Annals of a Fortress Part 6

CHAPTER VI.

_THE PERMANENT CAMP--FOUNDATION OF A CITe._

Six years after the events just related, the siege of Alesia being terminated, Caesar gave orders for the establishment of a permanent camp on the plateau of Avon--the site of the Gallic Oppidum.

As the plateau was near the road connecting Chalons-sur-Saone with Langres, Caesar judged it desirable to have at this point, which was naturally favourable for defence, a safe retreat for a numerous body of troops, more especially as the road pa.s.sed through somewhat disturbed countries. The camp was to be sufficient in case of need for two legions and some auxiliaries--about twenty thousand men. Now, as the site of the Oppidum was much more extensive than was needed for a force of that strength, it was determined that the camp should be placed on the southern part of the plateau, whose level was elevated some few feet above the northern point, and which was separated from this extremity by a wide ditch.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 14.--THE ROMAN PERMANENT CAMP.]

Fig. 14 gives a plan of the arrangement. A ditch thirty feet wide and seven feet deep divided the plateau obliquely from W.N.W. to E.S.E. At A was placed the Praetorian gate, and at B the Praetorium. At D was the Dec.u.man gate. The two lateral gates, F, E, fronted east and west respectively. The sunken roadways of the Gauls had to be altered and made into metalled roads; they started right and left of the bridge, C, and followed the acclivities of the plateau, rising till they branched off at O into the road from Chalons to Langres. From these two lateral military roads there was an ascent to the gates E, D, F, the _place d'armes_, H, and the two side entrances of the small advanced camp, I, on the south point of the plateau. Thus the outer circuit could be traversed without difficulty.

The ramparts of the town occupying the southern declivities of the promontory were destroyed, and the inhabitants obliged to settle on the other side of the river, either to the south-east or to the south. The head of the bridge, C, was repaired.

The gates of the camp had good _claviculae_, each with two towers constructed of dry walling, earth, and timber work (Fig. 15).

At regular intervals along the _vallum_--which, except the front on the N.N.E., exactly followed the edge of the plateau--were erected towers, or rather watch-towers, of timber. In addition to the supply from the wells within the limits of the camp, the Romans collected the water of the springs on the northern plateau, by means of pipes made of trunks of trees bored lengthwise and joined end to end. This channel followed the roadway G, and conducted the water into six good cisterns, hollowed out in the rock and lined with cement. There was a cistern under the Praetorium, and two for each of the legions.

On the western side palisades connected the smaller camp with the ditch sunk near the angle of the Praetorium; while on the eastern side of the plateau its escarpment rendered this precaution unnecessary.

The engineer entrusted with the setting out had disposed the fosse in an oblique direction, as shown in Fig. 14, so as to present a larger front to a.s.sailants who, having taken the smaller camp, should present themselves on the _place d'armes_, H. The projecting angle was well defended by the Praetorium, and the obliquity of the _vallum_ enabled the defenders making a sortie by the Praetorian gate, and by that marked F, to take the enemy almost in rear, and to drive them over the eastern declivity of the plateau.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 15.]

The rampart walk of the _vallum_ was raised three feet above the level of the camp, and was furnished with a cresting of stakes with wattling to retain the earth on the parapet (see Fig. 15). The fosse was twelve feet wide and seven deep, and was continued all round the camp, even on the sides where the declivities were steep.

The Nemede was demolished. The Druids had it re-erected on the plateau in front of the camp, to the south, at the entrance of the wood. The inhabitants of the Val d'Avon were enjoined, under penalty of seeing their town destroyed, to abstain from injuring these intrenchments while unoccupied; they were even charged to keep them in repair, and to supply provisions to the troops who should be quartered there to protect the country against the invasions of the barbarians; for as Gaul was then tranquilized internally, and brought under the Roman sway, there was nothing to fear, except the attacks of the Germans, who were continually threatening the north-eastern provinces.

The camp was in fact occupied several times by Roman troops, and new works were successively planned and executed there. The country was fertile, and the position excellent, viz., between the large towns Chalons-sur-Saone (Cabillonum), Langres (Andrematunnum), and Autun (Bibracte). The camp received the name of _Aboniae Castrum_, the town being thenceforth called Abonia--a name which it retained until the fourth century.

