BURDIGALA
(Bordeaux) Dept. Gironde, France.
A port on the estuary of the Garonne, 90 km
from the Atlantic, this was the chief city of the Celtic
tribe of the Bituriges Vivisci. It was founded in the
3d c. B.C. for the purpose of controlling the Gallic
isthmus which was on the route of the tin trade. The city
was almost certainly a municipium under Vespasian,
then became the capital of the province of Aquitania.
Still later, in the period of the Tetrarchy, it was the
capital of the second Aquitania province, the vicarius of
the diocese of Gaul having his residence there. The Vandals seized it in 409 and the Visigoths in 414.
Very little is known of the town plan of Burdigala or
its first monuments; the original forum (on Mont Judaïque?) has not been located, and the plan of the
streets is conjectural. From Ausonius' writings and from
chance finds and excavations we know more about the
city rampart: in the Tetrarchy it confined what had been
an open city in the Early Empire (125 ha) within an
area of only 31 ha. This small castrum formed an almost regular oblong. The river was connected to the
inland port by the Navigère gate; the city got its water
supply from a tributary of the Garonne, the Devèze,
which was canalized. And according to Ausonius, a certain fountain of Divona captured the waters of a sacred
spring and spewed forth abundant, swift torrents of water
from its 12 bronze mouths. Both the quays and the
rampart of the port had strong foundations resting on
wooden piles and girders. The foundations were made
from the debris of all sorts of monuments, piled up skillfully, as a precaution, into a mass 6 m high and S m
thick. The wall proper was 3 m high and built of
mortared rubble-work faced on either side with small
blocks, every 10 or 12 rows being banded with three rows
of brick. The rampart was strengthened by semicircular
towers that were set every 50 m; the four corners were
fortified by larger towers, the wall having only three
gates (Porta lovia to the W and two gates dominating
the principal cardo).
Outside the rampart is the amphitheater known now
as the Palais Galien, the only monument that has left
any lasting trace of the monumental splendor of the
Severan age; still visible in the cellars of some Bordeaux
buildings today, it was ruined in the Germanic invasions
of A.D. 276. Seven rings of arcaded walls of ellipsoidal
plan supported the wooden tiers. These walls have a
core of rubble faced with small blocks, with a triple
band of brick every seven courses. The 15,000 spectators,
divided among three caveae, reached their seats by a
skillful arrangement of sloping corridors, wooden stairs,
and passageways. On the long axis (132.30 m; small,
110.60 m) are some monumental entries over 22 m
high, the design of whose inner walls recalls the frontes
scenae. They led to some carceres under the podium
steps. For draining the arena, which measured 69.80 x
46.70 m, there was a carefully built stone sewer which
ran to the foot of the podium.
Another Severan monument, the so-called Piliers de
Tutelle, disappeared in the 17th c. These piers have no
connection with any temple of Tutela but look as if they
belonged to the portico that ran around the Severan
forum.
A Christian quarter grew up outside the Porta lovia
around the Saint-Etienne church and the necropolis,
which flourished in the 4th c. Architectural and sculptural finds are housed in the Musée d'Aquitaine.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. C. Jullian,
Hist. de Bordeaux depuis
les origines jusqu'en 1895 (1895); R. Etienne,
Bordeaux
Antique (1962)
MPI; id., in
l'Hist. de l'Aquitaine (1971)
65-127; id.,
L'amphithéâtre du Palais Galien (
Bordeaux), in preparation. For reports since 1962, see
Gallia 21
(1963) 505-9; 23 (1965) 413-16; 25 (1967) 327-28; 27
(1969) 343-47.
R. ETIENNE
