NOVIOMAGUS LEXOVIORUM
(Lisieux) Calvados,
France.
At the confluence of the Orbiquet and
Touques, 28 km from the English Channel. The name
Noviomagus, which is Gaulish, was mentioned by the
ancient writers. Before the Roman occupation there was
a fairly large settlement here, a hypothesis confirmed by
the Castelier camp W of the city. The camp is on a plateau sloping SE and bordered, also to the SE, by the
stream known as Le Cirieux. The defenses were oval, the
axes measuring 1300 and 1500 m, and the camp covered
an area of ca. 200 ha. The construction of the vallum
shows that it was Celtic in origin: the walls, 7-8 m thick
and 3 m high, are made of horizontal courses of stones
and of intersecting oak beams which form grilles 0.6 m
apart. The vertical and horizontal beams are fastened
with iron pins 0.3 m long. The wood and stone courses
alternate.
At the time of Caesar's conquest the city was organized
and had a government; apparently the city of the Lexovii
was considered to be free and friendly. It grew with the
Roman occupation, attaining the second rank of Gallic
cities. The civitas occupied most of the area of the modern town; Gallo-Roman traces have been found everywhere beneath Lisieux. The artisans' quarters were in the heart of the modern city, the residential sections on the
hills to the W in the commune of Saint-Désir (amphitheater near the Le Merderet brook, villas in the field called Les Tourettes), and to the E (villa below the site of the modern hospital).
A commercial center, Noviomagus was an important
meeting point for Roman roads, and the closeness of the
sea enhanced the importance of the site. A port had been
created at the junction of the Orbiquet and the Touques,
in the axis of what is now the Place Thiers. During the
first half of the 3d c. A.D. bands of Saxon pirates attacked
the English and French coasts, and Noviomagus was
probably sacked in one of these raids. After the first destruction the city recovered; repairs have been noted in the masonry of the amphitheater. The inhabitants set up a fortified camp in the most easily defended section of
the city; it was protected by the port (Place Thiers), the
valley of the Touques, and the Rathouyne forest E of the
city (the Roques wood is a remnant of this forest). The
rectangular complex, ca. 400 by 200 m, was bounded on
its long side to the W by the Orbiquet and the port, and
on the E by the forest. Part of the Boulevards Sainte-Anne, Jeanne d'Arc, and Emile Demagny are on the sites
of the S and E trenches. Here and there towers projected
above the rampart (foundations of one have been located
in the Boulevard Jeanne d'Arc).
The castrum had several gates, the Porte d'Orbec to
the S on the line of the modern Rue Victor-Hugo and
to the E, the Porte de Paris, which led out of the city
through the Rathouyne forest toward Lillebonne and Le
Vieil Evreux. To the W, behind the port, there was probably a gate in the continuation of the old Rue Petite
Couture (a section of a Roman road paved with flat
stones has been uncovered on this line). Excavation in
the Rue Pont-Mortain located the W side of the rampart: built on the ruins of the first structure (architectural
debris, charred stones), the wall is built of rubble set in
grayish-white mortar, with an outer facing. The inner
facing is of small blocks, with horizontal bonding courses
made of three rows of pink bricks. An aqueduct, a few
meters from this wall, was built after the wall but before
the city was destroyed. A well was also noted under the
modern transport station, indicating arrangements necessary in case of siege.
The city was probably destroyed in the Saxon invasions
ca. 268-270: its suburb was ruined, its monuments razed,
and the castrum wall badly damaged. The civitas was not
abandoned however; the survivors took refuge in the
castrum and used the recovered stones to patch up the
wall. At the end of the 4th c. the
Notitia Provinciarum
placed Noviomagus in the tenth rank of Lugdunensis Secunda. The city of the Lexovii survived inside the castrum—its walls badly repaired with mortar of poor quality—throughout the whole of the early Middle Ages.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
De Formeville, “Note sur un cimetiére
gallo-romain découvert en 1848 à Saint-Jacques de Lisieux,”
Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie 7 (1847) 285-94; A. Pannier, “Résumé des découvertes du XVIIIe s.,”
Congrès Archéologique, 37e
session, Lisieux (1870) 29-32; R. M. Sauvage, “La Basse-Normandie Gallo-romaine,”
Congrès Archéologique,
LXXIVe Session, Caen (1908) 502-15; C. A. Simon,
“Lisieux à l'époque gallo-romaine,”
Le Pays d'Auge (Nov. 1956) 7-9; F. Cottin, “Noviomagus Lexoviorum,
des temps les plus lointains à la fin de l'occupation romaine,”
Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie 53 (1955-56) 108-96; F. Caillaud & E. Lagnel,
“Un Four de potier gallo-romain à Lisieux,”
Annales de
Normandie 3 (1965) 233-51.
C. PILET