It was from Abonia that Vindex set out with a party of troops, which he a.s.sembled in the plains of the Saone, to rouse Gaul in revolt against Nero, and to give the empire to Galba. After the death of the Gallic hero, Galba wished to testify his grat.i.tude to the towns and countries that had declared in his favour: and Abonia then acquired the t.i.tle and rights of _civitas_, and enjoyed a long peace.

From the reign of t.i.tus onwards, the camp was no longer appropriated exclusively to the troops. At the time when the Oppidum had been converted into a permanent camp, the whole of the plateau, its slopes, and part of the ground situated to the north, had been considered as _Ager Roma.n.u.s_. It was what we should now call "crown land,"--_Ager Publicus_. The inhabitants, therefore, could not possess or build upon this land, or, if permitted to occupy a part, it was as usufructuaries, not as freeholders.

This Roman law, which dated from the time of the Republic, and which at first affected all provincial soil, was never rigorously applied. Its enforcement would have been difficult, and the populations of the provinces, as well as those of Italy, solicited and easily obtained the _jus Italic.u.m_, which consisted in the full possession of the soil, with liberty to use, to sell, and to transmit it by way of inheritance. When the imperial government was definitively established, the emperors favoured the development of the principle of private property; because the great landholders were then the only persons who could be considered as forming an aristocratic cla.s.s, privileged, it is true, but, on the other hand, bearing the burden of special functions--such, for instance, as that of urban magistrature, then very onerous. It must be observed that the civic rights accorded by Rome extended not only to a town, but to the whole of the territory pertaining to it.

As the Vale of Abonia possessed the _jus civitatis_, and the site of the camp remained unoccupied, the inhabitants pet.i.tioned that ground so well adapted to habitations should be restored to civil uses. It was then determined by the Emperor Vespasian that the _ager publicus_ of Abonia should be colonized. Colonization under the Roman empire meant the division solemnly made by the _agrimensores_, according to certain religious prescriptions, of a part of the _ager publicus_ into shares.

These shares were unequal, and, although apportioned by lot among the colonists--that is to say, among the native inhabitants and the foreigners who presented themselves as applicants for their possession, it always happened--by what means we are unable to say--that the allotments fell according to the rank or fortune of the individual. The ancient Oppidum was therefore colonized.

The remains of its ramparts soon disappeared; the wide fosse, which separated the large camp from the smaller one, became a road terminating by sloping paths in the level of the plateau; a theatre rose on the eastern declivity; water was brought in abundance, by a fine aqueduct of masonry, to baths constructed at the southern point, and to all the new habitations which soon arose on every side, surrounded by gardens. A temple, dedicated to Augustus, was erected on the site of the ancient Praetorium, on the very spot where stood the shrine of former days, and a second sacred edifice dedicated, say some, to Hercules--which is doubtful--took the place of the ancient southern stronghold. A forum and a basilica occupied the middle of the plateau. The _villae_ spread beyond the circ.u.mvallation, and extended over the two declivities, east and west.

The lower town continued to be occupied by the merchants, craftsmen, boatmen, and the poorer cla.s.s; it extended along the two sh.o.r.es down the river. The bridge previously mentioned was rebuilt with stone, and a second bridge of timber was thrown across half a mile further up the stream, at the continuation of the sunken way by which the plateau was divided.

CHAPTER VII.

_THE FORTIFIED CITe._

Three centuries of peace had caused the disappearance of the last vestiges of the ancient ramparts which surrounded the permanent camp of the Romans, then occupied by the cite of Abonia. But for many years the incursions of the Germans had disquieted some of the neighbouring countries. They had made their appearance among the Remi several times, and although they habitually presented themselves as defenders of the empire, or were actually called in by one party or the other during the civil discords by which Gaul was then rent, their conduct was that of enemies, not of allies. Finding the country attractive, they spread gradually among the eastern provinces, robbing, pillaging, and burning among the friends who invited their aid, as well as among the enemies they were going to attack. At their approach the rural districts were deserted, and the uninclosed towns hastily fortified.

Reims, Langres, and Autun had repaired their defences. Sens had walled itself round with the materials of its chief public buildings. The vale of Abonia, which at that time contained about twenty thousand inhabitants, followed their example; and pulling down their public edifices and the deserted temples of the city, the urban population formed ramparts around the plateau and a fence around the lower towns.

