Gallo-Roman culture

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This article covers the culture of Romanized areas of Gaul. For the political history of the brief "Gallic Empire" of the 3rd century, see Gallic Empire.
Gallo-Roman figures, found in Ingelheim.
Gallo-Roman figures, found in Ingelheim.

The term Gallo-Roman describes the Romanized culture of Gaul under the rule of the Roman Empire. This was characterized by the Gaulish adoption or adaptation of Roman mores and way of life in a uniquely Gaulish context.[1] The well-studied meld of cultures[2] in Gaul give historians a model against which to compare and contast parallel developments in other, less-stuidied Roman provinces.

After the barbarian invasions of the early fifth century, Gallo-Roman culture would persist particularly in the areas of Gallia Narbonensis that developed into Occitania, Gallia Cisalpina and to a lesser degree, Aquitania. The formerly Romanized north of Gaul, once it had been occupied by the Franks, would develop into Merovingian culture instead. Roman life, centered on the public events and cultural responsibilities of urban life in the res publica and the sometimes luxurious life of the self-sufficient rural villa system, took longer to collapse in the Gallo-Roman regions, where the Visigoths largely inherited the status quo in the early fifth century. Gallo-Roman language persisted in the northeast into the Silva Carbonaria that formed an effective cultural barrier with the Franks to the north and east, and in the northwest to the lower valley of the Loire, where Gallo-Roman culture interfaced with Frankish culture in a city like Tours and in the person of that Gallo-Roman bishop confronted with Merovingian royals, Gregory of Tours.

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[edit] Politics

Gaul was divided by Roman administration into a number of provinces, which tended to become sub-divided in the later third century reorganization under Diocletian, and divided between two dioceses, Galliae and Viennensis, under the Praetorian prefecture of Galliae.[3] On the local level, it was composed of civitates which preserved, broadly speaking, the boundaries of the formerly independent Gaulish tribes, which had been organised in large part on village structures that retained some features in the Roman civic formulas that overlay them.

Over the course of the Roman period, an ever-increasing proportion of Gauls gained Roman citizenship. In 212 the Constitutio Antoniniana extended citizenship to all free-born men in the Roman Empire.

[edit] Gallic Empire

Main article: Gallic Empire

During the Crisis of the Third Century, from 259 to 274, an independent Gallo-Roman realm, termed the Gallic Empire by modern historians, was temporarily established. It was formed of the break-away provinces of Gaul, Britannia, and Hispania. The Gallic emperor Postumus set up the Empire's capital in Trier, in what is now the Rhineland-Palatinate of Germany.

[edit] Religion

Main article: Gallo-Roman religion

The pre-Christian religious practices of Roman Gaul were characterized by syncretism of Graeco-Roman deities with their native Celtic, Basque or Germanic counterparts, many of which were of strictly local cult. Assimilation was eased by interpreting indigenous gods in Roman terms, such as with Lenus Mars or Apollo Grannus. Otherwise, a Roman god might be paired with a native goddess, as with Mercury and Rosmerta. In at least one case – that of the equine goddess Epona – a native Gallic goddess was also adopted by Rome.

Eastern mystery religions penetrated Gaul early on. These included the cults of Orpheus, Mithras, Cybele, and Isis.

The imperial cult, centred primarily on the numen of Augustus, came to play a prominent role in public religion in Gaul, most dramatically at the pan-Gaulish ceremony venerating Rome and Augustus at the Condate Altar near Lugdunum on 1 August.

[edit] Christianity

In the fifth and sixth centuries, Gallo-Roman Christian communities consisted of independent churches in urban sites, each governed by a bishop; Christians experienced loyalties divided between the bishop and the civil prefect, who operated largely in harmony within the late-imperial administration. Some of the communities had origins that predated the third century persecutions. The personal charisma of the bishop set the tone, as fifth-century allegiances, for pagans as well as Christians, switched from institutions to individuals: most Gallo-Roman bishops were drawn from the highest levels of society as appropriate non-military civil roads to advancement dwindled, and they represented themselves as bulwarks of high literary standards and Roman traditions against the Vandal and Gothic interlopers; other bishops drew the faithful to radical asceticism. Miracles attributed to both kinds of bishops, as well as holy men and women, attracted cult veneration, sometimes very soon after their death; a great number of locally-venerated Gallo-Roman and Merovingian saints arose in the transitional centuries 400 – 750. The identification of the diocesan administration with the secular community, which took place during the fifth century in Italy, can best be traced in the Gallo-Roman culture of Gaul in the career of Caesarius, bishop and Metropolitan of Arles from 503 to 543. (Wallace-Hadrill).

The "Endymion sarcophagus", early 3rd c., found in 1806 at Saint-Médard-d'Eyrans, in Roman Gallia Aquitania (Louvre)
The "Endymion sarcophagus", early 3rd c., found in 1806 at Saint-Médard-d'Eyrans, in Roman Gallia Aquitania (Louvre)

[edit] Gallo-Roman sites

The two more Romanised of the three Gauls were bound together in a network of Roman roads that linked cities.

At Périgueux, France, a luxurious Roman villa called the Domus of Vesunna, built round a garden courtyard surrounded by a colonnaded peristyle enriched with bold tectonic frescoing, has been handsomely protected in a modern glass-and-steel structure that is a fine example of archaeological museum-making (see external link).

Lyon, the capital of Roman Gaul, is now the site of a Museum of Gallo-Roman Civilization (rue Céberg), associated with the remains of the theater and odeon of Roman Lugdunum. Visitors are offered a clear picture of the daily life, economic conditions, institutions, beliefs, monuments and artistic achievements of the first four centuries of the Christian era. The "Claudius Tablet" in the Museum transcribes a speech given before the Senate by the Emperor Claudius in 48, in which he requests the right for the heads of the Gallic nations to participate in Roman magistracy. The request having been accepted, the Gauls decided to engrave the imperial speech on bronze.

In Martigny, Valais, Switzerland, at the Fondation Pierre Gianadda, a modern museum of art and sculpture shares space with Gallo-Roman Museum centered on the foundations of a Celtic temple.

Other sites include:

[edit] Towns

The Gallo-Roman museum in the amphitheatre of Lugdunum
The Gallo-Roman museum in the amphitheatre of Lugdunum

[edit] Amphitheatres

[edit] Aqueducts

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ A recent survey is G. Woolf, Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul (Cambridge University Press) 1998.
  2. ^ Modern interpretations are revising the earlier dichotomy of "Romanization" and "resistance", especially as viewed, under the increased influence of archaeology, through the material remains of patterns of everyday consumption, as in Woolf 1998:169-205, who emphasised the finds at Vesontio/Besançon.
  3. ^ See Roman provinces.

[edit] Sources

 This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2007)
  • Wallace-Hadrill, J.M. 1983. The Frankish Church (Oxford University Press) ISBN 0-19-826906-4, 1983

[edit] External links

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