Listed 3 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "AUTUN Town BURGUNDY" .
Augustodunum (Autun) Saone-et-Loire, France.
Chief city of the Aedui, in central Gaul, which derives its name from Augustus'
decision to replace Bibracte, the former capital of the Aedui, with a new city.
At the time of Sacrovir's revolt in A.D. 21 it was a wealthy town (Tac. Ann. 3.43);
yet a few dozen years before, Strabo was familiar only with Bibracte. Situated
on the great roads linking Lugdunum (Lyon) with the cities of the Senones and
the Parisii and the Saone and Loire valleys, between the territories of the Sequani
and the Bituriges, Augustodunum was a faithful ally of the Romans and enjoyed
great prosperity, as its monuments attest. During the 2d c. A.D. the first Christian
communities were set up, outside the walls around St. Pierre-de-Lestrier. The
city declined after it was besieged and captured by Tetricus in 269. Constantius
Chlorus, a benefactor of the town, took steps to restore its former splendor,
as we know from the speeches made by Eumenius between 297 and 311, but these efforts
were in vain: it shrank to the area around the high city, which later acquired
a surrounding wall, mostly mediaeval.
The city that Augustus founded had a regular plan defined by the two
highway axes. One of these, running S-N, linked the Porte de Rome with the present-day
Porte d'Arroux (ca. 1200 m long); the E-W road connected the Porte St. Andre with
the Porte St. Andoche. Two of these gateways are well preserved, but only a tower
remains of the last one, while the first has been completely destroyed. The E-W
decumanus had an angle toward the middle; this was due to the placement of the
gates, determined by the roads coming from outside the city but not by the geometric
path of the axes. The circuit of the rampart was dictated by the lie of the land,
a gentle slope from S to N which gave the city a lozenge-shaped plan.
The fortifications are ca. 6 km long and enclose an area of close
to 200 ha. The curtains, 2.5 m thick, were flanked by round towers (4.5-4.6 m).
The walls had a filling of rough rubble set in a bed of mortar; the facings consisted
of small blocks of sandstone placed in regular, horizontal courses. This meticulous
and regular masonry, with no reused material suggests an early date, probably
fairly close to the time the city was founded. The wall is all of one date, even
at the spot level with the theater, which has sometimes been thought to be a later
enlargement. Two of the gateways are among the best-preserved Roman monuments
at Autun: the Porte d'Arroux to the N and the Porte St. Andre to the E. They are
very similar in design and dimensions. Each has a central structure flanked by
two towers, one of which, at the Porte St. Andre, is well preserved. The towers
on the outside of the rampart are rounded, those on the inside rectangular. The
facade of the Porte St. Andre was 19.18 m long, the Porte d'Arroux 18.55 m. Each
gate had four passageways with semicircular vaults, two in the middle for vehicles
and one on either side for pedestrians (4.43 and 1.67 m wide at the Porte d'Arroux;
4.1 and 2 m at the Porte St. Andre). An upper story allowed free passage between
the wall walks; it was protected on the outside by an attic of Corinthian columns
with blind arcades (total ht.: Porte d'Arroux 16.7 m; Porte St. Andre 14.6 m).
An error was made in restoring the upper gallery of the Porte St. Andre where
an arched passageway was put up; the Porte d'Arroux shows that the gallery was
unroofed.
For the most part the gateways are built of regular courses of large
blocks: sandstone in the subfoundations and limestone in the upper sections. The
use of sandstone in the upper story of the Porte St. Andre raises the problem
of chronology; however, this was a repair. The date of the gateways has been a
matter of dispute: early 4th c. A.D. according to Eumenius; others vary from the
Augustan period to that of Vespasian. The evidence, however, places the gateways
as a whole in the Augustan period: the plan, type of masonry, the style of the
Corinthian capitals, the molding of the bases and pilasters, all confirm the date.
Later the upper story of the Porte St. Andre was rebuilt, at some time before
the 3d c. A.D.
The other extant monuments are the theater and the Temple of Janus.
The city had both an amphitheater and a theater, attested by the texts and by
16th and 17th c. accounts, but only the theater has survived. It was one of the
largest theaters in Gaul, indeed in the Roman world (max. diam. 147.8 in, orchestra
44.8 m). The tiers of seats were arranged in three praecinctiones consisting,
from bottom to top, of 16 seats in probably 12 rows; vertically, the cavea was
divided into 16 cunei. The eight vomitoria opened on the first praecinctio. Along
the top there was probably a portico. For the most part the theater is built of
well-cut small blocks faced with a solid mass of mortar, a technique similar to
that of the ramparts. In some sections the facing consisted of courses of large
blocks. It is certain that theater and amphitheater were included in the Augustan
plan of the city. But were they built as early as this period? The building technique
undoubtedly belongs to the 1st c. A.D., but the discovery of a coin of Vespasian
stuck in the mortar shows that construction was still under way at the end of
the century.
