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197-589: In the first century BC, the settlement was conquered by Romans and a city began to be built. Remains of the Roman forum, amphitheatre, aqueduct and baths can still be seen. In the fifth century it became the capital of the Merovingian dynasty of French kings, and thereafter was known as Paris. Many artifacts from Lutetia have been recovered and are on display at the Musée Carnavalet . The settlement

394-400: A PIE stem meaning 'tread, step, walk'; cf. Old Irish cinged ), and -rix ('king'; cf. Celtiberian reikis , Old Irish rí , Old Welsh ri ). Scholar Maigréad Ní C. Dobbs has proposed to see an Irish cognate of the name in the form Ferchinged an rí . In his Life of Caesar , Plutarch renders the name as Vergentorix (Ουεργεντοριξ). According to Florus , he was "endowed [...] with

591-540: A barbarian to become a Roman; the Roman state was itself seen as having the duty to conquer and transform, i.e. civilise, barbarian peoples. A particularly disliked group of non-Romans within the empire were the Jews . The majority of the Roman populace detested Jews and Judaism , though views were more varied among the Roman elite. Although many, such as Tacitus, were also hostile to the Jews, others, such as Cicero, were merely unsympathetically indifferent. The Roman state

788-455: A base of cement. When excavated in the 19th century, the chalk builders' marks were still visible on the floor. The theatre had two groups of seating; the maenianum , or general audience seating, higher up and farther back, and the "maenianum" of the podium, for the notables, in front of the orchestra stage. It had a separate entrance, and was accessed by a covered corridor. There were also several vomitoria , or underground passageways, to

985-601: A cavalry battle and he retreated and moved to another stronghold, Alesia . In the Battle of Alesia in September 52 BC, Caesar built a fortification around the city to besiege it. However, Vercingetorix had summoned his Gallic allies to attack the besieging Romans. These forces included an army of Arverni led by Vercingetorix's cousin Vercassivellaunos and an army of 10,000 Lemovices led by Sedullos . With

1182-485: A common practice. Some barbarian soldiers recruited into the Roman army proudly embraced Roman identification and in some cases, the barbarian heritage of certain late Roman individuals was even completely ignored in the wider Roman world. Religion had always been an important marker of Romanness. As Christianity gradually became the dominant religion in the Roman Empire through late antiquity, and eventually became

1379-820: A common spirit, Can defy the Universe. Many other monumental statues of Vercingetorix were erected in France during the 19th century, including one by Frédéric Bartholdi on the Place de Jaude in Clermont-Ferrand . Asteroid 52963 Vercingetorix , discovered by the OCA–DLR Asteroid Survey , was named in his honor. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 25 September 2018 ( M.P.C. 111800 ). Vercingetorix

1576-418: A dramatic fashion, riding his beautifully adorned horse out of Alesia and around Caesar's camp before dismounting in front of Caesar, stripping himself of his armor and sitting down at his opponent's feet, where he remained motionless until he was taken away. Caesar provides a first-hand contradiction of this account, De Bell. Gal . 7.89, describing Vercingetorix's surrender much more modestly. Vercingetorix

1773-528: A foreign city, with disparaging comments on its corruption and impurity. Few Romans in late antiquity embodied all aspects of traditional Romanness. Many of them would have come from remote or less prestigious provinces and practiced religions and cults unheard of in Rome itself. Many of them would also have spoken 'barbarian languages' or Greek instead of Latin. Few inscriptions from late antiquity explicitly identify individuals as 'Roman citizens' or 'Romans'. Before

1970-468: A geographical location, and a personal identity. Though these concepts are related, they are not identical. Many modern historians tend to have a preferred idea of what being Roman meant, so-called Romanitas , but this was a term rarely used in Ancient Rome itself. Like all identities, the identity of 'Roman' was flexible, dynamic and multi-layered, and never static or unchanging. Given that Rome

2167-594: A large early Gallic settlement in Nanterre , in the suburbs of Paris. This is composed of a large area of several main streets and hundreds of houses over 15 hectares. Critics also point out the lack of archaeological finds from the pre-Roman era on the Ile de la Cité. Other scholars dispute the idea that the settlement was in Nanterre. They point to the description given by Julius Caesar, who came to Lutetia to negotiate with

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2364-483: A large stretch of territories that had never before had a common identity and never would again. The effects of Roman rule on the personal identities of the empire's subjects was considerable and the resulting Roman identity outlasted actual imperial control by several centuries. From the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th century to the wars of Emperor Justinian I in the 6th century,

2561-642: A long time there was widespread hope that the Romans would be liberated and that their empire would be restored. By the time of the Greek War of Independence, the dominant self-identity of the Greeks was still Rhōmaîoi or Romioi . The Italians of Rome continue to identify with the demonym 'Roman' to this day. Rome is the most populous city in Italy with the city proper being home to about 2.8 million citizens and

2758-459: A long time. As late as the 1930s, more than a century of the war of independence, Greek artists and authors still debated the contribution of Greece to European culture, and whether it should derive from a romantic fascination with classical antiquity, a nationalist dream of a restored Byzantine Empire, the strong oriental influence from the centuries of Ottoman rule or if it should be something entirely new, or "Neohellenic", reminding Europe that there

2955-607: A metre. The residential streets of Lutetia, unlike the boulevards, were irregular and not as-well maintained as they were the responsibility of the home-owners, not the city. Traces of several of these early residential neighbourhoods, dating to the beginning of the 1st century AD, particularly on the Rue de l'Abbé de l'Épée, rue Pierre-et-Marie-Curie, and the garden of the Êcole des Mines have been discovered. The houses generally had wood frames covered with clay. The floors were covered with yellow clay or packed earth. Excavations showed that

3152-500: A myth of Trojan origin through the heroic figure Aeneas . The actual mythical founder of the city itself, Romulus , only appears many generations into the complex web of foundation myths. Interpretations of these myths varied among authors in Antiquity, but most agreed that their civilisation had been founded by a mixture of migrants and fugitives. These origin narratives would favour the later extensive integrations of foreigners into

3349-809: A name which seemed to be intended to inspire terror". Having been appointed governor of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis (modern Provence ) in 58 BC, Julius Caesar proceeded to conquer the Gallic tribes beyond over the next few years, maintaining control through a careful divide and rule strategy. He made use of the factionalism among the Gallic elites, favouring certain noblemen over others with political support and Roman luxuries such as wine . Attempts at revolt, such as that of Ambiorix in 54 BC, had secured only local support, but Vercingetorix, whose father, Celtillus, had been put to death by his own countrymen for seeking to rule all of Gaul, managed to unify

3546-432: A person had recently become a Roman, or if the Roman status of a person was in doubt. The prevalent view of the Romans themselves was that the populus Romanus , or Roman people, were a "people by constitution", as opposed to the barbarian peoples who were gentes , "peoples by descent" (i. e. ethnicities). Given that Romanness had become near-universal within the empire, local identities became more and more prominent. In

3743-560: A political sanctuary by Romulus , as well as the rape of the Sabine women , which represented how different peoples had commingled since the very beginning of the city. Cicero and other Roman authors sneered at peoples such as the Athenians , who prided themselves in their shared descent, and instead found pride in Rome's status as a "mongrel nation". Dionysius of Halicarnassus , a Greek historian who lived in Roman times, even embellished

3940-522: A pool of heated water. The room was heated by a hypocaust , an under-floor system of tunnels filled with hot air, heated by furnaces tended by slaves. After a period of time there, bathers would move to the frigidarium , which had a cold-water pool and baths, or to the tepidarium , which had the same features at room-temperature. They played an important social and political role in Lutetia as in other Roman cities. They were free of charge, or accessible for

4137-600: A profound effect on the formerly Roman populace of their kingdom. By the time the soldiers of the eastern empire landed in Africa during Justinian's Vandalic War , the Romance people of North Africa had ceased to identify as Romans, instead preferring either Libyans ( Libicus ) or Punic people ( Punicus ). Contemporary eastern authors also described them as Libyans (Λίβυες). During the Vandal Kingdom's brief existence,

