Gallia Narbonensis - Roman Southern France

   - Introduction
  (relief at Glanum and quotation from Pliny: "It is More Similar to Italy than to a Province")

Map of "Gallia Narbonensis", a Roman province, from "The Atlas of Ancient and Classical Geography by Samuel Butler - 1907": the blue dots indicate the main locations covered in this section: Lugdunum (Lyon), Vienna (Vienne), Vasio (Vaison-la-Romaine), Arausio (Orange), Avenio (Avignon), Nemausus (N�mes), Arelate (Arles), Massilia (Marseille), Narbo (Narbonne), Tolosa (Toulouse) and Lugdunum Convenarum (Saint-Bertrand-des-Comminges); the red dots indicate towns which are covered in another section; during the Middle Ages the territory of "Gallia Narbonensis" became known as "Languedoc", the region west of the River Rhone, and "Provence", that to the east of the river

That part of the Gallias which is washed by the inland (Mediterranean) sea is called the province of Gallia Narbonensis. (..) It is divided from Italy by the river Varus, and by the range of the Alps, the great safeguards of the Roman Empire. From the remainder of Gaul, on the north, it is separated by the mountains Cebenna and Jura. In the cultivation of the soil, the manners and civilization of the inhabitants, and the extent of its wealth, it is surpassed by none of the provinces, and, in short, might be more truthfully described as a part of Italy than as a province.
Pliny the Elder - Historia Naturalis - Translation by John Bostock and Henry Thomas Riley. Pliny was the governor of Gallia Narbonensis in 70 AD.

Museum of Fine Arts of Berlin: Hubert Robert: The Ruins of N�mes, Orange and Glanum - 1789

In no province of the Roman Empire was Latin culture more firmly rooted, and in none did it show more Roman vigorous growth than in Gaul, especially in the south. (..) The native language had given place to that of Italy, and the Latin of Bordeaux was said to have been the purest in Gaul. Provence is still full of splendid remains of Roman architecture, and Italy itself cannot show anything superior to the temples at Nimes and Vienne, the amphitheatres at Nimes and Arles, the great theatre at Orange, and the stupendous aqueduct of the Pont du Gard which dwarfs those of the Campagna.
Thomas Graham Jackson - Byzantine and Romanesque Architecture - 1913

Narbonne: a section of Via Domitia in the centre of the town

At the end of the Third Punic War in 149 BC the Romans ruled most of the Iberian peninsula, but they had not conquered the territories along the Mediterranean Sea between Italy and Spain. In a series of military expeditions in the 120s, they subjugated some of the local tribes and, with the acceptance of other tribes and the support of Marseille, a Greek town and a longtime ally of Rome, they were able to gain control of the coastal region of Southern France which was called Gallia Transalpina or Ulterior to distinguish it from Gallia Cisalpina or Citerior, i.e. Northern Italy. In 118 BC they founded Narbo Martius, a Roman colony along Via Domitia, a military road from Italy to Spain which crossed the Alps. Eventually the province became known as Gallia Narbonensis and another road (Via Aurelia) linked it with Italy along the coast. The bulk of trade with Rome was carried out by sea and a shipping company of Narbonne had a permanent statio (agency) at Ostia.

Museum of the History of Marseille: Greek votive stelae (VIth century BC)

Nor do I pass you over, O Marseille, (..) a city, the strict discipline and wisdom of which I do not know whether I might not say was superior, not only to that of Greece, but to that of any nation whatever; a city which, though so far separated from the districts of all the Greeks, and from their fashions and language, and though placed in the extremity of the world and surrounded by tribes of Gauls, and washed with the waves of barbarism, is so regulated and governed by the counsels of its chief men, that there is no nation which does not find it easier to praise its institutions than to imitate them.
Cicero - Oration in defence of Lucius Flaccus - Translation by Charles Duke Yonge
Marseille was founded in ca 600 BC by Greek colonists from Phocaea. It had an enormous influence on the development of the region by persuading the local tribes to turn to agriculture and to adopt advanced techniques, especially in the production of olive oil.

