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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Nobody who has worked in the field of late Republican and early Imperial Rome can fail to be aware how remarkably little archaeological evidence we have of any specifically Roman presence in the provinces of which Rome was in political and military control during the last century of the Republic. In the east, where she was faced with a civilization older and richer than her own, this is intelligible enough. But for the student of the spread of Roman institutions and ideas in the west the gap is embarrassing. In Roman Britain we have no difficulty whatever in identifying the Gallic precedents for the settlement that followed the Roman conquest. But what lay behind the Caesarian and Augustan settlement in Gaul itself? In terms of the recent history of the area it would be reasonable to expect that in the south, at any rate, it should have been rooted in local Republican Roman practice; and yet there is remarkably little evidence of any such roots in the surviving remains. Much the same is true of Spain and Africa. Why is this? Is it that the impact of the early Imperial settlement was so strong that it swept away all trace of what had gone before? Or is it simply that the Republican Roman presence in these territories was not of a character to leave any substantial mark on the archaeological record?
1 Gallia XII (1954), 534, citing Formigé, J., Bull. Soc. Antiq. Fr. n.s. III (1950), 67–74.Google Scholar See previously Richmond, I. A. in Antiquity v (1931), 347.Google Scholar
2 Aquae Sextiae: Livy, per. 61 (but it was not a colonia). Tolosa: Dio XXVII, fr. 90. See also Badian, E., Mélanges A. Piganiol (1966) II, 903–4.Google Scholar
3 Traditionally 118 B.C., but probably a few years later; Mattingly, H. B. (Hommages à Albert Grenier III, 1159–71Google Scholar) suggests 110. For senatorial opposition, Cic., pro Cluent. 31, 140; Brut. 43, 160.
4 op. cit. 901–18.
5 H. Rolland, Fouilles de Glanum (Ire Suppl. à Gallia, 1946).
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9 Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges: Grenier, op. cit. 284–8, fig. 89. Drevant: ibid. 296–7, fig. 94.
10 e.g. the Balnea Surae on the Aventine: Carettoni, G.et al., La Pianta Marmorea di Roma Antica (Rome, 1960), 79Google Scholar, fr. 21, pl. XXIII. The Neptune Baths at Ostia are in the same tradition.
11 R. Amy et al., L'Arc d'Orange (XVe Suppl. à Gallia, 1962). But see Mingazzini, P., Röm. Mitt. LXXV (1968), 163–7.Google Scholar
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14 Lugli, G., Riv. 1st. Naz. Arch. e Storia dell'Arte XIII–XIV (1964–1965), 145–99.Google ScholarEtienne, R., Mélanges A. Piganiol II, 985–1010.Google Scholar
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17 A. Piganiol, Les Documents cadastraux de la colonie d'Orange (XVIe Suppl. à Gallia, 1962).
18 Augusta Bagiennorum: Inscr. Ital. IX, I (1948), Tab. II (after Atti Soc. Piemontese di Archeologia X, 1925); although neither the excavation nor the publication are wholly satisfactory, the main lines of the city-centre may reasonably be attributed to the initial lay-out. For additional information about the temple precinct, see Not. d. Scavi 1951, 203–11. Velleia: S. Aurigemma, Velleia (Itinerari, no. 73. Roma, 1940).
19 Mertens, J., Ordona II (Brussels, 1967)Google Scholar, plans I and II.
20 At Velleia, as at Alba Fucens and Ordona, the forum is superimposed upon an earlier, less regular scheme. What appear to be the remains of an actual Republican example of the type underlie the later Capitolium and forum at Brescia (Brixia).
21 More fully discussed by Balty, Ch. in Latomus XXI (1962), 279–319.Google Scholar The surviving remains of the basilica are those of the massive substructures needed to bring the floor-level within the basilica up to, or slightly above, that of the forum.
22 The evidence, such as it is, is well summarized by Grenier (op. cit. in, 327–41). His fig. 97 appears to indicate three successive building phases of the forum, with pavements at progressively higher levels but maintaining the same general plan.
23 Staehelin, F., Die Schweiz in römischer Zeit 3 (Basle, 1948), 617–18Google Scholar, Abb. 197. Grenier, op. cit. III, I, 507–9.
24 Staccioli, R. A., Atti Accad. Lincei (Scienze Morali) IX (1954), 645–57.Google Scholar Grenier, op. cit. III, 1, 291–304 (Arles) and 305–22 (other examples of the type).
25 De arch, V, 9, 5–9.
26 I owe this reference to M. Robert Etienne.
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28 We know that at Nîmes the walls and gates were among the first monuments to be completed, in 16/15 B.C.(CIL XII, 3151).
29 The superstructure of the amphitheatre at Placentia must have been of wood, since it was burnt in 69 (Tac, , Hist. II, 21Google Scholar). The remains of that at Forum Clodii (Imola) indicate a timber building on masonry footings, like that of Nero's amphitheatre in the Campus Martius (Tac, , Ann. XIII, 31Google Scholar: ‘fundamentis et trabibus’; cf. ibid, IV, 62). See Aurigemma, S., Historia VI (1932), 558–87.Google Scholar
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33 Clearance and excavation, under Professor M. Suić, is still in progress.
34 e.g. at Utica: Lézine, A. ‘La Maison des Chapiteaux à Utique’, Karthago VII (1956), 1–38.Google Scholar
35 Ibid. figs. 2, 17 and pl. III. On the other hand he considers the Tuscan order in Tunisia to be an importation of the Republican period (Karthago VI 1955), 13–20)
36 Hippo: Lassus, J., Libyca VII (1959), 311–16Google Scholar (I am indebted to M. P. A. Février for further information about this as yet not closely-dated example). Timgad, Market of Sertius: Courtois, C., Timgad (Algiers, 1951), 78–81.Google Scholar Djemila, Market of Cosinius: Leschi, L., Djemila (Algiers, 1953), 38–9.Google Scholar
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40 Reg. III, 1, 7: Scavi di Ostia I (1953), 110.
41 Cyrene: rectangular market building near the middle of the Roman town, later partly dismantled to create a theatre (unpublished). Greece: the North Market at Corinth and the Roman Agora, beside the Tower of the Winds, at Athens. Asia Minor: at Perge (Lanckoronsky, K., Städte Pamphyliens und Pisidiens (Wien, 1890–1892), 1Google Scholar, 44–5 and AJA XLII (1958), 98) and at Sagalassos (ibid. 11, 135 and 159–60). Syria: the third-century market at Dura, (Excavations, Ninth Season, I (1944) 62–4, fig. 78).Google Scholar
42 e.g. at Sabratha, the Capitolium, the Antonine Temple, the South Forum Temple, the Temple of Hercules; and at Lepcis Magna, the Temple of Serapis, the anonymous temple midway between the Porta Oea and the Arch of Severus, and the Temple in the Severan Forum.
43 For the native tradition, see the discussion of the Temple of the Cereres at Thuburbo Maius in Lézine, A., Architecture romaine d'Afrique (Paris, 1961), 91–118.Google Scholar The not-uncommon African form in which the temple stands on a tall podium with frontal steps but with the cella projecting well beyond the rear wall of the precinct (e.g. the Capitolium at Thuburbo Maius; the Temple of Minerva at Thugga; the Temple of Venus Genetrix at Cuicul; the temple at Theveste) may well represent a convergence of the two traditions.
44 Not later than the paving of the adjacent forum area in 53.
