From Lutetia to Paris… (The evolution of an ancient city)

From Lutetia to Paris…

[The evolution of an ancient city]

When one thinks of Paris, some mental pictures immediately come to mind: the iron structure of the Eiffel tower, the imposing arches of the Arc de Triomphe, the long stone facade of the Louvre Museum, the green roofs of the Garnier Opera, the rows of buildings lining the grands boulevards, the art deco architecture of some department stores… Actually, most of those buildings are not very old, even though the royal palace of the Louvre dates back to the 17th century. As it happens, the history of the city goes back much farther than that. Thousands of years earlier in fact…

Indeed, there were already a few tourists as far back as the Mesolithic period, some 9000 to 5000 years before the Common Era! At the time Paris was a vast area of pine, chestnut and oak forests with a fauna of large herbivores. Imagine wild boars, deers, roe deers and aurochs roaming free where rows of buildings now stand and cars go up and down busy three-way avenues! The oldest human settlement discovered was a nomad camp found under 4 meters of sediments on the west side of what is now Paris. There, a group of hunters halted on the banks of the River Seine between 8200 and 7500 years before the Common Era. They left behind silex arrow heads, traces of a camp fire and remnants of their meals as well as tools used for the scrapping of animal skins and the carving of meat.

After those first visitors, some nomadic populations settled down in the plains around the River Seine during the Neolithic period (5100-3600 years before the Common Era). The area was undoubtedly quite attractive to those first Parisians, what with the islands and banks of the river especially hospitable and the possibility of contacts with other regions. Excavations around the banks of the river have notably uncovered the remnants of the first ever village of Paris and the existence of another branch of the River Seine, prior to the present one, where several canoes were discovered. This set of prehistoric boats is one of the most ancient in the world and it is on display, as well as the other finds, in the Carnavalet Museum in Paris. At that time, the area offered fish and shellfish as well as a rich wildlife such as otters, beavers and even fresh water turtles. The people cultivated wheat and barley and bred cattle to complement the natural resources. Moreover, the conservation and transformation of agricultural products led to the making of pottery and weaving. Indeed, artifacts such as parts of a ceremonial dress and some stylized human representations have also been found in the area. Additionally, several prehistorical statues were unveiled. One of them was a bust without a head or legs, on which are engraved two arms with stylized fingers. It dates back to the Neolithic period and more precisely from the Chasseen period (4200 to 4000 years before the Common Era), which characterizes the first villages of farmers. Six other very similar statuettes have been found on the same dig. It is very difficult to know their exact use, but some researchers suggest that they could have been “mother goddesses” alluding to fertility.

A permanent population resided on the banks of the River Seine during the whole prehistoric period, but no new finds have shed light on those inhabitants.

During the Antiquity, around the third century before the Common Era, the Gallic people of the Parisii chose to settle down in the region. According to tradition, they did so because of the twofold advantage of the area: indeed it was both a defensive site as well as a commercial crossroad. The Parisii built what would become the precursor of Paris: a fortified town or oppidum known as Lutetia. The exact location of this oppidum is however unknown. For a very long time, people thought that it was located on the ile de la Cite, that small island in the middle of Paris. Yet, no Gallic artifacts have ever been found there, whereas in 2004 preventive archeological digs in the east of Paris unearthed the vestiges of Gallic habitations and a necropolis dating to the Parisii. Nowadays, researchers still argue about the exact location of Gallic Lutetia and the debate is far from over. Nevertheless, the Gallic city, wherever it was, prospered until the Roman Empire decided to expand westward and launched its conquest of the Gaul in the year 58 before the Common Era. Fighting to stay independent, the tribe of the Parisii participated in the resistance against Julius Caesar, organized by the Gallic chief Vercingetorix. In his book Commentaries on the Gallic War, Julius Caesar mentions the defeat of a Gallic war leader, Camulogene, in the year 52 before the Common Era, in the Lutetia of the Parisii. Defeated, but refusing to allow their city to fall into the hands of the Romans, the Parisii themselves burned the bridges and everything inside their oppidum. Soon after, the Gallic tribes were subdued. Then, in the year 50 before the Common Era, Gaul became a Roman province.

After the destruction of the Gallic oppidum of Lutetia, the Roman conquerors built a new city on the left bank of the River Seine. This new city was also named Lutetia. In typical Roman fashion, the city was built along the decumanus maximus and the cardo maximus, the Roman main streets following an east-west axis and a north-south axis respectively. These streets still exist as the present-day rue Soufflot for the decumanus maximus and the rue Saint Jacques for the cardo maximus, which make them the oldest streets of Paris. In the first and second centuries of our era, Lutetia was a city of medium importance. In fact, at the time, the strategic roads were situated much more to the East of France, starting all the way down in Provence and reaching the frontier of the river Rhine near Germany. Growing and expanding, Lutetia soon included two urbane sites: one nestled inside the ile de la Cite and another one on the left bank of the River Seine (more precisely on the Sainte-Genevieve mountain). It is there, on the left bank, where space was readily available that grand monuments and Roman villas were erected : the forum under the present-day rue Soufflot, the amphitheater rue Monge, the southern baths rue Gay-Lussac, the eastern baths under the College de France and the northern baths also called “les thermes de Cluny”. Sadly, of all the Gallic-Roman monuments built during this time only two can still be visited today : the amphitheater (arena of Lutetia) and the northern thermal baths of Cluny. The others were either destroyed or are now buried under more modern buildings, and could only be seen if other archeological digs were undertaken. But the two monuments we can still see today are worth a visit.