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4334-445: A radical change in imperial policy towards the provincials. It is possible that decades, and in many cases centuries, of Romanization through Rome's cultural influence had already begun the evolution of a "national" Roman identity before 212 and that the grant only made the ongoing process legal, but the grant might also have served as the important prerequisite for a later nearly all-encompassing collective Roman identity. According to

4531-494: A result, Roman identity in the still barbarian-ruled regions (i.e. Gaul, Spain and Britain) declined dramatically. During the reconquest of Italy, the Roman Senate disappeared and most of its members moved to Constantinople . Though the senate achieved a certain legacy in the west, the end of the institution removed a group that had always set the standard of what Romanness was supposed to mean. The war in Italy also divided

4728-432: A revolt near the end of Julius Caesar 's Gallic Wars , the Battle of Lutetia was fought with the local tribe. The Gallic forces were led by Vercingetorix 's lieutenant Camulogenus . They burned the oppidum and the bridges to keep the Romans from crossing. The Romans, led by Titus Labienus , one of Caesar's generals, marched south to Melun , crossed the river there, marched back toward the city, and decisively defeated

4925-676: A romanticised version of ancient Greece. Comparable uprisings against the Ottomans by other peoples in the Balkans, such as the First Serbian Uprising (1804–1814), had been almost entirely ignored in Western Europe. Many Greeks, particularly those outside the then newly founded Greek state, continued to refer to themselves as Romioi well into the 20th century. What Greek identity ought to be remained unresolved for

5122-464: A small fee, and contained not only baths but also bars, places to rest, meeting rooms and libraries. The original baths were probably destroyed during the first invasion by the Franks and Alamans in 275, then rebuilt. The frigidarium , with its vault intact, and the caldarium are the main remaining rooms. They were originally covered on the inside with mosaics, marble or frescoes. The northern side

5319-582: A smooth transition from people identifying as Romans to people identifying as Goths. There were few differences between the Goths and the Romans of Hispania at this point; the Visigoths no longer practised Arian Christianity and Romans, just like the Goths, were from the 6th century onwards allowed to serve in the military. Though Roman identity was rapidly disappearing, the Visigothic Kingdom in

5516-514: A third of the people in Italy south of the Po river had been made Roman citizens, meaning that they were liable for military service, and the rest had been made into allies, frequently called on to join Roman wars. These allies were eventually made Roman citizens as well after refusal by the Roman government to make them so was met with the Social War , after which Roman citizenship was extended to all

5713-452: A time when the province was threatened by barbarian invasion. Much of the remaining building stone was reused in the city wall of Paris constructed by Philippe-Auguste in the 12th century. The site was discovered in 1867-68 during the construction of Rue Monge by Louis-Napoleon, and excavations were begun in 1870. A bus depot was planned to be built on the same site, but a coalition of notable Parisans, including Victor Hugo , insisted that

5910-489: A young nobleman of the Arvernian city of Gergovia , roused his dependents to join the revolt, but he and his followers were expelled by Vercingetorix's uncle Gobanitio and the rest of the nobles because they thought that opposing Caesar was too great a risk. Undeterred, Vercingetorix raised an army of the poor, took Gergovia, and was hailed as king. He made alliances with other tribes, and in doing so he united Gaul under

6107-449: Is an illustrated summation of "Caesar's Gallic Wars", written by Caesar. The 2005–2007 HBO series Rome depicts the surrender and execution of Vercingetorix . The 2001 film Druids , starring Christopher Lambert as Vercingetorix, depicts the Gallic chieftain's struggle against Caesar. The film is infamous in France for its poor quality and dismal box office performance. The script was written by Norman Spinrad , who also authored

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6304-681: Is attested in Ancient Greek as Loukotokía (Λoυκoτοκία) by Strabo and Leukotekía (Λευκοτεκία) by Ptolemy . Likely origins are Celtic root lut- meaning "a swamp or marsh" + suffix -ecia , It survives today in the Scottish Gaelic lòn ("pool, meadow") and the Breton loudour ("dirty"). A less likely origin is the Celtic root *luco-t- , which means "mouse" and -ek(t)ia , double collectiv suffix, meaning "the mice" and which

6501-764: Is contained in the Breton word logod , the Welsh llygod "mice", and the Irish luch , genitive luchad "mouse". Traces of Neolithic habitations, dating as far back as 4500 BC, have been found along the Seine at Bercy , and close to the Louvre . The earliest inhabitants lived on the river plain, raising animals and farming. In the Bronze Age and Iron Age , they settled in villages, in houses made of wood and clay. Their life

6698-472: Is not clear to what extent the majority of the new Roman citizens regarded themselves as being Roman, or to what extent they were regarded as such by others. For some provincials under Roman rule, the only experience with "Romans" prior to themselves being granted citizenship was through Rome's at times coercive tax-collection system or its army, aspects which were not assimilative in terms of forming an empire-spanning collective identity. Caracalla's grant marked

6895-564: Is plausible that extensive numbers of barbarians were made part of the normal Roman military but it is equally plausible that there was also, or instead, a certain 'barbarian chic ' in the army, comparable to the 19th-century French Zouaves (French military units in North Africa who adopted native clothing and cultural practices). The rise of non-Roman customs in the Roman military might not have resulted from increasing numbers of barbarian recruits, but rather from Roman military units along

7092-589: Is primarily known through Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic War). He is considered a folk hero in France, and especially in Auvergne , his native region. The Gaulish name Vercingetorix literally means 'great/supreme king/leader of warriors/heroes'. It is a compound of the prefix ver- ('over, superior'; cf. Old Irish for , Old Welsh / Old Breton guor , Cornish gor ), attached to -cingeto- ('warrior, hero', from

7289-598: Is referenced and appears in flashbacks in several Asterix comics. Asterix and the Chieftain's Shield is about Asterix and Obelix's efforts to locate Vercingetorix's missing shield and humiliate Caesar in the process. He is the co-protagonist and title character of the 18th book in the series The Adventures of Alix . The story of his battles against Caesar and subsequent surrender are also referenced in Classics Illustrated "Caesars Conquests", which

7486-588: The Antonine Constitution , issued by Emperor Caracalla in 212, in which all free inhabitants of Empire were granted the citizenship. Caracalla's grant contributed to a vast increase in the number of people with the nomen (name indicating familial association) Aurelius . By the time of the Antonine Constitution, many people throughout the provinces already considered themselves (and were considered by others) as Romans. Through

7683-546: The Carthaginian Empire . Some symbols of the ancient state were revived and the city of Carthage , capital of the kingdom, was heavily emphasised in poetry, on coinage and in the creation of a new "Carthaginian calendar". Coins minted by the Vandals were inscribed with Felix Karthago ("fortunate Carthage") and Carthagine Perpetua ("Carthage eternal"). The Vandalic promotion of independent African symbols had

7880-655: The Empire of Nicaea , the Byzantine government-in-exile, chiefly looked to Greek cultural heritage and Orthodox Christianity, connecting the contemporary Romans to the ancient Greeks. This contributed to Romanness becoming even more increasingly associated with people who were ethno-culturally Hellenic. Under the Nicene emperors John III ( r.   1222–1254) and Theodore II ( r.   1254–1258), these ideas were taken further than ever before as they explicitly stated that

8077-578: The Lombards in the late 6th century, the continued administration and urbanisation of northern Italy attest to a continued survival of Roman institutions and values. It was still possible for non-citizens (such as barbarians) in the west to become Roman citizens well into the 7th and 8th centuries; several surviving Visigothic and Frankish documents explain the benefits of becoming a Roman citizen and there are records of rulers and nobles freeing slaves and making them into citizens. Despite this, Roman identity

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8274-555: The Near East , and North Africa through conquests made during the Roman Republic and the subsequent Roman Empire. Although defined primarily as a citizenship, "Roman-ness" has also and variously been described as a cultural identity , a nationality , or a multi- ethnicity that eventually encompassed a vast regional diversity. Citizenship grants, demographic growth, and settler and military colonies rapidly increased

