Listed 2 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "NIJMEGEN Town NETHERLANDS" .
Noviomagus Batavorum (Nijmegen) Gelderland, Netherlands.
On the S bank of the Waal and so outside the Insula Batavorum, but still the chief
town of the Civitas Batavorum, which included a strip of land on the S bank. The
name occurs only on the Peutinger Table; other names, perhaps earlier, are Oppidum
Batavorum, Batavodurum (Tac.).
Roman occupation began in 12-9 B.C. when Nero Claudius Drusus used
the area as a base for further conquest of Germania, and dug the canal called
the Fossa Drusiana. The building of a legionary camp was started E of the modern
town soon afterwards, but apparently it was never finished and from the scarcity
of finds never occupied. In the Hunerpark W of this camp was a civil settlement,
and to the E was the settlement identified as the Oppidum Batavorum. It is not
certain whether the latter was contemporaneous with the surrounding rampart. The
two settlements were destroyed in A.D. 70, during the revolt of Iulius Civilis.
They were not rebuilt, but between the two, on the unfinished Augustan site, a
new legionary camp was built, presumably at first for the Legio II Adiutrix but
occupied about A.D. 71 by the Legio X Gemina. Both legions had contributed to
the suppression of the Civilis revolt. Legio II crossed to England with Cerialis
in A.D. 71. It is only from Tacitus that we know of its stay at Batavodurum in
70: no remains of this legion have been found at Nijmegen, but it probably began
the rebuilding of the camp, later completed by Legio X.
The first wooden buildings were replaced later by stone ones. Inscriptions
indicate that a vexillatio of Legio X Gemina quarried tufa in the Brohltal and
another cut limestone from the Norroy quarries. Building activities continued
until ca. A.D. 104, when the legion departed for the Danube. The camp was then
guarded by the Vexillatio Brittannica, then for a short time by the remains of
the Legio IX Hispana, and after A.D. 120 by a vexillatio of the Legio XXX Ulpia
Victrix. It was abandoned ca. A.D. 175. The remains (ca. 688 x 429 m) consist
of ditches from the three periods (Augustan, early and late Flavian) with ramparts
of earth and wood and traces of wooden buildings of the first two periods within
the ramparts; in the third period both wall and buildings were of stone. The Principia,
during the late Flavian period, was a complex (94 x 66 m) with an atrium (48 x
38 m), a basilica (48 x 23 m), and a sacellum; it belonged to the type known as
Forum with Basilica.
Three of the four gates have been excavated. Other buildings include
officers' houses, barracks, and some mercantile structures, but the remains of
the stone buildings consist only of clay and rubble packing, the bottom layer
of the foundations. The rest was removed in mediaeval times. Tile and pottery
were made in the legionary works at the Holdeurn, some 6 km SE of Nijmegen, from
ca. A.D. 70-270. During the stay of Legio X new civil quarters were built W of
the modern town, which were inhabited until ca. A.D. 270. Perhaps this was the
Noviomagus to which Trajan added his family name of Ulpia ca. 104, in connection
with his military reorganization. Traces of this Ulpia Noviomagus include a Gallo-Roman
temple complex, where many objects were found during the 17th c.
About A.D. 270 Frankish tribes broke through the frontiers, ransacked
the area and settled in Brabant and the Insula Batavorum, but in the late 3d c.
and throughout the 4th the site was controlled by the central power in Rome, and
was fortified. The population in this period moved to the higher Hunerpark and
down to the bank of the Waal. Some few traces of early Christianization have been
found. Cemeteries from all habitation periods are known; cremation was used in
the 1st-3d c. and inhumation in the 4th. Objects from these tombs are in the Rijksmuseum
G. M. Kam.
The foundations of a Roman villa of the 2d-3d c. have been found near
Overasselt, ca. 9 km S-SW of Nijmegen, and a few 4th c. potsherds may indicate
a brief occupation in that period. Another villa near Mook, on a site called Plasmolen
ca. 12 km S-SE of Nijmegen, was also inhabited during the 2d and 3d c. A few tile
stamps of the Legio X Gemina indicate that building material was taken from the
stores of that legion; perhaps the house was the residence of an officer. Both
villas are a short distance from the Meuse.
H. Brunsting, 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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