RATIATUM
(Rezé) Loire Atlantique, France.
The site, first identified in the 18th c., lies on the left
bank of the Loire at the E end of the estuary, facing the
modern city of Nantes. Occupied from the reign of Augustus on, the city of Ratiatum had many monuments
of which little remains today except in the writings of
local scholars of the last century: in 1853 a great colonnaded portico was found near the W portal of the present-day church.
Recent excavations at Rezé have uncovered a large
quantity of material both from occupation strata and
from funerary pits, which are particularly plentiful in the
Saint-Lupien quarter. Many objects found at Rezé are in
the Nantes museum.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
L. Maitre, “Rezé, La ville romaine et
les ruines païennes,”
Annales de Bretagne (1895); P. Merlat, “Fouilles et sondages à Rezé,” ibid. 64, 1 (1957); A. Plouhinec, “Les fouilles du quartier Saint-Lupien de
Rezé,” ibid. 71, 1 (1964).
M. PETIT