8471-514: The Po river by 270 BC. Following the conquest of Italy, the Romans waged war against the great powers of their time; Carthage to the south and west and the various Hellenistic kingdoms to the east, and by the middle of the second century BC, all rivals had been defeated and Rome became recognised by other countries as the definite masters of the Mediterranean. By the late 3rd century BC, about

8668-595: The Roman Empire . This concept underwent considerable changes throughout the long history of the Roman civilisation, as its borders expanded and contracted. Originally only including the Latins of Rome itself, Roman citizenship was extended to the rest of the Italic peoples by the 1st century BC and to nearly every subject of the Roman empire in late antiquity . At their peak, the Romans ruled large parts of Europe ,

8865-728: The Roman legions from living off the land. Vercingetorix scorched much of the land marching north with his army from Gergovia in an attempt to deprive Caesar of the resources and safe haven of the towns and villages along Caesar's march south. However, the capital of the Bituriges , Avaricum (near modern-day Bourges ), a Gallic settlement directly in Caesar's path, was spared. Due to the town's strong protests, naturally defensible terrain, and apparently strong man-made reinforcing defenses, Vercingetorix decided against razing and burning it. Leaving

9062-761: The Romands and the Romansh people . Several names derive from the Latin Romani (such as the Romanians , Aromanians and Istro-Romanians ), or from the Germanic walhaz (a term originally referring to the Romans; adopted in the form Vlach as the self-designation of the Megleno-Romanians ). The term 'Roman' is today used interchangeably to describe a historical timespan, a material culture ,

9259-623: The Rome metropolitan area to over four million people. Since the collapse of the western Roman empire, the Papacy has continued the institution of the Pontifex Maximus and governments inspired by the ancient Roman Republic have been revived in the city four times. The earliest such government was the Commune of Rome in the 12th century, founded as opposition towards the temporal powers of

9456-425: The 'greatness of their forefathers'. These appeals were typically only invoked towards illustrious noble families, with other important traditions emphasising Rome's collective descent. Throughout its history, Rome proved to be uniquely capable of incorporating and integrating other peoples ( Romanisation ). This sentiment originated from the city's foundation myths, including Rome being founded as something akin to

9653-542: The 18th century, maintain Roman identity, designating themselves as Rumaioi . The term Rum or Rumi also sees continued usage by Turks and Arabs as a religious term for followers of the Greek Orthodox Church, not only those of Greek ethnicity. The vast majority of the Romance peoples that descended from the intermingling of Romans and Germanic peoples following the collapse of Roman political unity in

9850-499: The 2nd century. Like many other buildings on the left bank in the 4th century its stone was used in the building of the wall and new buildings on the Île-de-la-Cité. It was excavated and recreated by Theodore Vacquer between 1861 and 1884. The slope of Mt. Genevieve was used to provide elevation for the semi-circular seating. The back of the stage faced onto to the Roman road and was decorated with arches and columns. The "pulpitum", or front stage, and "parascenum", or back stage, rested on

10047-581: The 6th and 7th centuries thus also produced several prominent latter-day Roman generals, such as Claudius and Paulus . The disappearance of the Romans is reflected in the barbarian law collections. In the Salic law of Clovis I (from around 500), the Romans and the Franks are the two major parallel populations of the kingdom and both have well-defined legal statuses. A century later in the Lex Ripuaria ,

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10244-404: The Antonine Constitution, being a Roman had been a mark of distinction and often stressed, but after the 3rd century Roman status went without saying. This silence does not mean that Romanness no longer mattered in the late Roman Empire, but rather that it had become less distinctive than other more specific marks of identity (such as local identities) and only needed to be stressed or highlighted if

10441-556: The Arverni at the oppidum Gergovia in 52 BC. He immediately established an alliance with other Gallic tribes, took command, combined all forces and led them in the Celts' most significant revolt against Roman power. He won the Battle of Gergovia against Julius Caesar in which several thousand Romans and their allies were killed and the Roman legions withdrew. Caesar had been able to exploit Gaulish internal divisions to easily subjugate

10638-570: The British jurist Tony Honoré , the grant "gave many millions, perhaps a majority of the empire's inhabitants […] a new consciousness of being Roman". It is likely that local identities survived after Caracalla's grant and remained prominent throughout the empire, but that self-identification as Roman provided a larger sense of common identity and became important when dealing with and distinguishing oneself from non-Romans, such as barbarian settlers and invaders. In many cases, ancient Romans associated

10835-688: The Byzantine Empire, still identifying it with the old Roman Republic. Such references ceased as Byzantine control of Italy and Rome itself crumbled and the Papacy began to use the term for their own, much more regional, domain and sphere of influence. As the Byzantine Empire lost its territories in Egypt , the Levant and Italy, the Christians who lived in those regions ceased to be recognised by

11032-477: The Byzantine emperors. Only a handful of late sources retain the old view of a Roman being a citizen of the Roman world. The capture of Constantinople by the non-Roman Latin crusaders of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 ended the unbroken Roman continuity from Rome to Constantinople. In order to legitimise themselve as Romans in the decades when they no longer controlled Constantinople, the Byzantine elite began to look to other markers of what Romans were. The elites of

11229-436: The Byzantine government as Romans, much in the same vein as had happened with the North Africans under Vandal rule. The decrease in the diversity of peoples recognised as being Roman meant that the term Roman increasingly came to be applied only to the now dominant Hellenic population of the remaining territories, rather than to all imperial citizens. As the Hellenic populace were united by following Orthodox Christianity, spoke

11426-417: The Byzantines. After 1453, the term was not only sometimes a Turkish self-identification, but it was also used to refer to Ottoman Turks by other Islamic states and peoples. The identification of the Ottomans with the Romans was also made outside of the Islamic world . 16th-century Portuguese sources refer to the Ottomans they battled in the Indian Ocean as "rumes" and the Chinese Ming dynasty referred to

11623-406: The English historian Emma Dench , it was "notoriously difficult to detect slaves by their appearance" in Ancient Rome. Although Ancient Rome has been termed an 'evidently non-racist society', Romans carried considerable cultural stereotypes and prejudices against cultures and peoples that were not integrated into the Roman world , i.e. " barbarians ". Though views differed through Roman history,

11820-405: The Gallic settlement would remain on the island. They argue that a settlement in Nanterre did not necessarily exclude that the Île-de-la-Cité was the site of the oppidum of Lutetia; both settlements could have existed at the same time. Finally, they argue that, while Gallic settlements sometimes relocated to a new site, the new sites were usually given a new name. It would be very unusual to transfer

12017-462: The Gallic tribes against the Romans and adopted more current styles of warfare. The revolt that Vercingetorix came to lead began in early 52 BC while Caesar was raising troops in Cisalpine Gaul . Believing that Caesar would be distracted by the turmoil in Rome following the death of Publius Clodius Pulcher , the Carnutes , under Cotuatus and Conetodunus, made the first move, slaughtering the Romans who had settled in their territory. Vercingetorix,

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12214-496: The Great , were legally and ostensibly viceroys of the eastern emperor and thus integrated into the Roman government. Like the western emperors before them, they continued to appoint western consuls, which were accepted in the east and by the other barbarian kings. The imperial court in the east extended various honours to powerful barbarian rulers in the west, which was interpreted by the barbarians as enhancing their legitimacy; something they used to justify territorial expansion. In

12411-440: The Greek War of Independence saw large-scale support owing to philhellenism , a sense of "civilisational debt" to the world of classical antiquity, rather than any actual interest in the modern country. Despite the modern Greeks bearing more resemblance to the medieval Byzantines than the Greeks of the ancient world, public interest in the revolt elsewhere in Europe hinged almost entirely on sentimental and intellectual attachments to

12608-476: The Greek War of Independence, when multiple factors saw the name 'Hellene' rise to replace it. Among these factors were that names such as "Hellene", "Hellas" and "Greece" were already in use for the country and its people by the other nations in Europe, the absence of the old Byzantine government to reinforce Roman identity, and the term Romioi becoming associated with those Greeks still under Ottoman rule rather than those actively fighting for independence. Thus, in

