Glanum
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cd/Site_de_Glanum_Nord_2006-07-16.jpg/350px-Site_de_Glanum_Nord_2006-07-16.jpg)
Glanum was an oppidum, or fortified town, founded by a Celto-Ligurian people called the Salyens in the 6th century BCE.[1] It was known for the healing power of its spring. It became a Roman city in Provence until its abandonment in 260 AD. It is located on the flanks of the Alpilles, a range of mountains in the Bouches-du-Rhône département, about 20 km (12 mi) south of the modern city of Avignon, and a kilometre south of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. It is particularly known for two well-preserved Roman monuments of the 1st century B.C., known as les Antiques, a mausoleum and a triumphal arch (the oldest in France).
History
The Celto-Ligurian Oppidum
Between the 4h and 2nd centuries B.C., the Salyens, the largest of the Celto-Ligurian tribes in Provence, built a rampart of stones on the peaks that surrounded the valley of Notre_Dame-de-Laval, and constructed an oppidum, or town, around the spring in the valley, which was known for its healing powers. A shrine was built at the spring to Glanis, a Celtic god. The town grew, and a second wall was built in the 2nd century.[2]
The town had a strong Celtic identity, shown by the names of the residents (Vrittakos, Eporix, Litumaros) by the names of the local gods (Glanis and his companions, the Glanicae, (similar to the Roman Matres); and the goddesses Rosmerta and Epona); by the statues and pottery; by the customs, such as displaying the severed heads of enemies at the city gate; and by the cooking utensils found in the ruins, which showed that the people of Glanis boiled their food in pots, rather than frying it in pans like other Mediterranean tribes.[3]
The people of Glanum were in early contact with the Greek colony of Marseille, which had been founded in about 600 B.C. The contact influenced the architecture and art of Glanum- villas were built in the Hellenic style. But by the 2nd century there conflicts and wars between the Salyens and the Greeks of Marseille. The Greeks of Marseille, not having a powerful army, called upon the assistance of their Roman allies. In 125 B.C. the Salyens were defeated by the army of the Roman consul Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, and the following year decisively defeated by C. Sextus Calvinus. Many of the old monuments of Glanum were destroyed,
Despite the defeat, the town prospered again, thanks to the attraction of the healing spring. The city produced its own silver coins and built new monuments. The prosperity lasted until 90 B.C. when the Salyens again rebelled against Rome. The rebellion was crushed again, this time by the Consul Caecilius, and the public buildings of Glanum were again destroyed. dismantled, and replaced by more modest structures.[4] I
The Roman Town
In 49 B.C. Julius Caesar captured Marseille, and after a period of destructive civil wars, the Romanization of Provence and Glanum began.
In 27 B.C. the Emperor Augustus created the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis, and in this province Glanum was given the title of Oppidum Latinum, which gave residents the civil and political status of citizens of Rome. A triumphal arch was built outside the town between 10 and 25 B.C., near the end of the reign of Augustus, the first such arch to be built in Gaul, as well as an impressive mausoleum of the Julii family, both still standing.
In the 1st century B.C., under the Romans, the city built a new forum, temples, and a curved stone arch dam, Glanum Dam, the oldest known dam of its kind.,[5][6] and an aqueduct, which supplied water for the fountains and Roman baths in the town.
Glanum was not as prosperous as the Roman colonies of Arles, Avignon and Cavaillon, nor was it fortunate enough to be on the major Roman road of the colony, the Via Domitian, but in the 2nd century A.D. it was wealthy enough to build impressive shrines to the Emperors, to enlarge the forum, and to have extensive baths and other public buildings clad in marble.
Destruction, Rediscovery and Excavation
Glanum did not survive the collapse of the Roman Empire. The town was overrun and destroyed by the Alamanni in 260 A.D., and was subsequently abandoned, its inhabitants moving a short distance north into the plain to found a city that later was named Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.
After its abandonment Glanum became a source of stone and other building materials for Saint-Remy. Since the Roman system of drains and sewers was not maintained, the ruins were often flooded and covered with mud and sediment. The mausoleum and triumphal arch, together known as "Les Antiques," were famous, and were visited by King Charles IX, who had the surroundings cleaned up and maintained. Some excavations were made around the monuments as early as the 16th and 17th centuries, finding sculptures and coins, and by the marquis de Lagoy in the Vallons-de-Notre-Dame in the 19th century.
The first systematic excavations began in 1921, directed by the architect of historic monuments, Jules Foremigé. From 1921 until 1941, the archeologist Pierre LeBrun worked on the site, discovering the baths, the basilica, and the residences of the northern town. From 1928 to 1933, Henri Roland (1887–1970) worked on the Iron Age sanctuary, to the south. From 1942 until 1969, Rolland took over the work and excavated the area from the forum to the sanctuary. The objects he discovered are on display today at the hotel de Sade in the Saint-Remy-de-Provence.
