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ANGERS (Juliomagus) Maine et Loire, France.

Near an important ford on the Maine, Juliomagus is believed to have been the original capital of the tribus Andes, and epitomized the provincial Gallo-Roman city. It was occupied from the 1st c. A.D. to the 4th c. and thereafter in the Merovingian period.

In the Late Empire it acquired many public monuments, erected near the great approach roads and on the boundary of the ancient settlement. They consist of an amphitheater to the NE, as well as a circus, a forum, and huge bath buildings to the SW. Towards the end of the 3d c. a fortified rampart ca. 1000 m in circumference was built on top of the rock overlooking the city and the ford. Flanked by round towers, traces of which can still be seen, the wall had two main gates to the E and a postern gate to the W. In the 4th c. the lower city was occupied again, as evidenced by the great polychome geometric mosaic discovered in the Place du Ralliement. Many objects from ancient Juliomagus are now in the Musée Archéologique St. Jean at Angers.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. Guéry, Angers à travers les âges, (1913); Pinier, “Deuxième note sur le rempart romain d'Angers,” Revue del l'Anjou (1914) 5-43; G. H. Forsyth, The Church of St Martin at Angers (1953).

M. PETIT

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