(above) Lapidary Museum of N�mes: Celtic inscription in Greek alphabet; (below-left) Gallo-Roman Museum of Lyon-Fourvi�re: Trifrons (Three heads), a IInd century AD work which reflects Celtic models; (below-right) Lapidary Museum of N�mes: Pre-Roman relief

In almost all matters, in their public and private transactions, they use Greek characters.
Julius Caesar - The Gallic Wars - Translation by W. A. McDevitte and W. S. Bohn.
Marseille had an influence also on the cultural and artistic development of the region. The local Celtic tribes adopted the Greek alphabet and they were influenced by statues and reliefs of Greek origin. When the Romans gained control of the region they did not impose their direct rule on all of it. They established a series of alliances and granted privileges to some tribes in order to avoid coalitions against their rule. Traditional elements of the Celtic culture, from religion to metalworking, were integrated with those brought by the Roman settlers.
Keltoi is a Greek word by which the inhabitants of Marseille called the tribes living around their town. Galli is the term used by the Romans for the people living in Northern Italy and France. Today's use of Celtic is a generic reference to the pre-Romans inhabitants of many parts of Europe and to their language and culture.

Archaeological Museum of Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges (Lugdunum Convenarum): parts of a 13-10 BC monument which stood in the Forum of the town; it depicts the Triumph of Rome over Spain (l) and Gaul (r)

The Romans focussed on controlling the military road along the coast, but in 72 BC Pompey, at the end of a long campaign in Spain against the enemies of Silla, decided to return to Rome across a high pass in the Pyrenees (most likely Port de Venasque - 2,444 m / 8,018 ft) between the valley of the River Ebro and that of the River Garonne. In the latter he founded Lugdunum Convenarum, an oppidum (fortified town), to protect this new route between Spain and Tolosa Tectosagum (Toulouse) which the Romans had conquered in 106 BC. The suffix dunum is a Gallic word for "fortified town". In 27 BC the town was included in the province of Gallia Aquitania by Emperor Augustus.

Lyon: Amphitheatre of the Three Gauls with a view of the Fourvi�re hill, where the Roman town was located

All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, those who in their own language are called Celts, in our Gauls, the third. All these differ from each other in language, customs and laws. The river Garonne separates the Gauls from the Aquitani; the Marne and the Seine separate them from the Belgae. Of all these, the Belgae are the bravest, because they are furthest from the civilization and refinement of [our] Province, and merchants least frequently resort to them, and import those things which tend to effeminate the mind; and they are the nearest to the Germans, who dwell beyond the Rhine, with whom they are continually waging war. Caesar
In 58 BC Julius Caesar, Proconsul of Gallia Narbonensis, began a series of campaigns which led to the conquest of vast territories between the Atlantic Ocean and the River Rhine. In 51 he punished the tribes who had joined a rebellion promoted by Vercingetorix, the chief of the Arverni, but he granted privileges to those who had supported the Romans or had defected from the coalition. In 43 BC Lucius Munatius Plancus, one of Caesar's military commanders, founded Lugdunum (Lyon), a Roman colony at the confluence of the Rh�ne and Sa�ne rivers, a key location from a military standpoint. Every year the representatives of the tribes of the new territories gathered at Lyon for a series of ceremonies in which they professed their loyalty to Rome and its emperors. These meetings were also meant to strengthen the authority of the tribe leaders and to recognize they had some degree of self-government.

Vienne: Temple to Augustus and Livia (former church of Notre-Dame-de-la-Vie)

Descending thro' some very narrow streets, you see a chapel called Our Lady of Life, which is said to have been the Praetorium of Pilate, governor of this town. Over the door there is a stone-ball with this inscription, Hoc est pomum sceptri Pilati.
Thomas Nugent - The Grand Tour - 1749
After the conquests by Caesar the Romans took steps to improve communication between Italy and the Rh�ne valley and a road across the Little Saint Bernard Pass was opened to link Aosta in Italy with Vienne, a Roman colony which was founded in 47 BC. It retains many monuments of its Roman past which have been brought back to their assumed original aspect. According to a local tradition Pontius Pilate lived and died at Vienne.

Lapidary Museum of Avignon: relief from Cabri�res d'Aygues, east of Cavaillon, showing a boat carrying wine and olive oil on the River Durance, a tributary of the Rh�ne (see a relief at Trier showing a boat carrying barrels of wine along the Mosel)

More recently, too, there has been discovered a vine which produces a fruit that imparts to its wine a strong flavour of pitch: it is the famous grape that confers such celebrity on the territory of Vienne, and of which several varieties have recently enriched the territories of the Arverni, the Sequani, and the Helvii: it was unknown in the time of the poet Virgil, who has now been dead these ninety years. Pliny
Initially winemaking was restricted to the coastal parts of Gallia Narbonensis, but eventually it was introduced in the Rh�ne, Sa�ne, Mosel and Rhine valleys. The Romans dug canals and built embankments for towing to favour inland navigation. Many inscriptions mention the existence in the region of a guild of utriculari, traders of commodities carried in wineskins.