12805-435: The Holy Roman emperors were recognised by the citizens of Rome as true Roman emperors, albeit only because of their support and coronation by the popes. The Franks and other westerners did not view the population of Rome favourably either. Foreign sources are generally hostile, ascribing traits such as unrest and deceit to the Romans and describing them as "as proud as they are helpless". Anti-Roman sentiment lasted throughout

13002-443: The Ile de Cité as the site of the Gallic settlement also address the issue of the lack of archaeological evidence on the island. The original oppidum and bridges were burned by the Parisii to keep them out of the hands of the Romans. The houses of the Parisii were made of wood and clay. Since then every square metre of the island has been dug up and rebuilt, often using the same materials, multiple times, making it unlikely that traces of

13199-447: The Ile de la Cite. The streets and squares were laid out in blocks ("insulae") of 300 Roman feet (88.8 m) square. As a result the modern Rue Saint Martin and Rue Saint-Denis, which were both laid out in Roman times, are 600 Roman feet apart. Excavations of the streets have uncovered the ruts in the roads from the wheels of chariots and wagons. The roads were regularly repaired with fresh stones, gradually raising their height by as much as

13396-600: The Latin Rōmānī . The Istro-Romanians sometimes identify as rumeri or similar terms, though these names have lost strength and Istro-Romanians often identify with their native villages instead. The Megleno-Romanians also identified as rumâni in the past, though this name was mostly replaced in favour of the term vlasi centuries ago. Vlasi is derived from "Vlach", in turn deriving from walhaz . Vercingetorix Vercingetorix ( Latin: [wɛrkɪŋˈɡɛtɔriːks] ; ‹See Tfd› Greek : Οὐερκιγγετόριξ [u.erkiŋɡeˈtoriks] ; c.  80 – 46 BC)

13593-408: The Lutetians to abandon a large part of the city on the left bank, and to move to the Île de la Cité . Vestiges of Roman buildings on the island, including baths, were found under the parvis of Notre-Dame in 1965 and can be seen today. The rampart was about two metres tall with a wooden walkway and, like most of the buildings on the island, was built from stone brought from the demolished buildings on

13790-415: The Middle Ages primarily stemmed from it being the seat of the pope , a view shared by both westerners and the eastern empire. During the centuries following Justinian's reconquest, when the city was still under imperial control, the population was not specially administered and did not have any political participation in wider imperial affairs. When clashing with the emperors, the popes sometimes employed

13987-411: The Middle Ages. The Romans partly owed their bad reputation to sometimes trying to take an independent position towards the popes of the Holy Roman emperors. Given that these rulers were seen as having universal power , the Romans were considered intruders in affairs that exceeded their competence. Unlike the other kingdoms, the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa did not maintain a pretense of loyalty to

14184-540: The Ottomans as Lumi (魯迷), a transliteration of Rūmī , and to Constantinople as Lumi cheng (魯迷城, "Lumi city"). As applied to Ottoman Turks, Rūmī began to fall out of use at the end of the 17th century, and instead the word increasingly became associated only with the Greek population of the empire, a meaning that it still bears in Turkey today. As applied to the Greeks, the self-identity as Romans endured longer, and for

14381-545: The Parisii. The location of the final battle, like the location of the oppidum, is disputed. It was fought near a river, which some historians interpret as the Seine , and others as the Yonne ; and near a large marsh; a feature of the countryside near both the Île-de-la-Cité and Narbonne. Whatever its location was, the battle was decisive; Lutetia became a Roman town. The first traces of the Roman occupation of Lutetia appeared at

14578-489: The Pope, which was followed by the government of Cola di Rienzo , who used the titles of 'tribune' and 'senator', in the 14th century, a sister republic to revolutionary France in the 18th century, which restored the office of Roman consul, and finally as the short-lived Roman Republic in 1849, with a government based on the triumvirates of ancient Rome. Roman self-identification among Greeks only began losing ground with

14775-550: The Roman Empire. Since the term 'Roman' was seen as implying political loyalty to the empire, it was regarded by the Vandal government as politically loaded and suspicious. As a consequence, the Roman population of the kingdom rarely self-identified as such, though important markers of Romanness, such as Roman naming customs, adherence to Nicene Christianity as well as the Latin-language literary tradition, survived throughout

14972-406: The Roman circumvallation surrounded by the rest of Gaul, Caesar built another outward-facing fortification (a contravallation) against the expected relief armies, resulting in a doughnut-shaped fortification. The Gallic relief came in insufficient numbers: estimates range from 80,000 to 250,000 soldiers. Vercingetorix, the tactical leader, was cut off from them on the inside, and without his guidance

15169-421: The Roman elite there between those who enjoyed barbarian rule and those who supported the empire and later withdrew to imperial territory, meaning that Roman identity ceased to provide a sense of social and political cohesion. The division of Western Europe into multiple different kingdoms accelerated the disappearance of Roman identity, as the previously unifying identity was replaced by local identities based on

15366-513: The Roman ideal. Such aspects included emphasising strength and thirst for battle, as well as the assumption of "barbarian" strategies and customs, such as the barritus (a formerly Germanic battle cry), the Schilderhebung (raising an elected emperor up on a shield) as well as Germanic battle formations. The assumption of these customs might instead of barbarisation be attributable to the Roman army simply adopting customs it found useful,

15563-558: The Roman world. The origins of the people that became the first Romans are clearer. As in neighbouring city-states, the early Romans were composed mainly of Latin -speaking Italic people , known as the Latins . The Latins were a people with a marked Mediterranean character, related to other neighbouring Italic peoples such as the Falisci . The early Romans were part of the Latin homeland, known as Latium , and were Latins themselves. By

15760-577: The Romans (also used for western neighbours in general), walhaz , became an ethnonym , although it is in many cases only attested centuries after the end of Roman rule in said regions. The term walhaz is the origin of the modern term ' Welsh ', i.e. the people of Wales , and of the historical exonym ' Vlach ', which was used through the Middle Ages and the Modern Period for various Eastern Romance peoples . As endonyms, Roman identification

15957-598: The Romans and the Romance people of North Africa is also reflected in foreign sources, and the two populations appear to not yet have been reconciled by the time the African provinces fell during the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb and Roman rule was terminated. Eastern Mediterranean populations, which remained under Eastern Roman (or " Byzantine ") control after the 5th century, retained "Roman" as their predominant identity;

16154-446: The Romans are just one of many smaller semi-free populations, restricted in their legal capacity, with many of their former advantages now associated with Frankish identity. Such legal arrangements would have been unthinkable under the Roman Empire and under the early decades of barbarian rule. By Charlemagne 's imperial coronation in 800, Roman identity largely disappeared in Western Europe and fell to low social status. The situation

16351-458: The Romans slaughtered nearly the entire population, some 40,000 people, leaving only about 800 alive. The next major battle was at Gergovia , capital city of the Arverni . During the battle, Vercingetorix and his warriors crushed Caesar's legions and allies, inflicting heavy losses. Vercingetorix then decided to follow Caesar but suffered heavy losses (as did the Romans and their allies ) during

16548-482: The Romans, and they remained faithful to their own religion. The exclusivist religious practices of the Jews, and their opposition to abandoning their own customs in favour of those of Rome, even after being conquered and repeatedly suppressed, evoked the suspicion of the Romans. The founding of Rome , and the history of the city and its people throughout its first few centuries, is steeped in myth and uncertainty. The traditional date for Rome's foundation, 753 BC, and

16745-413: The Rue des Ecoles. The baths originally occupied a much larger area of about 300 x 400 Roman feet, a standard Roman city block, covering about one hectare. Clients entered the baths near the modern Rue des Ecoles into a large courtyard lined with shops. They would cross the courtyard to the entrance of the baths, change their clothes, and go first into the caldarium , a hot and steamy room with benches and

