Gallo-Roman culture
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The term Gallo-Roman describes the Romanized culture of Gaul under the rule of the Roman Empire. This was characterized by the Gaulish adoption or adaptation of Roman mores and way of life in a uniquely Gaulish context.
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Gallo-Roman sites
The two more Romanized of the three Gauls were bound together in a network of Roman roads that linked cities. Via Domitia (laid out in 118 BC), reached from Nîmes to the Pyrenees, where it joined the Via Augusta at the Col de Panissars. Via Aquitania reached from Narbonne, where it connected to the Via Domitia, to the Atlantic Ocean through Toulouse to Bordeaux. Via Scarponensis connected Trier to Lyon through Metz.
Sites, restorations, museums
At Périgueux, France, a luxurious Roman villa called the Domus of Vesunna, built round a garden courtyard surrounded by a colonnaded peristyle enriched with bold tectonic frescoing, has been handsomely protected in a modern glass-and-steel structure that is a fine example of archaeological museum-making (see external link).
Lyon, the capital of Roman Gaul, is now the site of a Museum of Gallo-Roman Civilization (rue Céberg), associated with the remains of the theater and odeon of Roman Lugdunum. Visitors are offered a clear picture of the daily life, economic conditions, institutions, beliefs, monuments and artistic achievements of the first four centuries of the Christian era. The "Claudius Tablet" in the Museum transcribes a speech given before the Senate by the Emperor Claudius in 48, in which he requests the right for the heads of the Gallic nations to participate in Roman magistracy. The request having been accepted, the Gauls decided to engrave the imperial speech on bronze.
In Metz, once an important town of Gaul, the Golden Courtyard Museums displays a rich collection of Gallo-Roman finds and the vestiges of Gallo-Roman baths, revealed by the extension works to the museums in the 1930s.
In Martigny, Valais, Switzerland, at the Fondation Pierre Gianadda, a modern museum of art and sculpture shares space with Gallo-Roman Museum centered on the foundations of a Celtic temple.
Other sites include:
Towns
- Arles - remains include the Alyscamps, a large Roman necropolis
- Autun
- Divodurum (modern Metz) - remains include the Basilica of Saint-Pierre-aux-Nonnains and the thermae
- Glanum, near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
- Narbonne
- Nîmes - remains include the Maison Carrée
- Orange
- Tongeren (Belgium) gallo-roman museum
- Vaison-la-Romaine
Amphitheatres
- Arelate (modern Arles)
- Grand
- Lugdunum (modern Lyon)
- Nemausus (modern Nîmes)
- Lutetia (modern Paris): Arènes de Lutèce
- Mediolanum Santonum (modern Saintes)
- several Roman amphitheatres are still visible in France (see List of Roman amphitheatres for a list)
Aqueducts
See also
- Culture of Ancient Rome
- Sidonius Apollinaris
- Syagrius
- Via Domitia, the first Roman road built in Gaul
- Pillar of the Boatmen
- Thraco-Roman
- Loupian Roman villa
- Gallo-Romance languages
- Gallo language
- Ausonius
- Venantius Fortunatus
- Hilary of Arles
- Roman villas in northwestern Gaul
- Romano-British culture
- Illyro-Roman