EPAMANDUODURUM
EPAMANDUODURUM or
EPAMANTADURUM.
This town is placed by the Antonine Itin. on a road from Vesontio (
Besançon) to Larga (
Largitzen). From Vesontio to Velatodurum the Itin. makes 22, and from Velatodurum to Epamanduodurum 12.
In another place the distance is given 31, and Velatodurum is omitted. The Table makes it 13 to Loposagio, and thence 18 to Epomanduo, as it is written.
Epamanduodurum is
Mandeure. A milestone that was dug up at
Mandeure, with the name of Trajan upon it, bore the inscription “Vesont. M. P. XXXXIIX,” from which we must infer that the numbers in the Itins. denote Gallic leagues.
Mandeure is in the arrondissement of
Montbéliard, in the department of
Doubs, in a pleasant valley. The
Doubs flowed through the town, which was, of course, on both sides of the river; and the two parts were united by three bridges, of which the traces are said to remain, and also of the forts which protected them.
The position of the place with respect to the frontier of the Rhone made it an important post.
The excavations that were made at
Mandeure in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries brought to light a great number of Roman remains, consisting of medals, pottery, gold, silver, and bronze ornaments, statues, fragments of columns, cinerary urns, and various utensils.
The remains of an aqueduct and lead pipes were discovered, of three temples, of baths, and of a theatre cut in the rock. The Roman road to
Besançon may also be traced.
It is called in the neighbourhood the
Chaussée de César, which proves nothing as to its antiquity, for Caesar's name is used by tradition like that of other great conquerors. However, Caesar's march from Vesontio to fight Ariovistus was up the valley of the
Doubs, and probably enough he went near Epamanduodurum.
In the canton of
Montbéliard there “are some vestiges of a Roman camp;” and, according to Schöpflin, an authority for the antiquities of Alsace and the neighbouring parts, it was in the plain about
Montbéliard that Caesar defeated the German Ariovistus, B.C. 58; but this is impossible, if Caesar's text is rightly read. Epamanduodurum is a town unknown to history, and yet it appears to have been a considerable place.
The name leads to the conclusion. that it was an old Gallic town, and on a river, as the termination of the name shows, and the position of the modern site. (
Guide du Voyageur, &c. par Richard et E. Hocquart.)
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G.L]