The first one, the amphitheater traditionally called “arena of Lutetia” was constructed in the first century of our era. Built on a slope of the Sainte-Genevieve mountain to benefit from the natural inclination, this edifice could contain around 17,000 spectators. More people than the total number of inhabitants of the city itself! The arena is in fact a Gallic-Roman mixed-use amphitheater, that is to say an amphitheater with a stage. It consists of an oval arena, two large lateral entrances and a cavea that did not completely encircle the arena. In this amphitheater spectators could watch mimes, pantomimes and singing performances on a stage that no longer exists. The spectacles also included the famous munera (gladiators fights) and venationes (staged hunts of wild beats from Africa or the Middle-East). From ancient comments we know that the structure had an exterior gallery and a highly ornamented facade. Its impressive size -100 by 130.4 meters- makes Lutetia’s amphitheater one of the largest constructions of its kind in Gaul.

The second monument is the thermal baths of Cluny. Those Gallic-Roman thermal baths are one of the most spectacular representations of the antique architecture still standing on Gallic soil. The Cluny baths are in fact what remains of a much larger group of public baths. The original size could have been up to 3 times bigger. The thermal baths of Cluny, made from bricks and stone, were probably erected at the beginning of the second century of our era. Those baths have a very special significance due to their exceptional state of preservation: the continual use of the building since the Middle-Ages is the main reason behind this. They were composed of different spaces, which were destined for the public or the workers, and included numerous tunnels. The three main rooms can easily be identified: the frigidarium (cold room), which is now part of the Cluny Museum, with its 15-meter-high vault; a caldarium (the place for warm baths) on the west and another one on the south. The inside of the baths were covered by mosaics, marble or paintings. One can still see some traces of it in the frigidarium. Also, consoles in the shape of a bow suggest that these baths were built at the initiative of the “Nautes”, a corporation of boatmen who were at the helm of the commerce on the River Seine. Inside the frigidarium, it is possible to see one of the rare remaining artifacts of the antique Lutetia: the “pillar of the Nautes.” This pillar was erected under the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius (14-37 in the Common Era). It shows that the city was one of the sites where the cultures of the vanquished Gaul and of the victorious Romans slowly merged. Indeed, we can observe on the pillar, side by side, the gods of the Celtic pantheon (Esus, Tarvos, Trigaranus, Cernunnos, Smertrios) and Roman divinities such as Jupiter, Mars or Mercury. The pillar was discovered in 1710 under the chancel of the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral. The baths of Cluny, as in every other part of the Roman empire, were a highlight of Roman civilization. Indeed, the edifice was far more than a bathhouse built in the interest of public hygiene only. Like all Roman public baths, the Cluny ensemble was more a reflection of an ideal way of life. Bathing activities were associated with other practices relating to physical fitness, pleasure and social interactions. Generally speaking, the public baths -which were free of charge or accessible for a small fee, and which featured resting areas, bars, meeting rooms as well as libraries- were the favourite meeting places for a town’s inhabitants. Life in Lutetia was then quite enjoyable with all the luxuries and commodities of a Roman city.

However, history is not a long quiet river… And Lutetia was soon to undergo massive change again. Indeed, the Late Antique period saw the decline of the Western Roman Empire. For two centuries, from around 300 to 500 in the Common Era, Europe was the theatre of one of the biggest events in history: the “Barbarian Invasions.” Those invasions were massive migrations of Germanic peoples from east to west which would totally change the face of Europe. Because of those Germanic invasions Lutetia transformed and became much more militarized. This led to a shrinking of the city; the left bank was abandoned and the stones of its monuments were used to build a surrounding wall around the ile de la Cite, the first one in Parisian history. You can still see some remnants of the “remparts” (fortified wall) when you walk along the small streets in the east side of the ile de la Cite. Already a strategic site, Lutetia became an imperial residence for two emperors during the military campaigns led by the Roman empire against the Germanic people : Julian in the years 358 and 360, and Valentinian the First in the years 365 and 366. The military residence of Emperor Julian was situated in what is now the “Palais de Justice” (court of law) on the ile de la Cite. In the fourth century, Lutetia was important enough for a bishopric to be installed there along with a large military fleet. It was during the same period that its name progressively changed to refer to its inhabitants, the Parisii.

And Lutetia became Paris.

FIN