NEMETACUM
later ATREBATUM (Arras) Pas de
Calais, France.
Mentioned by Caesar in the
Gallic Wars, in the 4th c. it adopted the name of the
civitas, Atrebatum, of which it was chief town. Situated
on a high plateau, it has no navigable waterway; the
Scarpe, at the N boundary of the city, is navigable only
below Douai. At the confluence of the Gy and the Scarpe,
W of Arras, was an important oppidum, the so-called
Camp de César at Etrun, which is still remarkably well
preserved.
The city is divided into three unequal sections: the
city proper, the Baudimont quarter, which was ringed
with a rampart in the Late Empire; the sector separated
from the city by the Grinchon creek, which appears to
represent the Roman city at its period of greatest expansion under the Empire; and finally the Méaulens quarter
to the NW, at the confluence of the Scarpe and the
Baudimont creek, where the Cassel and Therouanne
roads apparently met in Roman times. There is no trace
of any place of amusement or prestige monument, no
theater, basilica, or forum. Some sections of streets were
located in the 19th c., but it was not until 1946 that
systematic excavations began, in particular in the Baudimont quarter. These excavations have located houses
along with their cellars, determined the extent of the city
and, especially, uncovered a late 2d c. stratum destroyed
by fire, perhaps as a result of the Chauci invasion of 172-174.
Salvage work in the last few years has clarified certain
elements of the topography of the ancient city. In 1965
an important fragment of the wall of the Late Empire
city was discovered under the Prefecture, tucked away
in the center of the strongly fortified city of Baudimont.
This would indicate a castrum with a total area of 8 ha,
and the discovery of a trench E of the castrum confirms
its boundaries.
At Les Blancs Moats on the Saint Polsur Ternoise
road a complex of potter's kilns was found accidentally,
and nearby several ditches of early date. A tomb of the
Late Iron Age has also been located. All the finds are
now in the Arras museum. The textile industry of the
Late Empire is known to us chiefly from texts, no
archaeological remains having been found. Finds made
below ground suggest that building stones were quarried
here. Very recently an aerial survey has located some
ancient agricultural complexes E of Arras.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. Terninck,
Arras Gallo-romain (1866);
CIL XIII, 3531; F. Vercauteren,
Etudes sur les civitates
de la Belgique Seconde (1934) 181-204; G. Bellanger,
“Fouilles du site gallo-romain de la cité d'Arras,”
Revue du Nord 29 (1948) 207-12; J. Heurgon, “Arras, Fouilles
en 1952 de M. Bellanger et du Dr Bourgeois à Baudimont,”
Gallia 12 (1954) 135-36; M. Wheeler & K. Richardson, Hill-Forts of Northern France (1957) s.v. Etrun;
A. Leduque,
Recherches topo-historiques sur l'Atrébatie
(1966) 43-56; G. Jelski,
Bull. Coin. Départ. Mon. Hist.
Pas de Calais 9 (1971);
Septentrion 17 (1974) 13-20.
C. PIETRI
