CEMELENUM
(Cimiez) Alpes-Maritimes, France.
Situated 3 km NE of Nice (Greek Nikaia, which
was founded from Massilia in the 4th c. B.C. and has left
few remains). The Roman town was established near
the ancient oppidum of the Celto-Ligurian tribe of the
Vediantii (Plin.
HN 3.47-49; Ptol. 3.1.39), near Liguria.
The choice of site was no doubt dictated both by strategic
considerations (a key position on the road from Italy
to Spain and at the start of the Sisteron and Alps road)
and by the antiquity of the alliance between Rome and
the Vediantii. Their name is not mentioned among the
tribes conquered in the expeditions of 154 and 125-123,
nor on the inscription of the trophy at La Turbie. The
founding of the Roman establishment (whose name,
Cemelenum, is of Ligurian origin) is linked to the end
of the campaigns to pacify the Alpine tribes in 25-14
B.C. and to the construction of the Via Julia Augusta
in 13 B.C. (cf. Tropaeum Alpium). From the Augustan
period on Cemelenum became the capital of the autonomous district of Alpes Maritimae, administered by a
praefectus civitatum in Alpibus Maritimis. Later it was
the capital of the province of the same locality, governed by a procurator of the equestrian order. At that
time the inhabitants received from Nero the jus Latii
before becoming Roman citizens in the following century. Cemelenum retained this role as an administrative
capital until the reforms of Diocletian. At the beginning
of the 5th c. it became the seat of a bishopric dependent
first on Arles (Arelate), then on Marseille. The town
was abandoned in the 6th c.
The boundaries have not been definitely ascertained
except to the N. Its interior arrangement cannot be
specified in spite of the discovery of several stretches of
streets orientated according to an orthogonal plan. But
the excavation of five necropoleis, dating from the 1st
to the 6th c., and above all the discovery of a huge
district in the Parc des Arènes permit the reconstruction
of the history of the monuments of the city: a modest
arrangement in the 1st c., growth and embellishment
under the Severans, destruction in the 4th c., and Early
Christian renascence in the 5th.
Few remains of the 1st c. town survive, but most of
them confirm Cemelenum's military nature. There are
funerary stelae of soldiers belonging to the Ligurian
cohort (cf. Tac.
Hist. 2.14), the Gaetulian cohort, or
sailors. A small amphitheater (dimensions of the arena:
46 x 34.80 m) could contain ca. 500 spectators—the
strength of a cohort—and probably was destined for
the drills of the soldiers. Possibly there was a small
circus of the type found in certain camps of the Rhine
limes. It was circumscribed by a long wall with buttresses
faced with regular ashlar masonry. It was contemporary
with the first stage of the N decumanus. From the
Claudian period there is a statue dedicated by the emperor to his mother Antonia. Finally, of two aqueducts
discovered, one dates to the first years of the 1st c. A.D.,
the other perhaps to its end.
Two series of baths were built in the first years of
the 3d c., another in the middle of the century. The
ensemble is the largest and most grandiose which Roman
Gaul has produced. Possibly the N baths were reserved
for the procurator and the garrison. A monumental
entry with a portico leads to the frigidarium (more
than 10 m high), long called the Temple of Apollo.
There follow a tepidarium, laconicum, and two caldaria.
A vast swimming pool, a palnestra, latrines, reservoirs,
and various annexes complete this monument of striking
luxury. Its arrangement was changed in the second half
of the century. Separated from the N baths by the decumanus I, the E baths seem to have been reserved for
men. South of these, in the corner of a spacious court
is found a rectangular building with an apse. Presumably it is the schola of one of Cemelenum's corporations.
These (the fabri, centonarii, utricularii) are known to
us from inscriptions kept in the museum. This schola is
next to an older rectangular building which extended
to the decumanus II. This street has preserved its stone
flagging, drains, and narrow sidewalks, and was probably
laid out in the 2d c. (under Hadrian ?). It is lined by
private houses which were remodeled many times over
five centuries. Going back towards the NW, one comes
across a third bathing establishment, the W baths. It was
reserved for women to judge by the many pieces of
feminine ornament found in the drains. The structures
are mostly hidden by Early Christian buildings. Finally,
the remodeling of the amphitheater, whose cavea was
enlarged, must also be attributed to the 3d c.
In the 4th c. the baths were abandoned and destroyed,
and limekilns were installed, some of which are still
visible. The aqueducts went out of use, and the site did
not revive until the 5th c. Then Early Christian buildings were erected on the ruins of the W baths: a church,
a sacristy, and a baptistery with out-buildings (small
baths and vestiary). The most interesting room is the
trapezoidal baptistery, adorned with eight columns. In
the middle it had a hexagonal tub, at the angles of which
one can see the bases of the six small columns of a
ciborium.
The archaeological museum (Villa des Arènes) brings
together abundant material from the region from the 8th
c. B.C. until the abandonment of the town. Of note are
various important funerary and epigraphic pieces.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
P. M. Duval, “Les fouilles de Cimiez,”
Gallia 4 (1946); “Chroniques des circonscriptions
arch., Circonscription de Provence-Côte d'Azur,”
Gallia
(1950ff); F. Benoît,
Nice et Cimiez antiques (1968)
PI.
A comprehensive description of the site by F. Benoît
is forthcoming.
C. GOUDINEAU