There were many religious monuments in the Aeduan city, judging from
texts mentioning the temples of Berecyntia, Apollo, and Diana. Euinenius speaks
of the Temple of Apollo, and the Capitolium, which was dedicated to Jupiter, Minerva,
and Juno, but nothing remains of them. Standing alone in the countryside are the
high walls of a building known as the Temple of Janus, one of a series of indigenous
temples or fana. The plan is roughly square (16.75 x 16.25 m), but only the S
and W cella walls, 23.75 m high, are standing. At a height of 13.3 m on each wall
were three windows; the horizontal wooden lintels have left their imprint on the
mortar. Over each window was a brick relieving arch. Inside there is a semicircular
niche (3.4 m high, 1.8 wide) in the middle of the W wall, flanked by arcades.
The S wall is decorated with a central arcade 3 m wide, the rear wall of which
has been breached by quarrying, and on each side of the arcade is a niche. On
the outside of both walls are niches with a blind arcade, flat in back. The 17th
c. writers mention a mosaic floor in the cella, as well as traces of a pedestal
or altar. The latter may possibly be confirmed by the recent discovery of the
base of a religious statue inside a cella of the same type.
The cella had the usual courtyard around it: the foundations of the
colonnade 5.3 m from the cella walls and parallel to them have been found, and
two rows of post-holes for beams in the outer facings of the walls. The masonry
is mortared rubble, with mortar and uncut blocks inside and a facing of small
cut stones laid in regular courses. The great thickness of the walls (2.2 m) and
the slight batter resulting from the offset of the walls at a height of 17.25
m suggest that the cella was vaulted over, as was recently found to be the case
in the Vesunna Tower at Perigueux. There is no evidence for a building date.
The famous schools of Augustodunum described by Eumenius, then their
principal, at the end of the 3d c. A.D. were in the center of the city, near the
forum. They probably consisted of huge covered areas with porticos; the rear walls
were covered with maps of the Empire. An effective instrument of the policy of
Romanization, education was conspicuous in Autun, and was noted by Tacitus only
a few dozen years after the city was founded.
Augustodunuin was surrounded by vast necropoleis which have not been
completely explored. All that remains of a large funerary monument on the road
to Lyon, known as the Pierre de Couard, is the core, consisting of sandstone rubble
set in a solid mortar. Excavations in the 19th c., however, determined that the
monument consisted of a square subfoundation, 10.5 m high and 22.65 m on a side,
topped by a pyramid 22.65 in high, the sides of which had an angle of 63 degrees.
The subfoundation facings were covered with masonry of large Prodhun sandstone
blocks, but the pyramid was faced with blocks of white limestone. No funerary
chamber has been found inside the base.
The Musee Rollin has a collection of stelai from the necropoleis which
are an important source of information on ancient trades, worship, and costume.
There is also a mosaic bearing a portrait of Anakreon, with some lines from one
of the poet's odes.
R. Martin, 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.
BIBRACTE (Ancient city) BURGUNDY
Bibracte Mont Beuvray, Saone-et-Loire, France.
Situated in the Morvan region near the SE edge of the massif, 27 km from Autun.
The importance of Bibracte--“by far the largest and the best provided of the Aeduan
oppida” (Caes. BGall 1.23)--in Gaul in the last years of independence is stressed
by the "council of all Gaul" held there in A.D. 52, which appointed
Vercingetorix commander-in-chief of the Gaulish armies (BGall 7.63). Excavations
carried out over a period of 30 years, to 1898, have left no doubt as to the site:
the oppidum covered the more or less flat summit of Mont Beuvray, which dominates
the surrounding hills and provides easy access to the Yonne, the Saone, and even
the Loire. Further, despite the rampart (of the murus gallicus type) which runs
nearly 5 km around the mountain, Bibracte's primary importance most probably was
as a center of crafts and trade.
Excavation around a large temple, which may have been dedicated to
a goddess after whom the city was named (two dedications have been found at Autun),
has revealed rectangular dwellings of the Gaulish type, half buried underground
and enclosed in walls of dry stone, as well as some houses with hypocausts, of
the Mediterranean type. The main road, also uncovered, is lined with shops. Workshops
for metalworking take up several sections; in a number of them the owner's ashes
were buried beneath his forge. Objects found here are evidence of links with Marseille
(coins, amphorae) and Italy (so-called "Campanian" ware with a black
glaze, Arretine bowls, including some goblets signed ACCO).
The city, whose finds have served as a basis for characterizing the
period as "La Tene III", was occupied at least to the founding of Augustodunum
(Autun), which later took its place (5 B.C.). Thereafter the temple continued
to be used, probably especially during annual fairs. In fact, only new excavations
would make it possible to determine precisely which buildings and objects actually
date to the period before the Roman Conquest.
C. Rolley, 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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