Cenabum

About

Cenabum (sometimes spelled Genabum) was the capital of the Carnuts, located at the site of the current French city of Orléans. It was an oppidum and a prosperous commercial city on the Loire. The city, conquered by the armies of Julius Caesar in -52 during the Gauls' War, was incorporated into the province of Lyon Gaul.

The acts of resistance of indigenous people refusing to comply with Roman law were punished by several massacres and the almost total destruction of the city. In the third century the city was rebuilt following a visit by the Roman Emperor Aurélien. The city would then have taken the name of urbs Aurelianorum (city of the Aurelii or Orléanians), then of Aurelianum, in the ninth century, from which the current name of the city would derive.

In 498, the city was conquered by the Germanic invaders and attached to the kingdom of the Merovingian Clovis I.