Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/230

 2U LUGDUNUM. body of Alamanni (Ammian. Marcell. svi. II). The place is entitled Copia Claudia Augusta on some inscriptions, a name probably given to it in the time of the emperor Claudius. In the angle between the Arar and the Ehodanus was the Ara August!, dedicated to Augustus by all the Gallic states. On this large altar there was an inscription which contained the names of the sixty states; and there were as many figures, intended to represent each state. If the figures were not re- liefs on the altar, they may have been statues placed round the altar, or near it The passage of Strabo (p. 192) appears to be corrupt; but, as it is ex- plained by Groskurd (Traml. vol. i. p. 331), there was also a large statue of Augustus, which may have been in the middle of the sixty. There was au annual solemn celebration at this altar, which was observed even when Dion Cassius was writing. (Dion, liv. 32.) The time when this altar was built is fixed by the Epitome of Livy {Ep. 137) in the year in which there was a disturbance in Gallia on account of the census. This year was b. c. 12. Suetonius {Claud. 2) fixes the dedication of the Altar of Augustus in the consulship of Julius An- tonius and Fabius Africanus (b. c. 10), on the first of August, which was the birthday of the emperor Claudius, who was a native of Lugdunum. The first priest of the altar was C. Julius Vercundari- dubius, an Aeduan. The celebration at the altar of Lugdunum is alluded to by Juvenal in the line (i. 44, and Heinricli's note), — " Aut Lugdunensem rhetor dicturus ad aram." Lugdunum was the seat of a Christian church at an early period. In the time of JIarcus Aurelius (about A. D. 172, or perhaps A. d. 177, according to some computations) there was a furious persecution of the Christians at Lugdunum. The sufferings of the martyrs are told by Eusebius with some manifest absurdities and exaggerations ; but, the fact of a cruel persecution cannot be disputed. The letter of the churches of Lugdunum and Vienna to the churches of Asia and Phrygia is preserved by Eu- sebius {Hist. Eccles. v. 1) ; and it states that Au- relius, who was then at Rome, was consulted by the Gallic governor about the treatment of the Christians. The answer was that those who confessed to being Christians should be put to death, and that those who denied it should be set free. We have however only one version of the story, though no excuse can be made for the Roman philosophical emperor, if men were put to death only because they were Christians. Irenaeus, one of the Christian fathers, was bishop of Lugdunum. He is said to have suc- ceeded Pothinus, who perished a. d. 177, in the religious persecutions at Lugdunum. The part of Gallia which Caesar called Celtica became under Augustus Gallia Lngdunensis, of which Lugdunum was the capital ; but Lngdunensis was contracted within narrower limits than Celtica by the extension of the province of Aquitania [Aqui- TANiA ; Gallia Traxs. Vol. I. p. 966]. The Romans covered the soil of Lyon with houses, temples, theatres, palaces and aqueducts. Nature made it to be the site of a large city. There are few remains of Roman Lugdunum. Time, the invasion of the barbarian, and the employment of old materials for other purposes, have left only scanty fragments of the works of the most magnificent of all city-builders. There are some remains on the Place des Minimes which are supposed to have been LUGDUNUM BATAVOEUM. a theatre. On the west side of the Saone there are traces of a camp capable of holding several legions. It was bounded and defended on the west by the hills of the Forez, and on the north by the heights oi Saint- Didier and of the Mont dOr. The Saone defended it on the east side. The camp had no water, but the Romans found a supply in the chain of mountains which bounds it on the west. Water was brought along the valleys and the sides of the hills in a regular slope all the way, and under ground through a distance measured along its line of more than 24 miles. In its course the aqueduct collected water from seventeen streams or large sources. The height of the channel or passage for the water, measured inside, was near five feet ; tha vault or roof was semicircular. There were openings at intervals by which workmen could go in to clean and repair the channel. It was constructed with great care, and the two sides were covered with a double layer of cement. All this construction was buried in a cutting six feet and a half wide and near ten feet deep ; and a great part of this cutting was made in the solid rock. Another aqueduct was constructed from Mont Pilat to the site of the hill of i^oMrrveres, a distance of more than 50 miles along the com-se of the aqueduct There were in all fourteen a(]ueduct bridges along this line : one of them at the village of Champonost still has ninety arches well preserved. There was a third aqueduct from Mont dOr. Two bronze tablets were dug up at Lyon in 1529, on which is inscribed the Oratio of the emperor Claudius on the subject of giving the Roman civitas to the Galli. (Tacit. Ann. si. 24 ; and Oberlin'a edition of Tacitus, vol. ii. p. 306 ; Gallia Tkans. Vol. I. p. 968.) There are many modern works on Lyon and its antiquities. The principal are men- tioned by Forbiger {Handhwh, ^-c. vol. iii. p. 210.) [G.L.] COIN OF LUGDUNtrSL LUGDU'NUM or CO'NVENAE. [Convenae.] LUGDUNUM BATAVO'RUM (AovydSuvov, Ptol. ii. 9. § 4 : Leiden). The two elements Lttj and dun appear in the name of this remote city and in two other Gallic names, which is one evidence of the Celtic race having once occupied the flat country about the outlets of the Rhine. The Roman Itins. have marked a road running from Leiden through Cologne to Vemania {Immenstadl) on the Upper Danube Circle of Bavaria. The routes are not the same all through, but the commencement of the road and the termination are the same. This route in fact followed the basin of the Rhine from the Lake of Constanz to the low and sandy shores of the North Sea. The words " Caput Germaniarum" placed before the name Lugdunum in the Antonine Itin. probably do not mean that it was the capital of the Germaniae, for this was certainly not so, but that it was the point where the two provinces called Geraianiae commenced on this northern limit. It has been supposed that Leiden in the province of Holland is not the Roman Lugdunum, because no Roman re- mains have been found there, though the absence of