16942-513: The Vandal ruling class had culturally and ethnically merged with the Romano-Africans. By the time the kingdom fell, the only real cultural differences between the "Libyans" and "Vandals" were that Vandals adhered to Arian Christianity and were permitted to serve in the army. After North Africa was reincorporated into the empire, the eastern Roman government deported the Vandals from the region, which shortly thereafter led to disappearance of

17139-405: The Vandals as a distinct group. The only individuals recorded to have been deported were soldiers; given that the wives and children of the "Vandals" thus remained in North Africa, the name at this stage appears to mainly have denoted the soldier class. Despite North Africa's reincorporation into the empire, the distinction between "Libyans" and "Romans" (i.e. the inhabitants of the eastern empire)

17336-409: The ancient Pagan Greeks rather than the more recent Christian Romans. The westerners were not unaware of Byzantium's Romanness; when not wishing to distance themselves from the eastern empire, the term Romani was frequently used for soldiers and subjects of the eastern emperors. From the 6th to 8th century, western authors also sometimes employed terms such as res publica or sancta res publica for

17533-590: The ancient name. The " Lutetian " is, in the geologic timescale , a stage or age in the Eocene Epoch. The asteroid 21 Lutetia , discovered in 1852 by Hermann Goldschmidt , is named after the city. Roman people The Roman people was the body of Roman citizens ( Latin : Rōmānī ; Ancient Greek : Ῥωμαῖοι Rhōmaîoi ) during the Roman Kingdom , the Roman Republic , and

17730-694: The archeological crypt under the Parvis in front of Notre-Dame Cathedral, Place John Paul II. In the 4th century, Lutetia remained an important bulwark defending the Empire against the Germanic invaders. In 357–358 Julian , as caesar of the Western empire and general of the Gallic legions, moved the Roman capital of Gaul from Trier to Paris. After defeating the Alemanni in a major battle of Strasbourg in 357, he defended against Germanic invaders coming from

17927-424: The attacks were initially unsuccessful. However, the attacks did reveal a weak point in the fortifications and the combined forces on the inside and the outside almost made a breakthrough. Only when Caesar personally led the last reserves into battle did he finally manage to prevail. This was a decisive battle in the creation of the Roman Empire . According to Plutarch , Caes . 27.8-10, Vercingetorix surrendered in

18124-426: The attitude towards peoples beyond the Roman frontier among most Roman writers in late antiquity can be summed up with "the only good barbarian is a dead barbarian". Throughout antiquity, the majority of Roman emperors included anti-barbarian imagery on their coinage, such as the emperor or Victoria (the personification and goddess of victory) being depicted as stepping on or dragging defeated barbarian enemies. Per

18321-495: The barbarian rulers into the Roman world. By the end of the Justinianic wars, imperial control had returned to northern Africa and Italy, but the wars being founded on the idea that anything outside of the eastern empire's direct control was no longer part of the Roman Empire meant that there could no longer be any doubt that the lands beyond the imperial frontier were no longer Roman and instead remained "lost to barbarians". As

18518-468: The bridge connecting to the Île de la Cité ; across the island, and across a bridge to a smaller enclave on the right bank. The low-lying land along the river was suitable for farming; and since it was easily flooded, the road was raised. The Cardo Maximus met the Decumanus, or main east-west street, located at modern rue Soufflot. Here was the civic basilica, containing a tribunal, and a temple. Gradually

18715-403: The building, and two lower collateral aisles, separated from the nave by rows of columns. At the west end was the temple devoted to the official gods. Its facade with a portico of pillars with triangular pediment faced to the east, the tradition for Roman temples. The amphitheatre is located near the intersection of Rue Monge and Rue de Navarre. It was about 100 x 130 m in plan, making it one of

18912-403: The burial vessel. In the later years of the Empire, when the pressure of invading Germanic tribes led to the abandonment of the old monuments, a new necropolis, named for Saint-Marcel, was established near the modern Avenue des Gobelins and Boulevard du Port Royal, along the Roman main road leading to Italy. In this necropolis the tombs were mostly composed of stone taken from the monuments in

19109-501: The centuries of Roman expansion, large numbers of veterans and opportunists had settled in the provinces and colonies founded by Julius Caesar and Augustus alone saw between 500,000 and a million people from Italy settled in Rome's provinces. In AD 14, four to seven percent of the free people in the provinces of the empire were already Roman citizens. In addition to colonists, many provincials had also become citizens through grants by emperors and through other methods. In most cases, it

19306-400: The city had an important plaster industry; plaster was used to simulate stone, as a covering, or in the form of bricks and tiles. The houses of the wealthy often had an underfloor heating system and their own bath suite. Their interior walls were covered with plaster, and often painted with frescoes, some traces of which have been recovered (see gallery). They frequently had a reception room on

19503-452: The city was furnished with a forum, and baths, all on the upper slope of Mount Sainte-Genevieve. It was not the capital of the Roman province ( Sens had that distinction) and it was to the west of the most important Roman north-south road between Provence and the Rhine . The importance of the city was due in large part to its position as an intersection of land and water trade routes. One of

19700-542: The city, a myth that endured in Greek folklore up until the time of the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) and beyond. In the early modern period , many Ottoman Turks , especially those who lived in the cities and were not part of the military or administration, also self-identified as Romans ( Rūmī , رومى), as inhabitants of former Byzantine territory. The term Rūmī had originally been used by Muslims for Christians in general, though later became restricted to just

19897-462: The city. When the temporal power of the papacy was established through the foundation of the Papal States in the 8th century, the popes used the fact that they were accompanied and supported by the populus Romanus as something that legitimised their sovereignty. The Roman populace considered neither the eastern empire nor Charlemagne's new " Holy Roman Empire " to be properly Roman. Though

20094-507: The continuity from Rome to Constantinople was accepted in the west, surviving sources point to the easterners being seen as Greeks who had abandoned Rome and Roman identity. The Carolingian kings on the other hand were seen as having more to do with the Lombard kings of Italy than the ancient Roman emperors. The medieval Romans also often equated the Franks with the ancient Gauls, and viewed them as aggressive, insolent and vain. Despite this,

20291-483: The country, since Vercingetorix's attempt to unite the Gauls against Roman invasion came too late. At the Battle of Alesia , also in 52 BC, the Romans besieged and defeated his forces. To spare as many of his men as possible, he gave himself to the Romans. He was held prisoner for five years. In 46 BC, as part of Caesar's triumph , he was paraded through the streets of Rome and then executed by garroting . Vercingetorix

20488-471: The earlier necropolis of Saint-Jacques. One of the tombs there, dating from the Third Century AD, is notable for the first recorded use of the name "Paris" for the city. The tombs at Saint Marcel contain a variety of ceramic and glass objects from the workshops of the city, placed at the foot of the deceased. The first symbols of Christian burials, in the 5th century, were also found here. Lutetia

20685-547: The early 6th century, Clovis I of the Franks and Theoderic the Great of the Ostrogoths nearly went to war with each other, a conflict that could have resulted in the re-establishment of the western empire under either king. Concerned about such a prospect, the eastern court never again extended similar honours to western rulers, instead beginning to emphasise its own exclusive Roman legitimacy, which it would continue to do for

20882-504: The early Middle Ages, often issuing their own law collections. In 6th-century law collections issued by the Visigoths in Spain and the Franks in Gaul, it is clear that there were still large populations identifying as Romans in these regions given that the law collections distinguish between barbarians who live by their own laws and Romans who live by Roman law. Even after Italy was conquered by

21079-597: The eastern provinces were often native to their respective provinces, the military and administrative staff in North Africa was almost entirely constituted by easterners. The imperial government distrusting the locals was hardly surprising given that imperial troops had been harassed by local (formerly Roman) peasants during the Vandalic War, supportive of the Vandal regime, and that there had been several rebels thereafter, such as Guntarith and Stotzas , who sought to restore an independent kingdom. The distinction between