Arch of Orange: frieze celebrating victories by Germanicus against the Germans; a Roman officer holds a shield with a Capricorn, the emblem of Legio II Gallica, the veterans of which founded Arausio (Orange)

Orange preserves many faire markes of Antiquity. In one part of it is to be seene a very faire Tower or Arch Tryomphant, made to the honour and Memory of Caius Marius and Catullus Lachitii, Romain Consuls, one may see there the figure and representation of all sorts of Armes, and read also the names of Caius Marius and Catullus. It is credibly reported that this Tower was built 500 yeares before the Birth of Our Saviour Christ.
Francis Mortoft's Journal of his travels in France and Italy in 1659
In 9 BC the expansion of the Romans in Germany came to an halt when three legions were massacred in the forest of Teutoburg. Augustus gave up new attempts to conquer territories beyond the Rhine, but Germanicus, a member of the Julio-Claudian family and the husband of a granddaughter of Augustus led a series of victorious military campaigns in Germany in 14-16 AD. His victories ensured that the German tribes could not invade Gaul. Eventually a complex system of fortifications was built by the Romans along the Rhine and the Danube thus granting security to Gaul until the early Vth century.

N�mes: Roman Amphitheatre (IInd century AD): (above) plate from "Alexandre de Laborde - The Monuments of France Chronologically Classified - 1816-1836"; (below) today

Nemausus (N�mes) is the metropolis of the Arecomisci; though far inferior to Narbonne both as to its commerce, and the number of foreigners attracted thither, it surpasses that city in the number of its citizens; for it has under its dominion four and twenty different villages all well inhabited, and by the same people, who pay tribute; it likewise enjoys the rights of the Latin towns, so that in Nemausus you meet with Roman citizens who have obtained the honours of the aedile and quaestorship.
Strabo - Geography - 4:1:12
The security granted by the fortifications along the Rhine and the Danube ensured a long period of peace during which the towns of Southern France experienced a major economic development. They were no longer only suppliers of basic commodities to Rome, but their workshops manufactured vessels, tableware, jewels and other luxury items which were sold in the northern part of the country, in Britain and even to the German tribes outside the borders of the Empire. The richest towns, e.g. N�mes, from which the family of Emperor Antoninus Pius originated, were embellished with facilities for mass entertainments.

Pont-du-Gard: Roman aqueduct which supplied N�mes (Ist century AD)

While I contemplated this stupendous pile, stretching sublimely from rock to rock across the valley, and the broad stream of the Gardon rolling with ease through its wide arches, I felt my mind strongly impressed with veneration for those extraordinary men, who had the spirit to plan, and the force to rear such colossal monuments of their art.
Henry Swinburne - Travels through Spain in the Years 1775 and 1776 to which is added a Journey from Bayonne to Marseille.
The Romans developed an advanced expertise in hydraulic engineering. Classical landmark structures included aqueducts, dam reservoirs and irrigation and drainage networks. The design of the aqueducts implied a solid expertise in open channel hydraulics and pipe flows. The successful operation and maintenance of these outstanding water systems represented some massive achievements by ancient and modern standards. You may wish to see other imposing Roman aqueducts at Segovia and Merida in Spain, in Tunisia and in Rome.

Vaison-la-Romaine: floor mosaic from the House of the Peacock (IInd century AD)

The climate of Gallia Narbonensis is characterized by mistral, a strong north-westerly cold wind which blows across the Rh�ne valley into the Mediterranean Sea. Notwithstanding a lower average temperature than that in Rome, the layout of the houses of the upper classes reflected traditional Roman patterns and was based on a central open courtyard. The techniques for laying durable floor mosaics were introduced by craftsmen from Italy, but eventually local workshops were able to satisfy the requests of the most demanding customers. Their works can be compared with those found in Tunisia and in the Levant, regions which are generally considered to have been the place of origin of the best mosaic maker teams of the Roman Empire.

Mus�e Saint-Raymond of Toulouse: marble panels depicting the Labours of Hercules from the Roman villa of Chiragan; (left to right): Erymanthian boar (4th); Augean stables (5th); Stymphalian birds (6th)

Floor mosaics are very often the main findings of archaeological campaigns at Roman houses and villas, thus the yield in terms of statues and reliefs of excavations carried out in 1826 at a site along the River Garonne, south of Toulouse, was regarded as unique. A large villa which included farming facilities was inhabited for more than four centuries. Its owners must have held important positions in the administration of the province and perhaps more than that, because the number of references to Hercules is regarded by Professor Jean Charles Balty as an indication that the villa might have belonged to Co-emperor Maximian who added the appellation of Herculius to his name in 287.

