresses of quarry stones with double layers of brick. A little later,
under Antoninus Pius, the Forum Novum, was built on the nearby plateau called
La Sarra; excavated since 1957, it measures 120 x 90 m. Architectural remains,
the fragment of an inscription, an ex-voto to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, and the
head of a statue of a god make it appear certain that a colossal Temple of Jupiter
stood in the middle of the forum.
Behind the great theater and overlooking it, on the other side of
the street that runs around the cavea, was a large Temple of Cybele, whose E facade,
over 53 m wide, is still standing. Its main elements were located in 1965: a surrounding
wall (82.88 x 50.32 m); a monumental porch (12 x 5 m) in the middle of the W facade,
reached by a great stairway; and on the axis of the building, in front of the
cella in the middle of the E facade, the base of the altar. From the size and
the plan of this complex, which covers 4200 sq. m, we may identify this monument
as the Campus Matris Deum and compare it to that at Ostia. A ceramic medallion
showing Cybele seated on her lion, and four taurobolium altars plus two fragments
had already been found at Lugdunum, two of them in this archaeological zone: the
earliest, dated December 160, was offered for the welfare of Antoninus and his
sons.
Other temples have been located, if not excavated: a Temple of Mercury
on the La Sarra plateau (from the time of Claudius), a Temple of the Mother Goddesses
on the Montee Saint-Barthelemy on the Fourviere plateau, a Temple of Diana or
of the Spirit of the Saone beside that river, a Temple of Mars, and one dedicated
to the Matres Augustae in the Choulans quarter.
A bronze plaque excavated in 1524 (now in the Fourviere museum), contains
part of a speech given by Claudius before the Senate in A.D. 47 or 48. In it the
emperor supported the request of the leaders of the Tres Galliae for eligibility
to Roman magistracies and therefore access to the Senate.
The first colony was established by L. Munatius Plancus S of Fourviere
around a decumanus (today the Rue Clebert) rediscovered between 1942 and 1965--a
fine granite-paved street 312 m long and 8.88 m wide--and a cardo, also paved
with granite and 7.7 m wide, part of which has been excavated. The first city
grew up in the Les Minimes quarter around these axes; it was protected by a rampart,
some remains of which have been identified. Excavations in front of the theater
have revealed an open space containing a nearly square building (57 x 55 m); it
was razed in the Augustan era (praetorium of Plancus?).
In the 1st and 2d c. A.D. the city developed at three points: the
first and most important was on the B flank of the Fourviere hill and the adjacent
La Sarra plateau. Some houses have been located or excavated here in a number
of places: under the Temple of Kybele and on the plateau, where a residential
quarter was built in the 2d c. In 1913-14 the villa of S. Egnatius Paulus, also
known as the Villa of the Mosaics, was discovered. It is remarkable both for its
mosaic floors and for its plan: a narrow corridor runs between two shops to a
great hall, 14 x 12 m (a kind of atrium), inlaid with mosaics. The hall opens
directly on a peristyle 22 m square, on the N side of which are seven rooms; the
largest one (14 x 7.3 m), in the middle, is decorated with frescos and a polychrome
geometric mosaic in 91 panels. Also noteworthy, on the N slope of the Fourviere
hill toward the Saone, in the area called Clos de la Solitude or Cbs des Maristes,
is a room (6.25 x S m) known as the Hall of the Gladiators after graffiti found
on the wall frescos. In 1965-67 another housing section came to light in the same
area; dating from the 2d c., it is remarkable chiefly for a house with well-preserved
frescos called the House of the Sea-Horses, and a nymphaeum that probably belongs
to a large estate.
The second urban nucleus is on both banks of the Saone, between the
river and the amphitheater which occupies the W flank of the Croix-Rousse hill,
and also at the foot of the Fourviere hill. In this area were villas and baths
and, at the foot of the cliff, the old settlement of Condate. Here, in 1965-66,
an industrial area was found in the Quai de Serin with the workshops and ovens
of potters, bronze-founders, and glassmakers built side by side for over 500 m.
The potters' kilns are square (Gallo-Roman kilns hitherto located have been round
or oval), and recall those of Arezzo; many of the names of the Lugdunum potters
are also found at Arezzo. Their products, which date from the beginning of our
era, were exported everywhere. Lugdunum at that time was clearly an essential
link between the potteries of N Italy, particularly those of Arezzo, and the workshops
of S Gaul (Montans, La Graufesenque) and of the Massif Central (Lezoux). In the
2d c., Lyon, like Vienne, probably specialized in the manufacture of vases with
appliqued medallions.
The third urban nucleus is in the Island of the Canabae (now the Ainay
quarter and Place Bellecour), which owed its name either to the hutments and military
depots of the time of the Gallic Wars or to the storehouses and depots that filled
the area in the Roman period. The island was crossed from W to E by a road that
bounded, on the S, a section full of wealthy villas which have yielded a large
number of mosaics, among them the circus mosaic. On the N side of the road lay
a quarter of inns, shops, and storehouses, where many amphorae have been found,
made by potters working on the edge of the river. Opposite this section and farther
S, on the W bank of the Rhone, another very populous quarter grew up in the Choulans
district, which lies at the head of the Rhone waterway at the point where the
Narbonne road rejoined the river. Here was the first port of the Rhocirc;ne merchants
and, close by, the docks which have yielded layers of dolia, rivaling those of
Marseille. This first port seems to have been abandoned in Hadrian's reign and
moved about 1 km upstream, around Saint-Georges, where it was within closer reach
of the commercial centers of the Canabae. The docks were moved in the same way.