21276-440: The emperor. In Byzantine writings up until at least the 12th century, the idea of the Roman "homeland" consistently referred not to Greece or Italy, but to the entire old Roman world. Despite this, the Romans of Byzantium were also aware that their present empire was no longer as powerful as it once had been, and that centuries of warfare and strife had left the Roman Empire reduced in territory and somewhat humbled. Given that

21473-651: The empire (alongside, for instance, Armenians) and by the late 11th century, there are references in historical writings to people as being " Rhōmaîos by birth", signalling the completion of the transformation of "Roman" into an ethnic description. At this point, "Roman" also began being used for Greek populations outside of the imperial borders, such as to the Greek-speaking Christians under Seljuk rule in Anatolia, who were referred to as Rhōmaîoi despite actively resisting attempts at re-integration by

21670-491: The empire in 1453, Hellene lost ground as a self-identity, with few known uses of the term, and Rhōmaîoi once again became the dominant term used for self-description. Some Byzantine authors went as far as to return to using "Hellenic" and "Greek" solely as terms for the ancient pagan Greeks. Rhōmaîoi survived the fall of the Byzantine Empire as the primary self-designation of the Christian Greek inhabitants of

21867-457: The empire, such as Ammianus Marcellinus who wrote of the differences between 'Gauls' and 'Italians'. In the late Roman army , there were regiments named after Roman sub-identities, such as ' Celts ' and ' Batavians ', as well as regiments named after barbarian gentes , such as the Franks or Saxons . The Roman army underwent considerable changes in the 4th century, experiencing what some have called 'barbarisation', traditionally understood as

22064-670: The end of the 1st century BC, during the reign of the Emperor Augustus. By the beginning of the 1st century AD, the construction of the Roman city was underway. The Roman city was laid out along the main Cardo Maximus street, perpendicular to the Seine. It began at the heights of the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève on the left bank, went downhill along the modern Rue Saint-Jacques , across a marshy area to

22261-535: The eyes of the independence movement, a Hellene was a brave and rebellious freedom fighter while a Roman was an idle slave under the Ottomans. The new Hellenic national identity was heavily focused on the cultural heritage of ancient Greece rather than medieval Byzantium, though adherence to Orthodox Christianity remained an important aspect of Greek identity. An identity re-oriented towards ancient Greece also worked in Greece's favour internationally. In Western Europe,

22458-411: The fact that they had the backing of the populus Romanus ("people of Rome") as a legitimising factor, meaning that the city still endured some ideological importance in terms of Romanness. Western European authors and intellectuals increasingly associated Romanness only with the city itself. By the second half of the 8th century, westerners almost exclusively used the term to refer to the population of

22655-415: The government, being part of a community that was granted citizenship as a "block grant" or, as a slave, being freed by a Roman citizen. Just as it could be gained, Roman status could also be lost, for instance through engaging practices considered corrupt or by being carried off into captivity in enemy raids (though one could again become a Roman upon returning from captivity). In the early Roman Empire ,

22852-528: The ground floor and bedrooms upstairs, accessed by a stairway, as well as a cellar which sometimes had its own well. Several houses were grouped together with a common courtyard. In May 2006, a Roman road was found during expansion of the University of Pierre and Marie Curie campus. Additionally, remains of private houses dating from the reign of Augustus (27 BC – 14 AD) containing heated floors were found. The owners were wealthy enough to own baths which

23049-429: The guild of boatmen, the most influential guild in the city, and was found in the Île-de-la-Cité. It depicted both Roman and Gallic deities in a series of blocks stacked into a column. Several scientific discoveries have been named after Lutetia. The element lutetium was named in honor of its discovery in a Paris laboratory, and the characteristic building material of the city of Paris, Lutetian Limestone , derives from

23246-598: The heart of a vast and polytheistic empire. The ideas of Symmachus were not popular among the Christians. Some church leaders, such as Ambrose , the Archbishop of Mediolanum , launched formal and vicious assaults on paganism and those members of the elite which defended it. Like Symmachus, Ambrose saw Rome as the greatest city of the Roman Empire, but not because of its pagan past but because of its Christian present. Throughout late antiquity, Romanness became increasingly defined by Christian faith, which would eventually become

23443-423: The height of the Roman Empire, Roman identity formed a collective geopolitical identity, extended to nearly all subjects of the Roman emperors and encompassing vast regional and ethnical diversity. Often, what individual believed and did was far more important to the concept of Roman identity than long bloodlines and shared descent. The key to 'Romanness' in the minds of some famous Roman orators, such as Cicero ,

23640-471: The hill of Mons Mercurius thereafter known as Mons Martyrum (Martyrs' Hill, or Montmartre ). According to tradition, he carried his head to Saint-Denis , where the Basilica of Saint-Denis was later built. The mid third century brought a series of invasions of Gaul by two Germanic peoples, the Franks and the Alemanni , which threatened Lutetia. The city at the time had no fortifications. Portions of

23837-432: The imperial borders forming their own distinctive identities. In the late empire, the term "barbarian" was sometimes used in a general sense by Romans not in the military for Roman soldiers stationed alongside the imperial border, in reference to their perceived aggressive nature. No matter the reason, the Roman military increasingly came to embody 'barbarian' aspects that in previous times had been considered antithetical to

24034-533: The island and connected the bridges. During the early, or High Roman Empire, the major Roman necropolis, or cemetery, was located near the Cardo Maximus (Main Street), close to the exit of the city and some distance from the nearest residences. The Necropolis of Saint-Jacques was close to the modern intersection of Avenue Saint-Michel and Avenue Denfert-Rochereau. It occupied a space of about four hectares, and

24231-407: The kingdom's existence. Despite objections to 'Roman' as a term for the populace, the Vandals partly appealed to Roman legitimacy to legitimise themselves as rulers, given that the Vandal kings had marriage connections to the imperial Theodosian dynasty . However, the Vandal state more strongly worked to legitimise itself through appealing to the pre-Roman cultural elements of the region, particularly

24428-468: The lands they ruled and discounting the remaining empire in the east as "Greek", the Frankish state hoped to avoid the possibility of the Roman people proclaiming a Roman emperor in the same way that the Franks proclaimed a Frankish king. The population of the city of Rome continued to identify, and be identified, as Romans by westerners. Although Rome's history was not forgotten, the city's importance in

24625-588: The lands where it was once prominent, for some regions and peoples it proved considerably more tenacious. In Italy , "Romans" ( Romani in Latin and Italian ) has continuously and uninterruptedly been the demonym of the citizens of Rome from the foundation of the city to the present-day. During the Eastern Roman Empire and for some time after its fall, Greeks identified as Romioi , or related names. In Switzerland several names are Roman references:

24822-415: The largest in Gaul. It could accommodate as many as 17000 spectators. It had a stage and backdrop used for the presentation of plays, along with a larger space suitable for the combat of gladiators and of animals, and other large-scale festivities. It was probably built near the end of the 1st century AD. In the early 4th century its stone was used in the construction of the fortress on the Île de Ia Cité, at

25019-511: The late Roman Empire, one could identify as a Roman as a citizen of the empire, as a person originating from one of the major regions (Africa, Britannia, Gaul, Hispania etc.) or as originating from a specific province or city. Though the Romans themselves did not see them as equivalent concepts, there is no fundamental difference between such Roman sub-identities and the gens identities ascribed to barbarians. In some cases, Roman authors ascribed different qualities to citizens of different parts of

25216-469: The leaders of the Gallic tribes. He wrote that the oppidum which he visited was on an island. In his account of the war in Gaul Caesar wrote that, when the Romans later laid siege to Lutetia, "the inhabitants had burned their structures and the wooden bridges which served to cross the two branches of the river around their island fortress," which appears to describe the Île de la Cité. Proponents of

25413-413: The left bank settlement, including the baths and amphitheatre, were hurriedly abandoned, and the stones used to construct ramparts around the Île de la Cité. The city was reduced in size from one hundred hectares during the high Roman Empire to ten to fifteen hectares on the left bank, and ten hectares on the Île de la Cité. A new civic basilica and baths were built on the island whose vestiges can be seen in

