SAMAROBRIVA
or Samarabriva (Amiens) Somme,
France.
City of the Belgica province of Gaul.
The Gallic city of Samarabriva (bridge over the Samara,
or Somme) is mentioned several times in Caesar's Commentaries (
BGall 5.24.1; 47.2; 53.3) yet its exact site is
difficult to pinpoint (on a defensive site as the oppida of
the Ambiani generally were, i.e. on the arms of the
Somme or the high ground to the N?). It was succeeded
during the 1st c. A.D. at the latest by the Roman city of
the same name, built on flat dry ground on the S bank
of the river. Situated at the point where the roads from
Beauvais, Rouen, Senlis, and Soissons converge before
they cross the Somme and continue on to Boulogne and
Brittany or to the territory of the Morini and the lower
Rhine, Samarobriva under the Antonines became an important regional city. ca. 277-278, after the first barbarian
invasion (256), it withdrew inside a narrow surrounding
wall and in the 4th c. adopted the name of Civitas
Ambianensium (or Ambianorum;
Not. dig. occ. 6.36),
becoming an important military stronghold behind the
threatened Rhine frontier. It was near one of the city
gates, ca. 334, that St. Martin, who was garrisoned there,
came across the beggar with whom he divided his cloak.
Magnentius, the usurper, was born in Amiens and set up
a mint there, and here the emperor Valentinian I, who
spent several months in the city, proclaimed his son
Gratianus emperor Augustus 24 August 367. The fortified city succumbed to another barbarian assault in 406.
In the Merovingian period life went on in two sections:
the count took over the ancient civitas, whose fortifications had been restored, while a quarter of merchants
and artisans grew up around the bishop's residence, in a
suburb to the E. At the beginning of the 12th c. the two
were joined by a new rampart to form what was to become modern Amiens.
Very little is left of the monuments that adorned the
Roman city. The
Passio S. Firmini recalls temples built
in honor of Jupiter and Mercury; of the altars consecrated to the eponymous goddess and a local divinity, Veriugodumnus, only the dedications remain (
CIL VIII, 3490, 3487). Some traces of the harbor installations on
the river (Rue des Tanneurs) and of two other buildings
were discovered in excavations undertaken in the 19th c.
and resumed after the last war: near the Hôtel de Ville,
substructures of a nearly circular (100 x 107 m) 1st c.
amphitheater; in the Rue de Beauvais, two rectangular
rooms with opposed apses, the cold and heated pools
(the latter with hypocausts) of a bath building from the
first half of the 2d c. In the foundations of these rooms
were some carved fragments originally used in a large
public building of the preceding century.
The plan of the streets, however, can be traced exactly
thanks to recent finds. The city was designed on a grid
plan oriented N-S and E-W. This network enables us to
trace the growth of the Empire city in its successive
stages: a narrower grid (insulae of 100 x 80 Roman feet,
or ca. 160 x 125 m) in the NE section represents the
original urban center, which covered a modest area of
40 ha. This was the 1st c. city, at whose W limit stood
the amphitheater. In the 2d c. the plan was modified and
enlarged (to 105 ha) by the construction of new residential sections made up of larger insulae (100 Roman
feet or 160 m each side), and an improved street and
sewer system. The new city limits were extended W to
enclose the 1st c. amphitheater which ended up in the
heart of the city, a most unusual position; then to the S
the city took in an area that had previously been the
cemeteries, as evidenced by traces of funerary buildings
uncovered in the foundations of the baths. No trace of
the ancient grid has remained in the mediaeval or modern streets, except for the decumanus, which is a continuation of the road from Soissons (Rue des Trois Cailloux), and the cardo (Rue du Bloc, Rue de Flatters and
Rue des Sergents).
At the end of the 3d c. the city shrank inside a rampart. This plan, too, can be traced. The walls, 1300 m
long, enclosed an urban area of only ca. 10 ha. The fortified city was situated not to the E, around the cathedral,
as has long been believed, but actually W of the cardo
(the great Beauvais-Boulogne road), so that it overlooked the river to the N and was supported to the S by the amphitheater, now a fortress. Three of the rampart gates can be approximately located: the Porta Clippiana,
mentioned in the
Passio S. Firmini, stood to the S, close
to the amphitheater; the W gate, near the church of
Saint-Firmin-à-la-Porte; and the E gate was high up by
Saint-Martin-au-Bourg (the episode of the charity of St.
Martin is supposed to have taken place beside this last
gate).
Fewer traces of the Roman occupation are to be found
in the environs (poor remains of a dwelling near the
modern Citadelle) but we know more about the series of
cemeteries that surrounded the city except in the marshy
areas. The cemeteries of the Empire (cremation and
especially inhumation) contain some rather poor monuments and grave gifts. As usual the necropoleis were
along the main access routes: to the W, along the Rouen
road, to the E, on that of Noyon. To the W, along the
Senlis and Beauvais roads, are two series of burials that
together make up the largest cemetery, while the last one,
to the N along the road to Boulogne, was used up to the
Constantinian era. In the Late Empire and the Merovingian period the cemetery area shifted; as the city shrank
it came closer (to the area round the cathedral) and
occupied an old quarter of the Empire city that had been
left outside the walls. To the E, conversely, a late Christian cemetery grew up beyond the old Empire cemetery
area, near the tomb of St. Firmin at Saint-Acheul. The
archaeological finds are in the Musée de Picardie at
Amiens.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
St. Martin: Sulpicius Severus,
Vita Martini 3.1; Gratianus: Amm. Marc. 27.6; barbarian invasion: Jerome,
Epist. 123, 81; F. Vercauteren, “Etudes sur
les civitates de Belgique seconde de la fin du IIIe siècle
jusqu'a la fin du XIe siècle,”
Mémoires de l'Acad. Belge 33 (1934); Fr. Vasselle & E. Will, “Les cimetières gallo-romains d'Amiens,”
Revue du Nord 38 (1956) 321-30;
id., “L'enceinte du Bas-Empire et l'histoire de la ville
d'Amiens,”
Revue du Nord 40 (1958) 467-82; id.,
“L'Urbanisme romain à Samarobriva-Amiens,”
Revue du
Nord 42 (1960) 337-52; E. Will, “Recherches sur le
développement urbain sous l'empire romain dans le nord
de la France,”
Gallia 20 (1962) 79-101; J. L. Massy,
Revue du Nord 53 (1973) 23ff;
Gallia, periodic reports
of the excavations.
C. PIETRI