The works, however, undertaken in haste, were of no great account, and fortunately the Germans did not think of a.s.sailing them; but in the year 359, Julian, having a.s.sumed the purple, betook himself to Gaul to drive out the barbarians. The siege of Autun raised, he pa.s.sed through Abonia, found its situation excellent, and arranged the plan of a fortress, which after the battle of Strasburg and the defeat of Chnodomar, was carried into execution. Abonia thus fortified formed part of the second line of strong places established by Julian between Reims and Lyons, in antic.i.p.ation of fresh invasions by the Germans.

Gaul, although her sons had furnished the Roman army with its best soldiers for three centuries, had become unaccustomed to war at home.

The Roman legions no longer consisted of troops such as those commanded by the Vespasians, the t.i.tuses, and the Trajans. Composed princ.i.p.ally of barbarians, they wanted cohesion, were not sustained by patriotism, and deposed their chiefs on the slightest pretext.

The latter, moreover, too often appointed by a court governed by intrigue, were for the most part incapable, or eager to enrich themselves rather than to conquer the enemy. For these troops, composed of heterogeneous elements, and having no faith in the valour of the chiefs placed over them--for these populations, accustomed to peace and the well-being it secures--ramparts were necessary, behind which the defence of the territory might be organized; for in the open field, such was the terror inspired by the Germans that a prolonged resistance could not be reckoned upon. Julian, however, had shown that the troops in the pay of the empire, if well commanded, were still in a condition to fight the barbarians; but Julian was a philosopher; he understood his times, and could not shut his eyes to the unsound state of the imperial government, or at least believed the evil to lie so deep that he attempted to stay its progress by a return to paganism, hoping perhaps in this way to restore youth to the worn-out body.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 16.

THE GALLO-ROMAN TOWN CITe JULIANA.]

Julian had then about him Byzantine engineers who were very skilful in the art of fortifying places. This branch of knowledge is often developed among nations in proportion to the decay of military organization in the field. The conqueror of the Germans had caused the fortifications of Autun to be repaired and completed.

Those of Abonia, which were less extensive, were carried out with completeness according to an entirely new plan, since there existed no traces of the ancient fortifications: the engineer Philostratus sent by Julian was therefore left to his own discretion.

He began by clearing away the slopes of the ancient Oppidum along the verge of the plateau, thus removing some of the villae that had not been destroyed at the time when the arrival of the Germans was expected (see Fig. 16). After having carefully studied the conformation of the ground, he perceived that the front of the city towards the north was weak, inasmuch as this front was most accessible to attack on account of the neighbouring plateau, whose level was but little below that of the site.

He determined, therefore, to fall back, so as to get a more extended front. The front thus adopted was three hundred and fifty paces long.[4]

Outside of this front he had a fosse sunk twenty feet wide in the bottom,[5] so as entirely to divide the tongue of land which connected the promontory with the northern plateau. This fosse terminated at the two declivities east and west. At each end the bottom of the fosse was furnished with palisades, and there was a descent into the fosse by means of a flight of steps contrived in one of the towers, as will presently be shown. Outside the fosse he formed a _vallum_ about four hundred paces in length, with an outwork containing a guardhouse and a watch-tower. The Roman road to Langres came to this point. On the eastern side, the aqueduct which brought water to the city followed the _vallum_, and was crenelated (_vide_ A). A gate was opened in the north front, flanked on the outside by two cylindrical towers. At the north-west angle arose a square tower high enough to afford a distant view of the valley at the bottom of which runs the river, and of the plateau; another square tower was built at the north-east angle, and between these two towers and the gate two other towers; so that between each tower there remained a s.p.a.ce of about eighty feet.

Philostratus remarked that a daring besieger might run in towards the west, between the river and the city, and attempt an a.s.sault towards the salient of the west front, which commanded a rather gentle escarpment.

From the square tower, B, to the river, and set back a little, so as to be flanked by the western face of this tower, he formed a _vallum_, with a square tower at its extreme end, commanding the water-course. Further back was constructed a wooden bridge, connecting the two banks, and pa.s.sing over the island of sand, C. Along the two escarpments the engineer followed almost exactly the sinuosities of the edge of the plateau, but placing the gates in the re-entering angles. Two gates were disposed on the western front, and one on the eastern, very near the situation of the ancient entrance to the _Oppidum_ on that side. These three gates were each flanked by two towers, like those on the north.