25610-458: The left bank. A modest headquarters or "Palace" was constructed at the west end of the island, where the Palais de Justice is today. One was the residence and headquarters of the Roman military commander, and the temporary residence of two Emperors during the military campaigns. It was probably here that Julian was proclaimed emperor by his troops in 361. Another important building on the island

25807-405: The long-term endurance and success of the Roman state. The fall of the Western Roman Empire coincided with the first time the Romans actively excluded an influential foreign group within the empire, the barbarian and barbarian-descended generals of the 5th century, from Roman identity and access to the Roman imperial throne. The Roman Empire's expansion facilitated the spread of Roman identity over

26004-549: The majority of the population saw themselves as being Roman beyond any doubt and their emperor as ruling from the cultural and religious center of the Roman Empire: Constantinople, the New Rome. In the centuries when the Byzantine Empire was still a vast Mediterranean-spanning state, Roman identity was more strong in the imperial heartlands than on the peripheries, though it was also strongly embraced in

26201-630: The most striking archeological finds from the early period is the Pillar of the Boatmen which was erected by the corporation of local river merchants and sailors and dedicated to Tiberius . Other major public works projects and monuments were built in the 2nd century AD including an aqueduct. In the 3rd century, according to legend, Christianity was brought to the town by St Denis , and his companions Rusticus and Eleuthere. In about 250 he and two companions were said to have been arrested and decapitated on

26398-461: The multicultural origin of the Romans, writing that Romans had since the foundation of Rome welcomed innumerable immigrants not only from the rest of Italy, but from the entire world, whose cultures merged with theirs. A handful of Roman authors, such as Tacitus and Suetonius , expressed concerns in their writings concerning Roman "blood purity" as Roman citizens from outside of Roman Italy increased in number. Neither author, however, suggested that

26595-462: The name of Lutetia from the Nanterre settlement to a new Roman town on the Île-de-la-Cité. They also argue that if Lutetia had not already existed where Paris is today, the new Roman city would have been given a Latin, not a Gallic name. This seems to support the argument that Lutetia was in fact located at the center of modern Paris. The Parisii first agreed to submit to Caesar and Rome, but in 52 BC they joined other tribes, led by Vercingetorix , in

26792-651: The naturalisation of new citizens should stop, only that manumissions (freeing slaves) and grants of citizenship should be less frequent. Their concerns of blood purity did not match modern ideas of race or ethnicity, and had little to do with features such as skin colour or physical appearance. Terms such as " Aethiop ", which Romans used for black people , carried no social implications, and though phenotype-related stereotypes certainly existed in Ancient Rome, inherited physical characteristics were typically not relevant to social status; people who looked different from

26989-473: The new Turkish Ottoman Empire . The popular historical memory of these Romans was not occupied with the glorious past of the Roman Empire of old or the Hellenism in the Byzantine Empire, but focused on legends of the fall and the loss of their Christian homeland and Constantinople. One such narrative was the myth that the last emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos would one day return from the dead to reconquer

27186-408: The north. He was proclaimed emperor by his troops in 360 in Lutetia. Later Valentinian I resided in Lutetia for a brief period (365–366). The first documented bishop of Paris was Victorinus , in 346. The first council of Bishops in Gaul convened in the city in 360. When Saint Martin visited the city in 360, there was a cathedral, near the site of Notre-Dame de Paris. The end of the Roman Empire in

27383-465: The novelization The Druid King . "Caesar the Conqueror", a 1962 Italian movie, stars Rik Battaglia as Vercingetorix and Cameron Mitchel as Julius Caesar. The movie centers around Caesar's battles with the Gauls as well as his political battling in Rome. The movie ends with the Battle of Alesia and Vercingetorix's subsequent surrender. Joseph Canteloube composed an opera, Vercingétorix , about

27580-406: The number of Roman citizens. The increase achieved its peak with Emperor Caracalla 's AD 212 Antonine Constitution , which extended citizenship rights to all free inhabitants of the empire. Roman identity provided a larger sense of common identity and became important when distinguishing from non-Romans, such as barbarian settlers and invaders. Roman culture was far from homogeneous; though there

27777-547: The only 'true Romans' as they preserved the traditional Roman religion and literary culture. According to the Roman statesman and orator Quintus Aurelius Symmachus ( c. 345–402), true Romans were those who followed the traditional Roman way of life, including its ancient religions, and it was adherence to those religions that in the end would protect the empire from its enemies, as in previous centuries. Per Symmachus and his supporters, Romanness had nothing to do with Christianity, but depended on Rome's pagan past and its status as

27974-535: The only legal faith, the Christianised Roman aristocracy had to redefine their Roman identity in Christian terms. The rise of Christianity did not go unnoticed or unchallenged by the conservative elements of the pagan Roman elite, who became aware that power was slipping from their hands. Many of them, pressured by the increasingly anti-pagan and militant Christians, turned to emphasising that they were

28171-399: The outer walls on the north, south sides and west sides, were arcades sheltering rows of small shops. At the west end was an underground gallery, or cryptoporticus . The civic basilica , essentially the town hall, occupied the east of the forum, It contained the courts where political, social and financial issues were discussed and decided. It had a central nave, higher than other parts of

28368-522: The people of the large urban centers clinged to Roman identity, but rural populations integrated and assimilated with Germanic colonisers (the Jutes , Angles and Saxons ). Once the large cities declined, Roman identity faded away in Britain as well. The adoption of local identities in Gaul and Hispania was made more attractive in that they were not binary opposed to the identity of the barbarian rulers in

28565-430: The people south of the Po river. In 49 BC, citizenship rights were also extended to the people of Cisalpine Gaul by Julius Caesar . The number of Romans would rapidly increase in later centuries through further extensions of citizenship. Typically, there were five different mechanisms for acquiring Roman citizenship: serving in the Roman army, holding office in cities with the Latin right , being granted it directly by

28762-527: The people who resisted assimilation became the Romansh people. In their own, Romansh language , they are called rumantsch or romontsch , which derives from the Latin romanice ("Romance"). Roman identity also survives in the Romands , the French-speaking community of Switzerland, and their homeland, Romandy , which covers the western part of the country. In some regions, the Germanic word for

28959-467: The peripheral regions in times of uncertainty. As in earlier centuries, the Romans of the early Byzantine Empire were considered a people united by being subjects of the Roman state, rather than a people united through sharing ethnic descent (i.e. gens like those ascribed to different barbarian groups). The term extended to all Christian citizens of the empire, in a general sense referring to those who followed Chalcedonian Christianity and were loyal to

29156-411: The population was composed of several groups of distinct legal standing, including the Roman citizens themselves ( cives romani ), the provincials ( provinciales ), foreigners ( peregrini ) and free non-citizens such as freedmen (freed slaves) and slaves. Roman citizens were subject to the Roman legal system while provincials were subject to whatever laws and legal systems had been in place in their area at

29353-417: The predominant structure of societies in the west was a near-completely barbarian military but also a near-completely Roman civil administration and aristocracy. The new Barbarian rulers took steps to present themselves as legitimate rulers within the Roman framework, with the pretense of legitimacy being especially strong among the rulers of Italy. The early kings of Italy, first Odoacer and then Theoderic

29550-432: The present College de France on the "Cardo" or rue Saint-Jacques. They were of about two hectares, even larger than Cluny, and included a Palaestra , or large outdoor exercise area. Vestiges of the circular hot water pool and the cold water pool have survived, along with the hypocaust heating system. Traces were also found of marble wall coverings, frescoes and bronze fixtures. Others were found in rue Gay-Lussac and on

29747-533: The present Rhōmaîoi were Hellenes , descendants of the Ancient Greeks. Though they saw themselves as Hellenic, the Nicene emperors also maintained that they were the only true Roman emperors. "Roman" and "Hellenic" were not viewed as opposing terms, but building blocks of the same double-identity. During the rule of the Palaiologos dynasty, from the recapture of Constantinople in 1261 to the fall of

