Aventicum, Roman city - Avenches, medieval-modern city

About

Aventicum was the largest town and capital of Roman Switzerland (Helvetia or Civitas Helvetiorum). Its remains are beside the modern town of Avenches. The city was probably created ex nihilo in the early 1st century AD, as the capital of the recently conquered territory of the Helvetii, across the road that connected Italy to Britain, built under Claudius. Under the rule of Emperor Vespasian, who grew up there, Aventicum was raised to the status of a colonia in 72 AD, whereupon it entered its golden age. The town wall was 5.6 km (3.5 mi) long but was impracticable for defensive purposes and was doubtless intended as a display of the status of the city. In the Christian era Aventicum was the seat of a bishopric. The most famous of its bishops was Marius Aventicensis. His terse chronicle, spanning the years 455 to 581, is one of the few sources for the 6th-century Burgundians. Shortly after the Council of Macon, in 585, Marius moved the seat from Aventicum, due to the rapid decline of the city, to Lausanne.

The area around Aventicum was occupied before the Romans founded the city. There have been numerous lake-dwellings discovered within the adjoining Lake Murten, with at least 16 stilt house settlements having been found. In the largest site, the piles extend over an area of 460 square metres (5,000 sq ft) thus forming a large station or village. A great number of objects have been found buried in the mud amongst the piles, consisting of implements of stone and bone, such as hatchets, chisels, needles, awls, besides a vast quantity of the bones of animals. The pottery is a coarse, dark red kind of earthenware containing numerous grains of quartz, and there are 12 or 15 varieties.

The Helvetii probably reached southern Germany around the year 111 BC and soon invaded Gaul. During their invasion of the Roman province Gallia Narbonensis, they defeated a Roman army under L. Cassius Longinus near Agendicum in 107 BC and killed the consul. They continued to march into Spain, Gaul, Noricum, and northern Italy. Suffering defeats in the year 102–101 BC the surviving Helvetii retreated across the Alps.

In 58 BC, the nobleman Orgetorix instigated a new Helvetian migration, in which the entire tribe was to leave their territory (which is now described as corresponding more or less to the Swiss plateau ) and establish supremacy over all of Gaul. They marched from their villages, but were stalled by Julius Caesar on the banks of the Rhône. The Helvetii then marched around and across the Jura Mountains, to an area near the Aeduan oppidum Bibracte. There Caesar caught up and defeated the Helvetii in the Battle of Bibracte. This resulted in the Helvetii's retreat and the capture of most of their baggage by the Romans. Following their surrender, the Helvetii became foederati, an allied civitas required to provide soldiers, but not granted Roman citizenship.

The Helvetii likely lost their status as foederati six years later, when they supported Vercingetorix in 52 BC. Sometime between 50 and 45 BC, the Romans founded Colonia Iulia Equestris at the site of the Helvetian settlement Noviodunum (modern Nyon ). This colony was most likely established as a means for controlling one of the two important military access routes between the Helvetian territory and the rest of Gaul, blocking passage through the Rhône valley and the Sundgau.

During the following half century, the Helvetii would become increasingly romanized. During this time, there were two settlements near where Aventicum would be founded. The first was the oppidum on Mont Vully between Lake Murten and Lake Neuchatel, which was given up in the 1st century BC. The second was the Bois de Châtel, which was fortified in the second half of the 1st century BC. The Bois de Châtel would be destroyed early in the 1st century AD and the population moved to Aventicum.

In the course of Augustus ’ reign (27 BC – 14 AD), Roman dominance became more concrete. Some of the traditional Celtic oppida were now used as legionary garrisons, or relocated. While the exact date of the founding of Aventicum is not exact, it was likely established during or shortly after Augustus' reign.

By 5 AD there was a dock on the shore of Lake Murten, which is the first evidence of a settlement at Aventicum. A grave has also been discovered in the city that dates to 15 AD. During that time there was a small settlement built, in the north east corner of modern Avenches, in the Roman square style. However, this site can only be dated to the reign of Tiberius (14–37 AD). Aventicum would have grown in 16-17 AD as the Roman legion camp Vindonissa was built (today in Windisch, Aargau ). Aventicum was a major location on the Roman road from Lausanne to Vindonissa.

During the reign of Claudius (41–54 AD), a trade route was completed spanning from Italy to the recently conquered province of Britannia over the Gotthard Pass. This route passed through Aventicum allowing the city to expand.

It later became part of Germania Superior and then part of the Diocletian province of Maxima Sequanorum. The former territories of the Helvetii and their inhabitants were, by this time, as romanised as the rest of Gaul.

In the 1st century AD Aventicum and the Helvetii land was incorporated into the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. Tacitus, writing about 69 AD, speaks of the Helvetians as originally a Gallic people, renowned for their valour and exploits in war, and he designates Aventicum Caput gentis, or capital of Helvetia. It acquired this title most probably on account of its comparatively advanced state of civilization and its conspicuous position on the main route between Italy and Germany. It was also the centre of a network of well used military roads. Aventicum and Nyon ( Colonia Equestris ) located on the shores of Lake Geneva were the starting points for all mile-stones in Helvetia.