The inclosure of the city, formed of a rampart rising twenty feet above the level of the ground, including the battlement, and nine feet thick, was thus strengthened by thirty-six towers, without reckoning those of the gates. At the southern extremity, on the site of the ancient retreat of Catognatus, was erected a _castellum_, or stronghold, separated from the city by a battlemented wall, and about one hundred and eighty feet away from the ramparts. At the southern extremity of the rampart, a square tower had to be built of greater height than the others, to overlook the vale of Abonia. Beneath this tower an egress was contrived, ab.u.t.ting on a ma.s.sive wall, following the declivity of the ground, and crenelated on both sides; from the summit of which a descent could be made into the work, E, commanding the junction of the rivulet with the river, and the stone bridge constructed there. Upon the other bank was built a vast _tete de pont_. The eastern gate was furnished with an outwork commanding the road, G; on the northern flank of the north-west entrance a guardhouse commanded the vicinity of the gate. The approaches were improved, and a wooden bridge was thrown across at H, with a _tete de pont_ and work commanding the confluence of roads at that point.

Building was prohibited on the western declivities--once occupied by houses and gardens--within a distance of one hundred and ten paces from the ramparts, or the military road, I; that is, habitations were allowed to remain or to be built outside the military bounds.[6] Inside the city, through the confusedly-grouped cl.u.s.ters of ancient houses, Philostratus had new roads cut,[7] with a view to establish a communication between the gates, and to facilitate the defence. At F was placed a forum, with a temple to Apollo at I (for Julian had caused a little Christian church, previously built in the city, to be demolished). A basilica was built at M, a _curia_ at N; and at T baths were erected. In the lower town, quay-walls, Q, kept the river within bounds; a vast market was disposed at R, and an emporium for merchandise at S. The town, or rather its suburbs, extended on the right bank, east as far as the middle of the island of sand, C, and south, to the lower side of the large _tete de pont_. These suburbs were simply inclosed by a _vallum_, as a safeguard against a sudden attack; for being commanded by higher ground they did not admit of defences adapted to resist a long siege.

These works occupied several years, and were executed with resources drawn partly from the imperial treasury but chiefly from munic.i.p.al imposts. Abonia was wealthy; but it suffered long from the burdens imposed upon it to render it secure against the incursions of the barbarians. Philostratus, moreover, had authority to make requisitions and levy dues, and he largely availed himself of it.

The undertaking completed, this cite, thus transformed by the order of the emperor who had saved Gaul, received the name of Juliana. The valley alone preserved the name of Abonia.

It may be desirable to give a few details explanatory of the defences.

Fig. 17 gives the section of the rampart between the towers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 17.]

Its terrace, raised to an average height of fourteen feet above the ground-level of the plateau, had a flight of steps between the towers five feet wide. The merlons were six feet high, and the sill of the embrasures was three feet above the footway.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 18.]

The rampart was constructed with two faces, of courses of small square stones, with courses of brick at intervals. The masonry between the two faces was of coa.r.s.e rubble concrete. Outside, along the verge of the plateau, a fosse ten or twelve feet wide protected the base of the rampart and followed the projections of the towers. A narrow covered way was led along the counterscarp to facilitate surveillance and allow the patrol to go their rounds. Fig. 18 gives the plans of the northern gate with its two towers, at A on the ground level, at B on the level of the curtain battlements. In one of these towers was constructed a stair, C, leading down to a postern, D, and in each of them other flights of stairs, E, which afforded easy access to the higher stories. The gate, divided into two archways for entrance and exit, was surmounted by a gallery, G, at the level of the rampart-walk, forming a crenelation. The road crossed the fosse, F, over an arch, _a_, and a wooden platform, _b_, which could be easily removed in time of siege; and then upon the platform, H, a screen of woodwork was to be erected, completely masking the two archways. Outside the bridge, the stonework of which was battlemented, two small uncovered posts, I, defended the approaches, and a palisade, P, obliged all comers to make a circuit in order to cross the bridge. Fig. 19 shows this gate in perspective. Below the roofing was the crenelation, which const.i.tuted the effective defence of the towers. Moreover, at the level of the first story three openings were made, which in time of war were furnished with screens, and which afforded front and side views. Munitions of war were hoisted to the higher stories by means of pulleys suspended in the round-arched openings, K (_vide_ plan of the first story). The other gates were constructed on the same model, the outworks alone being different, according to the disposition of the ground.