LUTETIA PARISIORUM
later PARISIUS (Paris)
France.
Chief city of the Gallic civitas Parisioruin in Lugdunensis Quarta, becoming Parisius in the
5th c. A.D. The Gallic oppidum was on the Ile de la Cité,
which at that time was smaller than it is today and was
linked to the riverbanks by two bridges; it seems to have
been occupied by the Parisii ca. 250-225 B.C. During the
Gallic Wars the inhabitants burned the bridges (52 B.C.).
The Gallo-Roman city was rebuilt on the island but it
developed mainly on the hill on the S bank of the river
(the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève); here public buildings
were put up, the N plain, low-lying and in part easily
flooded, remaining uninhabited in the Early Empire, the
city's prosperous period. Laid waste by the barbarians
ca. A.D. 275, the city acquired a fortified keep when a
surrounding wall was built on the Ile de la Cité. Nevertheless, contrary to what has long been stated, the
Gallo-Roman city almost certainly was not confined to
the island in the Late Empire; on the contrary, a sizable
part of the S bank continued to be inhabited. Lutetia
played an important military role in the 4th c. Julian
and Valentinian stayed there, and later Clovis made it
the cathedra regni.
During the Early Empire, the cardo, which was oriented N-S, joined the road leading in one direction to
Senlis and in the other to Orléans—the route the Rue
Saint-Martin and Rue Saint-Jacques follow today. Paving
from the period of the Early Empire has been found
underneath the latter street. Several decumani branched
out from it to the S as well as some diagonal roads,
necessitated by the slope of the ground. It is not certain
whether in the Late Empire a road was built to the W
leading to Saint-Denis, parallel to the N section of the
cardo. The Ile de la Cité has kept hardly any coherent
remains from the Early Empire: its topography was first
completely changed and the ground level raised during
the rebuilding after the rampart was built in the Late
Empire, then it was destroyed. What remains are the
foundations discovered in the Palais de Justice in 1848,
those uncovered in 1847 at the Parvis Notre-Dame, and
in the same area a paved floor and some walls excavated in 1965-70. There is nothing to prove there
was a temple underneath the present Cathedral of
Notre Dame, the Nautae pillar—discovered below the
chancel in 1711—being made of reused blocks. The
Early Empire necropolis, which used to be known as
fief des Tombes and was partially investigated in the 19th
c., was excavated again in 1957-60. Situated to the S
alongside the Orléans road, it contained no tombs later
than the end of the 3d c. All the public monuments
were on the S bank, the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève,
while the new buildings spread down the hill, not up it
away from the island as used to be thought.
The forum, which was excavated in the 19th c. and
whose S section was again studied in 1970, seems to
have replaced a circular building of the 1st c. A rectangle 782 x 100 m, it gave onto the Orléans road on its
small E side and had a central platform, which no
doubt served as the base of a temple or basilica, with
an open area around it edged by a wall; backed against
the wall were stalls with a portico above them. Graffiti
make it possible to date the retaining wall of the central platform from the beginning of the 2d c. at the
latest. This wall had a gallery, which was painstakingly
filled in from the time it was built along the greater
part of its length.
Lutetia had three baths. Those to the N, the Cluny
baths, are still well preserved. They were built on a
rectangular plan, the long side lying perpendicular to
the cardo, and measured 100 x 65 m on the exterior.
Inside, the rooms were laid out according to the circular
type. The frigidarium still has its groined vault; it is
supported partly by large consoles representing ships'
prows, no doubt a link with the guild of the nautae pansiaci that put up a votive pillar in Tiberius' reign, some
elements of which were found to have been reused in the
Cité. Judging from their method of construction (walls
of mortared rubble faced with small blocks and banded
with brick), these baths seem to go back to the last
quarter of the 2d c. or the first quarter of the 3d c.
(excavations carried out in the 19th c. and in 1946-56).
The E baths, which are close by but to the E of the
cardo, were slightly smaller (75-80 x 68 m), with
circular hot rooms. Excavated in the 19th c. and from
1935 to 1938, they are incompletely known. Built very
probably a little earlier than the N baths, they replaced
an earlier building. Finally there are baths, measuring
60 x 40 m, a little S of the forum. Long believed to be
a villa, when they were excavated in the 19th c. they
were found to be decorated with painted walls and
marbles. They were built on the site of an earlier building and seem to be later than the forum. They got their
water from an aqueduct coining from the S, which was
16 km long, with a 330 m bridge; traces of piers are still
to be seen. To the E was an amphitheater with a stage.
Its oval arena measured 52 x 46 m. A 1st c. monument,
it was discovered in the 19th c. and restored. Some of
the original parts are still standing, and some drums of
the half-columns decorating the cavea have been found.
A small theater (72 x 49 m) was also built, probably
shortly after the N baths, W of the amphitheater near
what is now the Jardin du Luxembourg, which probably
was the wealthiest section of the city. Seventy-three
Gallo-Roman votive deposits were excavated in 1972-73.
The suggestion that there was a circus, at least to the E
on the banks of the Seine (the old Halle aux vins), must
in all reasonableness be rejected.
During the Late Empire, after the invasions of the
late 3d c., a fortified keep was built in the Cité. About
300 the Cité was enclosed in a rampart; its foundations
have been located to the N, E, and S (in the 19th c.
and from 1965 to 1970). They were probably composed
of layers of quarrystone bonded with mortar and overlaid
on top with a dry masonry of more or less recut blocks,
many from the monuments of the upper city (stelae, architectural fragments). Treasure dating from ca. 275 was
discovered in 1970 on the S side of the city outside the
rampart. The island buildings were replaced by new
ones erected on the risen earth, which caused the ground
level to rise from 0.80 to 2 m. Various fragments of
these buildings have been unearthed: two rooms heated
by a hypocaust are preserved in the Parvis Notre Dame
along with the furnace (excavations of 1965-70), and
in particular, a well-built wall of mortared rubble faced
with small blocks and flanked by five large buttresses;
it stands at one end of the S bridge (the Petit Pont)
and looks as if it had once been part of a public building.
A Christian cemetery was located on the S bank, to
the extreme E (Saint-Marcel), when the area was excavated. A late hypocaust floor was discovered in the
Jardin du Luxembourg in 1957. These finds, together
with a study of the building of sanctuaries in the Merovingian period, have recently led to the conclusion that
Lutetia still remained on the S bank in the Late Empire
while some construction started to develop on the N
bank. In the Early Empire a sanctuary dedicated to
Mercury stood outside the city, on the Montmartre hill,
and next to it some buildings and a small necropolis.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
P. M. Duval,
Paris antique, des origines
au IIIe siècle (1961), with critical bibliography; id.,
Inscriptiones antiques de Paris (1961); id., “Lutece gauloise et gallo-romaine,” Paris:
croissance d'une capitale
(1961); M. Fleury, “Paris du Bas-Empire au début du
XIII
e siècle,” in
Paris: croissance d'une capitale (1961);
id., “Informations arch.,”
Gallia (1967, 1970); id.,
“Comptes rendus de fouilles,”
Procès-verbaux de la
Commission du Vieux Paris (1961ff); id.,
Carte arch.
de Paris (1
er sér., 1971); id.,
Annuaire de la IVe Section
de l'Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes (1972-73); id.,
Paris monumental (1974).
M. FLEURY