Museum of Ancient Arles: Christian sarcophagus (ca 340) resembling the "Two Testaments Sarcophagus" of Rome and the "Sarcophagus of Adelphia" of Syracuse

The first Christians of Gaul came from the eastern regions of the Empire and the presence of the new religion was limited to the main towns near the coast and in the Rh�ne valley; the first martyrs are recorded in 177 at Lyon; according to a late VIth century account by St. Gregory of Tours, in ca 250 the Pope sent seven bishops to Gaul to evangelize the country. As a matter of fact at the time of the Edict of Tolerance issued by Emperor Constantine in 311 by which Christians were granted permission to openly practice their religion, the new faith had not many followers, especially in northern Gaul. Arelate (Arles), a flourishing trading centre near the mouth of the Rh�ne, had probably a very large Christian community because a council was held there in 314.

British Museum: two pieces of the Chatuzange Hoard found in 1888 north of Vaison-La-Romaine (see similar silver pieces which were found in Northern England)

Art historians dated IInd/IIIrd century the silverware of the Chatuzange Hoard, but they were unable to establish precisely when it was buried. The general opinion is that this occurred between 260 and 274, a period of unrest which was due to the establishment in 260 of an independent Imperium Galliarum (Gallic Empire) by Postumus, the governor of the two German provinces of the Empire. Only in 274 Emperor Aurelian was able to restore full Roman authority. The event however showed a line of fracture in the solidity of the Empire which surfaced again in 383 when Magnus Maximus acquired control of Britain, Gaul and Spain and eventually in 392 when Arbogastes, commander of the Roman army in Gaul, challenged the authority of Emperor Theodosius.

N�mes: Porte d'Auguste with a modern bronze copy of Augustus of Prima Porta

Listen, O fairest queen of thy world, Rome, welcomed amid the starry skies, listen, thou mother of men and mother of gods, thanks to thy temples we are not far from heaven: thee do we chant, and shall, while destiny allows, for ever chant. None can be safe if forgetful of thee. (..) For nations far apart thou hast made a single fatherland; under thy dominion captivity hath meant profit even for those who knew not justice: and by offering to the vanquished a share in thine own justice, thou hast made a city of what was erstwhile a (wild) world.
Rutilius Claudius Namatianus - De Redito Suo - Loeb Edition - 1934
Namatianus wrote these verses in 415 on his way back from Rome to Gaul, most likely to Toulouse. He was aware that he was writing a funerary lamentation because in 407 the Vandals, with the allied Alans and Suebi, had crossed the frozen Rhine and swept across Gaul and into the Iberian peninsula and in 410 the Visigoths had sacked Rome. The weak Emperor Honorius retained only a nominal authority on most of the Western Roman Empire. Eventually Gallia Narbonensis became a Visigothic Kingdom which included most of Spain. In the early VIIIth century the Moors invaded Southern France. Their progress northwards was checked in 732 at the Battle of Poitiers by the Franks who were led by Charles Martel (the Hammer), grandfather of Charlemagne. The region was eventually conquered by Pepin the Short in 760 and parcelled out among his vassals.

Saint-Gilles: detail of the Abbey Church: the Kiss of Judas

The depopulation and economic decline of Gallia Narbonensis came to an end towards the year one thousand, similar to what occurred in many parts of Europe. At this point new political and religious entities endeavoured to celebrate the economic and social recovery in new buildings. The craftsmen and master masons in charge of them turned for inspiration to the remains of the ancient Roman monuments. The buildings and sculptures of the region in this period could be easily mistaken for ancient ones and they had a significant influence on the development of Romanesque style in other parts of France and in Northern Spain. In the XIth century the Counts of Toulouse became the most powerful lords in Southern France; their possessions included Saint-Gilles.

Papal Avignon seen from Pont Saint-B�n�zet

Avignon is governed by a vice-legate from the pope, and the police of the city is regulated by the consuls. It is a large place situated in a fruitful plain surrounded by high walls built of hewn stone, which on the west side are washed by the Rhone. Here was a noble bridge over the river but it is now in ruins.
Tobias Smollett - Travels through France and Italy - 1766.
This section covers also some monuments which are not Roman or Romanesque, but which offer an interesting complement to other topics which are discussed in this website, plus a few things I came across in my wanderings in Southern France and decided to share.

Field with poppies seen from Vincent Van Gogh's room at the Asylum in the former Monastery of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole at Saint-R�my-de-Provence

The image used as background for this page shows the top of a Roman mausoleum at Glanum.