The urban development of Lugdunum was intimately connected with the
growth of its water supply. Two aqueducts were built under Augustus, that of Yzeron
(also called Craponne) which fed the hill town of Fourviere, and that of Mont-d'Or
which supplied the riverside sections. A third, La Brevenne, built under Claudius,
brought water into the low-lying quarter of Les Minimes; remains of it can still
be seen, especially of the 25 arches of the lower tier, some of them 20 m high.
A fourth, the aqueduct of the Gier, was built under Hadrian to carry water from
Mont Pilat, 25 km away, to the La Sarra plateau. Its piers and arcades have been
preserved in many places, as have several large reservoirs linked by siphons:
the most impressive remains are at Chaponost and Beaunant, and at Lyon itself
at the Saint-Irenee Fort.
On the outskirts of the city were several necropoleis, where almost
550 epitaphs have been found. The oldest, possibly pre-Roman, is in the old Saint-Jean
quarter, near the Marseille road; a fine bronze oinochoe is one of the most notable
finds. The earliest necropolis from the Roman period was developed under Augustus
beside the Aquitanian road in the upper city; it extended into the Trion valley
over an area 400 m wide and almost 1 km long. Here tombs covered with tiles, blocks
of stone topped by cremation urns, sarcophagi, and monumental mausoleums lay side
by side. Another necropolis bordered the road that ran NW from Trion, towards
Vaise. A third was at Saint-Clair on the banks of the Rhone; here were buried
those killed in the amphitheater. Towards the NE the Rhine road was also edged
with tombs, as was the road to Italy to the E, in the territory of the Allobroges,
where the mausoleum of the Acceptii with its Dionysiac sarcophagus was found.
To the S, in the Choulans section, the Narbonne road crossed another large necropolis,
which remained in use in the Merovingian era. The stelai from this cemetery often
show an ascia with an engraved inscription ending with the words ET SVB ASCIA
DEDICAVIT; the meaning of this symbol is still much disputed.
Places of Christian worship soon sprang up in these necropoleis. It
is not known where the members of the first community met, but we know that the
first Christian cemetery was on the Saint-Irenee hill, a small rise at the W end
of the Trion valley. There St. Irenee was buried together with the martyrs Epipodus
and Alexander, on the site of a pagan funerary basilica erected to the memory
of an infant whose epitaph has been preserved. The saints' tomb was probably a
simple memoria, remodeled by Bishop Patiens into a vaulted, half-sunken chamber.
Later a basilica was raised over it.
Near the Saint-Irenee hill was the Basilica of the Maccabees (Septem
fratrum Macchabaeorum et martyrum gloriosissimorum), consecrated to Bishop Justus,
who died in 390 and was buried in the crypt. This church has disappeared, but
Sidonius Apollinaris (Epist. 5.17) describes it as large and surrounded with cryptoportici;
beside it was a receptorium. In the 4th c. a number of churches stood on the banks
of the Saone, at the foot of the Fourviere hill, including one embellished by
Bishop Patiens ca. 470 which probably became the episcopal church, consecrated
to St. John. According to Sidonius Apollinaris (Epist. 3.18), it faced E, with
two porches, one with three arcades of Aquitaine marble and a second in line with
the first, leading to an atrium and a nave with many marble columns. Excavations
in 1935 m the substructure of the present Cathedral of Saint-Jean revealed the
semicircular apse of the 5th c. building and a few remains of the mosaic floor.
On the right bank of the Saone were three more churches, and two on the left bank.
Finally, the Saint-Laurent church (discovered 1947) was built on the right bank,
at Choulans, on the edge of the Narbonne road. Probably built in the 5th c. on
the plan of the Syrian churches, enlarged in the 6th and used most frequently
in the mid 7th c., the church and the land around it served as a necropolis in
the Merovingian era; 82 sarcophagi have been found, some with inscriptions from
the mid 6th to the mid 7th c.
The museum (now under construction on the Fourviere hill near the
theater) has, besides the finds already mentioned, several statues. These include
a great imperial statue, two draped statues of women, and a torso of Apollo. There
are portraits, among them Hadrian and the prefect of the praetorium, Timesitheus;
several fine bas-reliefs, particularly those from the Altar of the Confluence,
the theater, and the odeum; and some sarcophagi, two of them Dionysiac. Among
the toreutic and gold- and silver-plate exhibits are some bronze statuettes, oinochoai,
appliqued ornaments, and a silver goblet with religious decoration (Mercury, Cernunnos,
and various symbols). The pottery is abundant and varied: Lyon pottery of the
Arezzo type, Aco vases, pottery in relief from La Graufesenque and Lezoux, appliqued
medallions (with mythological, religious, historical, and erotic subjects). Over
100 mosaic floors have been excavated in the Lyon region; they are among the most
beautiful in Gaul, and remarkable for their documentary value (the circus mosaic),
their rich decoration, and the variety and originality of their geometric motifs.
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 92 image(s), bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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