New excavation and exploration work began in 1982, devoted mainly to preservation of the site, and to exploring beneath sites already discovered for older works.[7]
Monuments of Glanum
Mausoleum of the Julii
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/32/Glanum-mausolee.jpg/220px-Glanum-mausolee.jpg)
The Mausoleum of the Julii, located on the north side of the city just outside the city entrance, next to the to the triumphal arch, dates to about 40 BCE, and is one of the best preserved mausoleums in the Roman world.[8]
A dedication is carved on the architrave of the building facing the old Roman road, which reads:
SEX · M · L · IVLIEI · C · F · PARENTIBVS · SVEIS
Sextius, Marcus and Lucius Julius, sons of Gaius, to their forebears
It is believed that the mausoleum was the tomb of the mother and father of the three Julii brothers, and that the father, for military or civil service, received Roman citizenship and the privilege of bearing the name of the Julii, one of the most distinguished families in Rome.[8]
The mausoleum is built in three stages. The upper stage, or tholos, is a circular chapel with Corinthian columns. It contains two statues wearing togas, presumably the father and grandfather of the Julii. (The heads of the statues were lost at an earlier date, and replaced in the 18th century). The conical roof is decorated with carved fish scales, traditional for Roman mausoleums, The frieze beneath the conical roof is decorated with a rinceau featuring carvings of acanthus leaves, used in Roman mortuary architecture to represent eternal rebirth.
The middle stage, or quadrifons, is an arch with four bays. The archivoltes, or curved bands of decoration on the tops of the arches, also have acanthus leaves. At the top of each arch is the carved head of a gorgon, the traditional protector of Roman tombs.
The frieze at the top of the quadrifons is decorated with carvings of tritons, carrying the disk of the sun, and of sea monsters.
The lowest part of the mausoleum is decorated with carved garlands of vegetation, theater masks and cupids or puti, and with mythical or legendary scenes.
- north face – a battle of horsemen, and a winged victory carries a trophy.
- east face – an infantryman unhorses an Amazon warrior, a warrior takes trophies from a dead enemy, and the figure of Fame recites the story of the battle to a man and woman. The scene may be inspired by the Amazonomachy, the mythical war between the Greeks and the Amazons.
- west face – a scene from the Iliad and Trojan War, the Greeks and Trojans fighting for the body of Patroclus.
- south face – Cavaliers hunt for wild boar in a forest. One cavalier is wounded and dying in the arms of a companion. This may represent the legend of the hunt for the Calydonian Boar, conducted by Meleager, with Castor and Pollux shown on horseback.[9]
The Triumphal Arch of Glanum
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The triumphal arch stood just outside the northern gate of the city, and was the visible symbol of Roman power and authority. It was built near the end of the reign of Augustus Caesar (who died in 14 A.D.) . The upper portion of the arch, including the inscription, are missing.
The sculptures decorating the arch illustrated both the civilization of Rome and what happened to the enemies of Rome.
- the panel to the right of the entrance shows a female figure seated on a pile of weapons, and a Gaullish prisoner with his hands tied behind him.
- The panel to the left shows another prisoner in a Gaullish cloak, with a smaller man, wearing his cloak in the Roman style, placing his hand on the shoulder of the prisoner.
- On the reverse side of the arch are sculptures of two more pairs of Gaullish prisoners.
The Monumental Center
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Glanum was laid out on north-south axis through the valley of Notre-Dame-du-Vallon. At the northern end was the residential quarter, with Roman baths. At the southern end was the sacred quarter, with the spring and grotto. In the center was the monumental quarter, the site of the forum and public buildings.
The earliest monuments discovered in Glanum were built by the Salyens, and were strongly influenced by the Hellenic style of the nearby Greek colony of Marseille. period (2nd-beginning of the 1st century B.C.). They included a large building around trapezoidal peristyle, or courtyard surrounded by columns; and a sacred well, or dromos; next to a small temple in the Tuscan style.
- The sacred well, or dromos (end of the 2nd century B.C.. The well is It is three meters in diameter and has a stairway with thirty-seven steps which descended to the water. There is no dedication on the temple, but it probably was connected with the sacred nature of the well. The original buildings were destroyed and the well covered over during the construction of the first Roman forum on the same site during the 1st Century B.C. At the end of Antiquity the well was filled with statuary and debris from the late Roman Empire.[10] The well has been uncovered and fragments of the walls of the temple can be seen.
