GRAND
Vosges, France.
This was an important Gallo-Roman town of the civitas Leucorum, its
ancient name is not now known. Possibly Grand was the
locality cited in the
Peutinger Table under the name of
Andesina.
The built-up area, of indisputably urban character, is
situated on a forested plateau, away from major strategic and commercial routes of the Empire. Grand undoubtedly owed its growth to the existence of a cult to
a native healing deity (Grannus?), which was replaced
after the Roman conquest by a Sanctuary to Apollo. A
passage of the
Alethia (3.204-9) by Claudius Marius
Victor (5th c.) very probably alludes to the divinity of
Grand. Perhaps the emperor Constantine came to pray
to the Apollo of Grand when, according to the Panegyric
of 310 (
Paneg. lat. 7.21), he made a detour to visit “the
world's most beautiful temple” and to receive the prophetic vision which revealed to him his future power.
One may suppose that, from the end of the 1st c., a
center of national independence and resistance developed
around the temple of Celtic origin. Essentially for this
reason the Romans chose to make Grand an example of
the town-making which was the sign of their presence
and authority. Although excavations have shown that the
town was destroyed several times, there was no break in
occupation from the time of Gallic independence to the
Merovingian period.
Today one can still see the remains of a certain number of monuments at the ancient site. The great mosaic,
preserved in situ, was discovered in 1883. The excavation
of 1961-62 proved that it formed part of a basilica of
eastern type. The proportions of the basilica are about
the same as those of the one built by Vitruvius at Fano
(De Arch. 5, § I), but it is of smaller size. The walls
were built of small, regular, quarry-stone ashlars with
buttresses on the other side and interior compartments.
They were faced with marble slabs, several of which are
still in place. Possibly the floor was paved in marble too.
Fragments of fluted columns and of capitals of composite Classical style have been discovered. The building was
roofed with limestone slabs, using the technique alluded
to by Pliny the Elder (
HN 1.36). A large thoroughfare
passed in front of the basilica; possibly it was the town
cardo. It appears to us as a covered gallery giving access
to both sides of the facade and forming with it a large
monumental ensemble.
On the other side of this thoroughfare was built a
monument whose plan and purpose are still little known.
However, the nature of the remains found with it and its
location at the official center of the ancient town suggest
that, if it was not the very Temple of Apollo to which
the town owed its fame, it was at least an important
part of a great cult complex lasting until the presentday church. To date only the NW corner of a platform
has been excavated. On the platform were raised bases
apparently intended to carry the decoration of marble
and of stone sculpture. Indeed, all around the masonry
there extended a layer of broken soft stone in which
more than 1500 sculptural and architectural fragments
of all sizes were gathered. A great number of them present the usual motifs of Graeco-Roman decorative sculpture. Some small figures in medium or high relief seem
to have formed part of a retinue of Bacchus, with his
customary acolytes and animals. Certain sculptures are
of larger size, in particular a child's head presumed to be
a portrait of Geta, son of Septimius Severus. Finally, a
very few pieces belonged to a colossal statue, most notably a left hand whose gesture recalls the imperial posture known from statues and medals. The presence of
such a statue in the monument or its immediate vicinity
leads to the supposition that an imperial personage, perhaps one of the Severans, took an interest in the Grand
sanctuary. In this connection one must recall the monumental inscription found in the 19th c. (
CIL XIII, 5940).
In any event, the style of all these sculptures and their
expert technique, unrelated to provincial products, prove
that this is an imported, commissioned work, intended
as propaganda, no doubt to consecrate the memory of a
political event and to serve as an accessory to the imperial cult.
Recent excavations inside the village have further revealed foundations and sculptures which perhaps belonged to the public baths. A large network of water
channels and wells has been discovered, as well as the
course of a rampart very carefully built with small
ashlars.
At the E end of the village is the monument usually
called the amphitheater. It is really a hybrid edifice intended to combine two functions, originally different in
intention and characteristics: on the one hand, a theater
reserved for dramatic productions; on the other, an amphitheater with an arena designed for the maneuvers of
gladiators and hunts of wild animals. The long axis
measures 149.5 m, the short, ca. 65 m. Inexpensively
built, the cavea takes advantage of the slope (ca. 15 m)
of a small valley. Eight vomitoria open in the interior
wall. The cavea is divided into three sectors by two radiating walls. Three zones are set off by two boundary
walls bordered by a terrace. At the bottom of the small
valley the elliptical arena communicates to the exterior
by two monumental corridors furnished with buttresses,
the ones to the W built of large ashlars, the ones to the
E made of small regularly hewn quarry stones. The tiers
of seats passed above these corridors and were held up
by the arches decorating the monument's N facade. Only
two of these arches survive today. Two masonry blocks,
symmetrical with respect to the arena, contained carceres,
which opened in the N walls of the two corridors. Below
these corridors and the arena itself ran a sewer. Recent
excavations have contributed evidence that the theater
was no longer in use after 170-80.
The artifacts recovered before 1960 are deposited in
the Epinal Museum. Those collected since then are kept
at Grand, in cases around the mosaic, pending the construction of a local museum.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
J.B.P. Pollois,
Mémoires sur quelques
antiquités remarquables du département des Vosges
(1843) 1-58, pls. 1-16
MPI; M. Toussaint, “Grand à
l'époque gallo-romaine,” in
Pays Lorrain (1933) 529-48
PI; id.,
Répertoire archéologique Vosges (1948) 79-130; R. Billoret,
Grand la Gallo-Romaine s.l.n.d.
(1965)
MPI; id., “La basilique de la ville antique de Grand,”
in
Comptes-rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions (1965)
63-74
PI; id. in
Gallia 24 (1966); 26 (1968); 28
(1970)
PI; 30 (1972); E. Salin, “Aperçu général de la
ville antique de Grand” in
Comptes-rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions (1965) 75-86.
R. BILLORET
