SEXTANT,
later Substantion, Dept. Hérault, France.
The earlier form of the name is known from a
marble base from the Jardin de la Fontaine at Nimes. No
doubt it is Celtic, as is Ledus, the old name of the river
Lez on which the city was built, ca. 1 km upstream from
Castelnau-le-Lez. The city guarded the ford by which
the very ancient road from the Rhône to the Pyrenees,
known from 136 B.C. as the Via Domitia, crossed the
river. It then met a N-S road that ran alongside the
Lez from Lattes and went on to St. Drézéry. The earliest
settlement to be traced dates from the era of urn
burials (8th-7th c.). It seems to have become more
densely populated from the 6th c. on; trading brought
pottery from Asia Minor (gray Phokaian ware, Ionian
ware) and Etruria (amphorae, bucchero nero), then
Attic ware of the 6th, 5th, and 4th c. Consisting essentially of mud huts roofed with straw, the settlement
spread beyond the plateau named after it (the Naviteau
hill, on the banks of the Lez near La Gardie). However,
a funerary stele carved with a shield, sun wheels, and
two sculptures, one of them a portrait head, are evidence that there was some activity in the arts. In the
4th or 3d c. a surrounding wall was put up and the
inhabitants gathered inside it. In the Roman period at
least one temple was built (of which only an entablature
fragment and capital remain) along with some masonry
houses, paved streets, and a bridge over the Lez. Some
1st c. A.D. mosaics and inscriptions (C. Plaetorius Macrinus, a Mithraic priest) have been found, as well as
coins. In the Middle Ages (A.D. 737) Substantion was
a haven for the chapter of Maguelonne, which had been
destroyed by Charles Martel. The city minted coins in
the 9th c. and was the seat of a count. Thereafter it
declined, giving way to Castelnau and especially Montpellier, when the road was moved closer to the sea. By the 17th c. nothing was left of it but ruins.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. Bonnet,
Antiquités et Monuments
du Département de l'Hérault (1905); J. Vallon, “L'Hérault préhistorique et protohistorique,”
Mém. de la Soc. Arch. de Montpellier, 39-40 (Roman and mediaeval periods).
F. DAUMAS