- The Bouleuterion (2nd -1st centuries B.C.) was a meeting place for notables, built in the Hellenic style, with an open space with an altar in the center surrounded by stepped rows of seats on three sides. There was a portico with three columns at one end. The northern part of the Bouleuterion was cut off during Roman times by the construction of the Twin Temples, but the space was preserved and used as a Roman Curia.
- The Hellenic Fountain. A small circular stone basin from the period of Greek influence, (2nd-1st centuries B.C.), probably a fountain, stands next to the road. This is one of the oldest fountains discovered in France.
The First Roman Forum
The first Roman forum in Glanum was built around 20 B.C., at about the time that Glanum was given the title of oppidum latimum.
- The Twin Temples. The main features of the first forum were two Corinthian temples, identical in style but one larger than the other, enclosed on three sides by a peribole, or arcade of columns. Three columns, and a part of the facade, in the style of the early years of the reign of the Emperor Augustus, have been restored and are standing.
- The Basilica. The first forum had a modest basilica, a public hall for transacting business and legal affairs, with two naves. Only the north corner of the east portico of this building still exists.
- The Monumental Fountain. A monumental fountain, dating to about 20 B.C, was located on the southern end of the forum. It consisted of a rectangular basin and a semi-circular apse with corinthian columns, which probably sheltered a statue. The fountain was supplied with water by an aqueduct from the nearby Roman dam.
The Second Roman Forum
The second Roman forum, built between the 1st and 3rd centuries A.D., was the central market, business place, place of justice and site of official religious rituals. A large open space was enclosed on two sides by porticos of columns. On the southern side was a semi-circular excedre, while on the north was the basilica, the large hall that was the palace of justice and site of the government. The basilica was 47 by 24 meters in size, supported by 24 large columns. The facade has disappeared, but the back wall and side walls still exist. Behind the basilica was the curia, where a statue of the Emperor was placed in a niche in the wall. In the center was a square room which served as a tribunal and as the chapel of the cult of the Emperor.[11]
The Residential Quarter and the Roman Baths
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The northern part of Glanum, at the bottom of the sloping site, was the residential quarter, the site of villas and of the extensive Roman baths. The baths were the center of social life, and helped serve to Romanize the local population.
- The Roman baths were built in about 75 B.C.. Later, during the reign of Lucius Verus (161-169 A.D.) they were rebuilt and the stone was clad with marble. Modest in size, they consisted of a pelastre, an open-air exercise area surrounded by an arcade of columns; a hall with cold baths; and two halls heated by a hypercaust, by which hot air was circulated under the rooms through brick channels. One was a hot air sweating room or laconicum; and the other was a caldarium, or hall with hot baths, including a masonry bathing pool. On the south, next to the pelastre, was a large swimming pool. Water was fed into the pool through the mouth of a stone theatrical mask.[12]
- Hellenistic residences. The quarter contains the ruins of several villas and residences in the Greek style, pre-dating the Roman city. Between the baths and the forum was a house with a Doric peristyle, and another, called the House of Capricorn, with two surviving sections of mosaic floors, one section featuring a capricorn surrounded by four dolphins.
- The Market and the Temple of Cybele. Near the residences was a pre-Roman marketplace, surrounded by Doric columns, with four small shops on the west side. In Roman times half of the marketplace as transformed into a small temple to the Bona Dea, a goddess of the oracle, and later to Cybele. In springtime the priestesses of Cybele brought a sacred pine into the sanctuary, symbolizing the god Atys. In the temple there was also an altar dedicated to the priestess Loreia, with a stone carving of the ears of the goddess. so she could hear prayers.
- The House of the Antae was built in the style of Greek houses around the Mediterranean. A two story house with three wings and a portico of Tuscan columns, built around a small basin of water, fed by rainwater from the roof, which channelled the water into a cistern, then into the drains which ran under the pavement of the street. It is named after two fluted antae that line its doorway.
- The House of Atys (2nd century B.C.) was named for the castrated lover of Cybele, because of a marble relief of Atys that was found in the ruins. It had an atrium with a shallow basin, or impluvium, in the center. It had a well with a curbstone lip, stone benches, and was richly built. It was probably a schola, a reception hall for the college of Dendrophores, associated with the neighboring temple.[13]
The Valley of the Sacred Spring
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The sacred spring of Glanum is located at the southern and highest part of the town. The valley was closed by a stone wall, built at the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 1st century B.C.. This wall had a gate large enough for chariots, a square tower, and a smaller gate for pedestrians. To the left and right of the gate are vestiges of the older walls, dating between the 6th and 3rd century B.C., making a rampart 16 meters thick.
- The Doric Portico. Just inside the gate was a building with a portico of doric columns. Vestiges remain of the original structure from the 2nd to 1st century B.C.. It was rebuilt in about 40 B.C., and parts of the columns and portico from this period have been restored. Inside the building were small basins fed by water conduits in the back wall, suggesting that this building was a place where pilgrims to the spring would ritually wash and purify themselves.
