CAESAROMAGUS
(Beauvais) Oise, France.
The capital of the civitas of the Bellovaci. It is not yet
known whether Caesaromagus of the ancient itineraries
supplanted the city of Bratuspantium, last refuge of the
Bellovaci after their defeat by Caesar, or whether it
was a city created by the Romans. No trace of the Gallic
fortifications has been found at Beauvais, while such
remains exist elsewhere in the civitas of the Bellovaci
(Vendeuil-Caply, Bailleul sur Thérain), and indeed no
vestiges of any kind from the Gallic period have been
discovered there.
The plan of the town is not known in detail, but its
limits are indicated by the Gallo-Roman necropoleis,
three of which have been found: Notre Dame du Thil
to the N, one to the S near the Thérain, and the third to
the NE at the rue du Pressoir Coquet. The extent of
the ancient city under the Early Empire seems to have
been about that of the modern one. The dwellings were
for the most part individual houses with porticos, widely
dispersed and often remodeled (in the first two centuries A.D. the ground level rose 1-2 m).
Some of the buildings are better known. On Mt. Capron, N of the city and E of the road to Amiens, stood
a temple discovered in the 18th c. which has completely
disappeared although its plan is known. On the site
of the modern church of Saint-Étienne stood a bath
complex which was excavated at the beginning of the
19th c. A circular ensemble of the Severan period located at the chevet of the cathedral has recently been
excavated. It was built between two Roman streets, on
the site of an Early Empire district demolished to permit its construction. The nature of this half-ruined ensemble is uncertain, but probably it is a large semicircular portico surrounding a public square. The forum,
the theater, and the circus, however, have not been
located.
In the Late Empire the city was completely destroyed
and a strong rampart was built. The rampart is partially
preserved along with some of its towers at the rue
Racine and the rue Philippe de Dreux, and its line is
well known. The fortified sector represented only a tenth
of the area of the Early Empire city. The wall had two
gates, the Porte du Chatel to the E and the Porte du
Limaçon to the W.
Artifacts were lost in the destruction of the museum in
1940, but recent excavations have uncovered a number
of carved blocks reused in the Late Empire fortifications,
as well as much Gallo-Roman and particularly Carolingian pottery, for which Beauvais appears to have been
an important center.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
G. Archer & V. Leblond,
La balnéaire
gallo-romain de Beauvais (1906); V. Leblond, “La topographie romaine de Beauvais et son enceinte au IVème
siècle,”
BAC (1915) 3-39; P. Durvin, “Un coup de
sonde à travers les vestiges gallo-romains de Caesaromagus,”
Ogam 15 (1963) 49-64; G. Matherat, “La première campagne de César contre les Bellovaques et le
geste passis manibus,”
Hommages A. Grenier, Latomus
58 (1962) 1134-50; E. Will, “L'activité archéologique
dans les régions Nord et Picardie,”
Revue du Nord 199
(1968) 677-79; C. Pietri, “Informations,”
Gallia 29, 2
(1971) 224-26.
P. LEMAN
