Most Recent Visit: June 2018. Perhaps one of the most recognizable vestiges of the Roman era in France, and maybe even in the whole of the Mediterranean world, is the towering Pont du Gard aqueduct bridge. The Pont du Gard is just one point in the roughly 50 kilometer route of an aqueduct that carried…
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Most Recent Visit: June 2018 The forerunner to the current second largest city in France, Marseille, was the important ancient city of Massalia. Massalia was the oldest Greek colony in Gaul, founded in 600 BCE by Greeks from Phocaea. According to Thucydides, this was opposed by the Carthaginians, who were subsequently defeated in a naval…
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Most Recent Visit: June 2018 As has been discussed in previous posts, there are a number of sites that would be categorized as miscellaneous; not associated with any major site that would warrant a full post to itself, but also very much worth visiting. A number of these sites spring up along the path of…
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Continued From Arelate Part I A bit north of the Place du Forum, at about 13 Rue du Sauvage, are the remains of a basilica incorporated into the façade of the Hôtel d’Arlatan. A sign on the building on the west side of Rue du Sauvage marks the spot. Some of the stonework in the…
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Most Recent Visit: June 2018 Not far from the confluence of the Rhône and L’Aigue rivers is the French town of Orange, which boasts perhaps two of the most well-known Roman monuments in France; the UNESCO World Heritage Sites of the Théâtre Antique d’Orange and the Arc de Triomphe d’Orange. Located in the territory of…
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Continued From Vasio Vocontiorum Part I Puymin La Villasse is exited through the same way it is entered, and the entrance to Puymin is just directly across the road where the ticket is purchased. Immediately inside the park is another large residence, the Maison de l’Apollon Lauré (House of the Laurelled Apollo), sometimes referred to…
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Most Recent Visit: June 2018. Valentia In antiquity, the French city of Valence was preceded by the Roman settlement of Valentia. Valentia was located at the second most important crossroads in the region, behind Lugdunum, where the Via Agrippa running between Lugdunum and Arelate intersected with a road running to the east toward Italy via…
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Most Recent Visit: June 2018. Tucked into a fertile agricultural valley about 7 kilometers to the west of the Rhône, along the L’Escoutay River, a tributary of the Rhône, are the remains of the Roman town of Alba Augusta Helviorum. The archaeological site is located just to the north of the present-day town of Alba-la-Romaine,…
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Continued From Glanum Part I Monumental Area Further on from the residential area of Glanum to the south is the monumental area, where many of the public buildings or the settlement were located. Immediately south of the bathing complex is what is described as being the curia, or some kind of town council or town…
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Most Recent Visit: June 2018 Over a thousand years before Avignon was the ‘City of Popes’, the focal point of a schism in the Roman Catholic church for which the city is most famous, it was the Roman town of Avennio (or Avenio). Avenio’s history, though, stretches back well before the Romans set their sights…
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