CABELIO
(Cavaillon) Vaucluse, France.
On
the Durance river, capital of the Gallic tribe of the S
Cavares, this was a Marseillaise city (cf. Steph. Byz.), a
Roman colony under Augustus, a Latin city in Narbonnaise Gaul (
Plin. 3.5) on the Domitian road where it
crosses the Durance (
Peutinger Table and Vicarello goblets).
St. Jacques' hill, which dominates the city, is the ancient oppidum of the Cavares, with vestiges of a wall of
large, hewn blocks and foundations of huts carved into
the cliff. Many Gallic coins have been found on the
ground: drachmas, obols, and small Massilian bronzes
(90 percent of the finds), coins of the Volques Arecomiques (Nimes), Samnagenses, Sequanes, Aedui, Remi,
and Allobroges. There are also sump wells and storage
ditches from Iron Age II, Gallic and Gallo-Roman cremation burials with funerary furniture consisting of lamps,
dishes, and glass vials, groups of Gallic stelai with inscriptions in Greek letters, epitaphs of Pompeïa Helena,
of a triumvir, and of an Augustan sevir, and a dedication
of the Cabellienses to Diadumenianus, the son of the
emperor Macrinus (in the Cavaillon Museum).
From the Roman period there remains a triumphal
arch with four facades; two of the four arches are preserved, resting on pilasters decorated with scrolls of
acanthus leaves with birds and butterflies. The caisson
vaults are decorated with squares, lozenges, and rosettes.
On the pediment, two winged victories face each other,
holding a laurel crown and a palm.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
P. de Brun & A. Dumoulin, “La colline
St Jacques de Cavaillon avant l'occupation romaine,”
CahHistArch (1938)
MI;
Forma orbis romani VII (1939);
A. Dumoulin, “Les puits et fosses de la colline St Jacques
de Cavaillon,”
Gallia 23, 1 (1965)
MPI; id.,
Visite des
monuments et Musées de la village de Cavaillon
(1968)
MPI.
A. DUMOULIN