- The Temple of Valetudo. This small temple was dedicated to Valetudo, the Roman goddess of health. The inscription indicates that it was built by Agrippa, the son-in-law of the future Emperor Augustus. The Corinthian columns are in the style of the late Roman Republic; it probably dates to Agrippa's first voyage to Gaul in 39 B.C.[14]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/Saint-R%C3%A9my-de-Provence_-_Glanum_25.jpg/220px-Saint-R%C3%A9my-de-Provence_-_Glanum_25.jpg)
- The sacred spring. The spring and its healing powers were the basis of the reputation and wealth of the town. Originally it was simply a basin carved into the rock. In the 2nd century B.C. it was covered by a stone building with a decorative facade of stones in a fishscale pattern. A stone stairway led from the spring up to the top of the nearby hill. In the 1st century A.D. the Roman legionnaire M. Licinius Verecundus built an altar to the right of stairway, dedicated to the god Glanis, the Glannicae, and Fortuna Redux, the goddess responsible for the safe return of those far from home. The inscription reads: "To the god Glanis, and the Glanicae, and to Fortuna Redux: Marcus Licinius Verecundus, of the tribe Claudia (an electoral district in Rome), veteran of the XXI legion Rapaces (Rapaces, or predators, was the nickname of the XXI legion, which was serving at the time in Germany.).- has accomplished his vow with gratitude and good faith." [15]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/Glanistelae.jpg/250px-Glanistelae.jpg)
- The chapel of Hercules. The remains of a small chapel devoted to Hercules, the guardian of springs, is located near the spring. Against the walls the archeologist Henri Roman discovered six altars to Hercules, and the torso of a large statue of Hercules, 1.3 meters high, holding a vase of water, evidently the water of the Glanum spring. The inscription on the base of the statue indicated that it was placed in gratitude for the safe return of the tribune C. Licinius Macer, and the centurions and soldiers from Glanum from a campaign during the 2nd century A.D..
Glanum in popular culture
In Robert Holdstock's fantasy novel Ancient Echoes, Glanum is a sentient, living, moving city which eventually settles at its present site in Provence.
Notes
- ^ Congès, Ann Roth, Glanum - De l'oppidum salyen a la cité latine, pg. 5
- ^ Congès, Anne Roth, Glanum - De l'oppidum salyen à la cité latine, Editions d Patrimoine, Centre des Munuments Historique. Pg. 3
- ^ Congés, pg. 7
- ^ Congès, pg. 9.
- ^ Smith, Norman (1971), A History of Dams, London: Peter Davies, ISBN 0-432-15090-0
- ^ "Key Developments in the History of Arch Dams". Cracking Dams. SimScience. Retrieved 18 July 2010. [dead link]
- ^ Congès, pg. 17
- ^ a b Congès, pg. 21
- ^ Congè (pg. 23)
- ^ Congès, pg. 40.
- ^ Congès, pg. 36.
- ^ Congès, pg. 28-29
- ^ Congès, pg. 32-33.
- ^ Congès, pg. 55
- ^ Congès, pg. 57.
References
- Congès, Anne Roth (2000), Glanum- De l"oppidum salyen à la cité latine, Paris: Editions du Patrimoine, Centre des Monuments Nationaux, ISBN 978-2-7577-0079-2
- Hodge, A. Trevor (2000), "Reservoirs and Dams", in Wikander, Örjan (ed.), Handbook of Ancient Water Technology, Technology and Change in History, vol. 2, Leiden: Brill, pp. 331–339, ISBN 90-04-11123-9
- Schnitter, Niklaus (1978), "Römische Talsperren", Antike Welt, 8 (2): 25–32 (31f.)
- Schnitter, Niklaus (1987a), "Verzeichnis geschichtlicher Talsperren bis Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts", in Garbrecht, Günther (ed.), Historische Talsperren, Stuttgart: Verlag Konrad Wittwer, pp. 9–20, ISBN 3-87919-145-X
- Schnitter, Niklaus (1987b), "Die Entwicklungsgeschichte der Bogenstaumauer", in Garbrecht, Günther (ed.), Historische Talsperren, Stuttgart: Verlag Konrad Wittwer, pp. 75–96, ISBN 3-87919-145-X
- Smith, Norman (1971), A History of Dams, London: Peter Davies, ISBN 0-432-15090-0
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- Site archéologique de Glanum - official site
- Official tourist office of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, both in French and in English. Contains information on Glanum.
- Locator map of Glanum (Michelin)
- Livius.org: Glanum (St.Rémy-de-Provence)