During the first three-quarters of the 1st century AD, Aventicum became a center of the Imperial cult in the Civitas Helvetiorum. However, the Helvetii came into conflict once more with Rome shortly after the death of emperor Nero in 68 AD. Like the other Gallic tribes, the Helvetii were organised as a civitas and enjoyed a certain inner autonomy, including the defence of certain strongholds by their own troops. In the civil war and Year of Four Emperors which followed Nero's death, the civitas Helvetiorum supported Galba ; unaware of his death, they refused to accept the authority of his rival, Vitellius. The Legio XXI Rapax, stationed in Vindonissa and favouring Vitellius, stole the pay of a Helvetian garrison, which prompted the Helvetians to intercept the messengers and detain a Roman detachment. Aulus Caecina Alienus, a former supporter of Galba who was now at the head of a Vitellian invasion of Italy, launched a massive punitive campaign, crushing the Helvetii at Mount Vocetius, killing and enslaving thousands. Aventicum was then besieged and quickly surrendered. The city was nearly ordered destroyed by the Romans, but owing to the pleas of one Claudius Cossus, a Helvetian envoy to Vitellius, and, as Tacitus puts it, "of well-known eloquence" the city was spared.

During the Year of Four Emperors (69 AD) Vitellius, who nearly ordered Aventicum destroyed, was the third. The fourth, Vespasian, had a much more positive influence on Aventicum. While he was born in Falacrina, in the Sabine country near Reate. His father, Titus Flavius Sabinus, was a banker on a small scale in Aventicum, where Vespasian lived for some time. About two years after Vespasian was declared emperor, he raised Aventicum to the status of a colonia, granting exceptional civic status. A colonia was a town that was a specific residential location for legionaries who upon retirement were granted land and became citizens. This encouraged land development and stability and not least the extension of Roman culture. Previously, Aventicum had been the capital of a non-citizen nation. The increased prestige that being a colonia brought ushered in a golden age for Aventicum. During this time Aventicum was known as Pia Flavia Constans Emerita.

The Alemanni sacked the city in the 280s, and neither Aventicum nor its hinterland recovered from both the impact of the attack and the subsequent changes of the Roman frontier which no longer granted security to the area. By the collapse of Rome in the 5th century, this area was already fully under the control of Germanic tribes, whose dialects became the basis for Swiss German. In the 6th century some Christian life continued in the acropolis of the Roman town: the amphitheatre became a fortress as did the theatre. By the 7th century, however, the focus of the church had moved to Lausanne, Aventicum is only mentioned as an old ruined city though it had fallen into ruins previously. Over the following centuries it is mentioned but always as ruins.

In 1710, Marquard Wild was the first to argue that Aveticum had been the capital of Helvetia, and not Antre as was formerly believed. In 1783–86 the Marquess of Northampton led an archaeological expedition to Aventicum and in 1788 he put his discoveries on display. His discoveries encouraged many treasure seekers to travel to Aventicum to search for artefacts. In response to the finds, the Musée Vespasien was opened in 1824. In 1838, it was taken over by the Canton of Vaud, renamed the Roman Museum, and installed in the tower of the Amphitheatre.

In 1884, the association Pro Aventico was founded with a goal of discovering and preserving the ruins. Aventicum was a well-known location in the Grand Tour and J. M. W. Turner made a drawing of Avenches: the Roman Column,'Le Cicognier' in 1802, which shows the old town behind. Archaeology benefited curiously from the First and Second World Wars when foreigners interned in Switzerland, and local unemployed, were engaged to excavate the main buildings of the Roman city and to renovate and open to the public the theatre, "Cigognier" and the gates and one tower of the wall. With the advent of the national highway scheme in the late 1960s a programme of rescue archaeology was set up under the association Pro Aventico under the remarkably capable direction of Professor Hans Bogli, after whom the Roman museum has since been named. Early work uncovered the Forum and associated temple area including a possible "Capitolium".

In 1985, during the construction of the A1 highway, further portions of the Roman town were discovered. In 1987 the road was moved to avoid the site. Further and extensive work over the succeeding decades opened up much of the insulae – the rectangular street system of the focus of the Roman town. Much of the area within the walls was not a densely occupied city at all, but rather, like Rome itself, was occupied by "urban villas', large houses surrounded by substantial tracts of garden and small-holdings. The more recent work also uncovered a remarkable palace building, much of the centre of the Roman town, and outside the walls a canal and roadway leading from the nearby lake, doubtless assisting in the transport of stone from the Jura by lake and canal, and cemeteries and aqueducts outside the line of the Roman walls. Pro Aventico is also responsible for the constant round of restoration of the buildings opened up in the early part of the 20th century, including sections of the wall and the original Roman tower-raised and protected through its use as a mediaeval watch tower, and the northern gate.

Near to the line of the Roman walls, and benefiting from reuse of stone from the walls is the small Romanesque church in Donatyre, which possesses excellent early 12th century fresco paintings.

The Amphitheatre, as was common in the Roman Empire, was used for gladiator and animal combat as well as staged hunts. It served political, social and religious purposes and was a central feature of most Roman towns. As the capital city, the amphitheatre in Aventicum was quite large.

It was built in two stages, first about 130 AD then expanded around 165 AD. The first amphitheatre was built when the hillside was terraced. The arena floor was laid out and flattened. This first structure had 24 rows of seats built mostly of wood rising up the hillside. The stairs, the wall around the arena floor, the upper walls, and the entrances were built of stone. The outer walls of the amphitheatre measured 98.85 by 85.94 metres (324.3 ft × 282.0 ft) and the arena floor was 51.63 by 38.40 metres (169.4 ft × 126.0 ft). The first amphitheatre could hold about 9,000 people.