MEDIOLA´NUM
MEDIOLA´NUM a Gallic name of towns which occurs in Gallia, North Italy, and Britain.
1.
Mediolanum is placed in the Table between Forum Segustavarum (
Feurs) and Rodumna (
Rouanne).
As to D'Anville's remarks on the position of Mediolanum, see
FORUM SEGUSIANORUM This Mediolanum is supposed to have been a town of the Transalpine
INSUBRES and so it is generally marked in our maps; but the existence of these Transalpine Insubres is hardly established. [
GALLIA CISALPINA Vol. I. p. 936.]
2.
The Table places Mediolanum between Argentomagus (
Argenton) and Aquae Nerae (
Néris). The figures which have been generally considered to belong to this road, belong to another, and so we have no distances in the Table for this place. Mediolanum seems to be
Château Meillan, south of Avaricum (
Bourges).
A milestone found at
Alichamp between
Bourges and
Château Meillan, makes the distance from Avaricum to Mediolanum to be 39 M. P., which is not far from the truth. (Walckenaer,
Géog. &c. vol. i. p. 67.)
3.
The Antonine Itin. places a Mediolanum on a road from Colonia Trajana (
Kelln) to Colonia Agrippina (
Cologne), and 12 M. P. from Colonia Trajana. If Colonia Trajana is rightly placed, it is
[p. 2.303]difficult to see where Mediolanum should be.
The next position to Mediolanum on the road to
Cologne is Sablones; which is also uncertain.
4.
Mediolanum was the chief town of the Aulerci Eburovices (
Ptol. 2.8.11), or Mediolanium, as it is in Ptolemy's text.
The name occurs in the Antonine Itin. and in the Table.
In the Notitia of the Gallic provinces it is named Civitas Ebroicorum; and in the middle ages it was called Ebroas, whence the modern name
Evreux, a town in the French department of
Eure.
Ammianus Marcellinus (
15.11) mentions Mediolanum as one of the chief cities of Secunda Lugdunensis.
There was a Roman town a few miles south-east of
Evreux, at a place called
Vieil Evreux. There are the remains of a large theatre here, the foundations of a building which is supposed to have been a temple, and remains of baths.
A great number of amphorae, household utensils, articles of luxury, and imperial medals have been dug up here, and deposited in the Museum of
Evreux. This
Vieil Evreux may be the site of Mediolanum.
5.
Mediolanum was the chief town of the Santones or Santoni, now
Saintes, in the French department of
Charente Inférieure. Strabo (
iv. p.190) writes the name Mediolanium, and also Ptolemy (
2.7.7). Marcellinus (15.11) speaks of this place under the name of Santones, from which it appears that in his time the name of the people had, as in many instances, been transferred to the town.
There is no doubt about the site of this Mediolanum, which is
Saintes on the
Charente. It was once a considerable Roman town.
There is an arch in honour of Germanicus Caesar, which appears to be built on the middle of the bridge over the
Charente, which joins the town to the faubourg, but the arch rests on the bed of the river, and the bridge has been built to it from each bank.
The most probable explanation of this singular circumstance is that the arch stood originally on one bank of the river, and that the river changed its course.
The bridge, of course, must have been built after this supposed change.
The amphitheatre is outside of the town, at the bottom of a valley.
It is an ellipse, about 436 feet long and about 354 feet wide. Water was brought to the town from a source several miles to the north by an aqueduct, of which there are still some remains.
In one of the valleys which it crossed there are traces of 25 arches, of which three are standing. One of them is nearly 50 feet high. [
G.L]