29944-445: The pretense of escaping Roman rule. After having been unanimously given supreme command of their armies, he imposed his authority through harsh discipline and the taking of hostages. Leadership and unification on this level was unprecedented in Gaul and would not happen again for decades. He adopted a policy of retreating to natural fortifications , and undertook an early example of a scorched earth strategy by burning towns to prevent

30141-458: The region one was from. The fading connectivitiy also meant that while largely Roman law and culture continued on, the language became increasingly fragmented and split, Latin gradually developing into what would become the modern Romance languages . Where they had once been the majority of the population, the Romans of Gaul and Hispania gradually and quietly faded away as their descendants adopted other names and identities. In Sub-Roman Britain ,

30338-485: The rest of its history. Culturally and legally, Roman identity remained prominent in the west for centuries, still providing a sense of unity throughout the Mediterranean. Italy's Ostrogothic Kingdom preserved the Roman Senate , which often dominated politics in Rome, illustrating the survival of and continued respect for Roman institutions and identity. The barbarian kings continued to use Roman law throughout

30535-403: The result of recruitments of large amounts of barbarian soldiers. Though barbarian origins were seldom forgotten, the large scale and meritocratic nature of the Roman army made it relatively easy for "barbarian" recruits to enter the army and rise through the ranks only through their skills and achievements. It is not clear to what extent there was actual non-Roman influence on the military; it

30732-500: The rulers of the Byzantine Empire were predominantly Hellenic, and the percentage of the population that was Hellenic became greater as the empire's borders were increasingly reduced, Western Europeans, from as early as the 6th century onwards, often referred to it as a Greek empire, inhabited by Greeks. To the early Byzantines themselves, up until the 11th century or so, terms such as "Hellenes" were seen as offensive, as it downplayed their Roman nature and furthermore associated them with

30929-509: The same Greek language, and believed that they shared a common ethnic origin, "Roman" ( Rhōmaîoi in Greek) thus gradually transformed into an ethnic identity. By the late 7th century, Greek, rather than Latin, had begun being referred to in the east as the rhomaisti (Roman way of speaking). In chronicles written in the 10th century, the Rhōmaîoi begin to appear as just one of the ethnicities in

31126-401: The same prejudice as barbarians were. Over the course of the Roman Empire, men from nearly all of its provinces had come to rule as emperors. As such, Roman identity remained political, rather than ethnic, and open to people of various origins. This nature of Roman identity ensured that there was never a strong consolidation of a 'core identity' of Romans in Italy, but also likely contributed to

31323-446: The same things with their identity as historians do today: the rich ancient Latin literature, the impressive Roman architecture, the common marble statues, the variety of cult sites, the Roman infrastructure and legal tradition, as well as the almost corporate identity of the Roman army were all cultural and symbolic ways to express Roman identity. Although there was a more or less unifying Roman identity, Roman culture in classical times

31520-449: The same way that 'Roman' was; for instance, one could not be both Roman and Frankish, but it was possible to, for instance, be both Arvernian (i.e. from Auvergne ) and Frankish. In Hispania, "Gothic" transitioned from simply an ethnic identity to being both an ethnic one (in the sense of descent from Goths) and a political one (in the sense of allegiance to the king). Gothic becoming more fluid and multi-dimensional as an identity facilitated

31717-476: The sculptor Aimé Millet , on the supposed site of Alesia. The architect for the memorial was Eugène Viollet-le-Duc . The statue still stands. The inscription on the base, written by Viollet-le-Duc, which copied the famous statement of Julius Caesar, reads (in French ): La Gaule unie Formant une seule nation Animée d'un même esprit, Peut défier l'Univers. Gaul united, Forming a single nation Animated by

31914-486: The seats of the spectators. The arena probably had some form of covering over the seats to protect spectators from rain. The Thermes de Cluny , the grand public baths, now part of the Musée de Cluny , are the largest and best-preserved vestige of Roman Lutetia and date from the late 1st or early 2nd century AD. They were at the junction of the two major Roman roads, between Boulevard Saint-Michel, Boulevard Saint-Germaine, and

32111-893: The senate: What else proved fatal to Lacedaemon or Athens , in spite of their power in arms, but their policy of holding the conquered aloof as alien-born? But the sagacity of our own founder Romulus was such that several times he fought and naturalized a people in the course of the same day! From the Principate (27 BC – AD 284) onwards, barbarians settled and integrated into the Roman world. Such settlers would have been granted certain legal rights simply by being within Roman territory, becoming provinciales and thus being eligible to serve as auxilia (auxiliary soldiers), which in turn made them eligible to become full cives Romani . Through this relatively rapid process, thousands of former barbarians could quickly become Romans. This tradition of straightforward integration eventually culminated in

32308-497: The standard. The status of Christianity was much increased through the adoption of the religion by the Roman emperors. Throughout late antiquity, the emperors and their courts were viewed as the Romans par excellence . As the Roman Empire lost, or ceded control of, territories to various barbarian rulers, the status of the Roman citizens in those provinces sometimes came into question. People born as Roman citizens in regions that then came under barbarian control could be subjected to

32505-400: The successors of the pharaohs (in modern historiography termed the Roman pharaohs ) and were depicted as such in artwork and in temples. Many cults from the eastern Mediterranean and beyond spread to Western Europe over the course of Roman rule. Once the very core of ancient Romanness, the city of Rome gradually lost its exceptional status within the empire in late antiquity . By the end of

32702-584: The surviving Eastern Roman Empire , also called the Byzantine Empire, of reconquering and keeping control of the west and suppression from the new Germanic kingdoms , Roman identity faded away in the west, more or less disappearing in the 8th and 9th centuries. In the Greek-speaking east, still under imperial control, Roman identity survived until the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 and beyond. Whereas Roman identity faded away in most of

32899-402: The third century, the city's importance was almost entirely ideological, and several emperors and usurpers had begun reigning from other cities closer to the imperial frontier. Rome's loss of status was also reflected in the perceptions of the city by the Roman populace. In the writings of the 4th-century Greek-speaking Roman soldier and author Ammianus Marcellinus , Rome is described almost like

33096-405: The time it was annexed by the Romans. Over time, Roman citizenship was gradually extended more and more and there was a regular "siphoning" of people from less privileged legal groups to more privileged groups, increasing the total percentage of subjects recognised as Romans though the incorporation of the provinciales and peregrini . The capability of the Roman Empire to integrate foreign peoples

33293-457: The time of the 6th century, the inhabitants of Rome had conquered and destroyed all the other Latin settlements and communities such as Antemnae and Collatia and defeated the hegemony of the settlement of Alba Longa , which had previously united the Latin people under its leadership, a position that now belonged to Rome. From the middle of the 4th century onwards, Rome won a series of victories which saw them rise to rule all of Italy south of

33490-419: The town to its fate, Vercingetorix camped well outside of Avaricum and focused on conducting harassing engagements of the advancing Roman units led by Caesar and his chief lieutenant Titus Labienus . Upon reaching Avaricum, however, the Romans laid siege and eventually captured the capital. Afterwards, in a reprisal for 25 days of hunger and of laboring over the siegeworks required to breach Avaricum's defenses,

33687-410: The traditional date for the foundation of the Roman Republic, 509 BC, though commonly used even in modern historiography, are uncertain and mythical. The myths surrounding Rome's foundation combined, if not confused, several different stories, going from the origins of the Latin people under a king by the name Latinus , to Evander of Pallantium , who was said to have brought Greek culture to Italy, and

33884-500: The typical Mediterranean populace, such as black people, were not excluded from any profession and there are no records of stigmas or biases against " mixed race " relationships. The main dividing social differences in Ancient Rome were not based on physical features, but rather on differences in class or rank. Romans practised slavery extensively, but slaves in Ancient Rome were part of various different ethnic groups, and were not enslaved because of their ethnic affiliation. According to

34081-480: The vestiges be saved. They were declared a monument, and partially rebuilt beginning in 1915-16. The Roman theatre of Lutetia was located where the Lycée Saint-Louis is today, along Boulevard Saint-Michel. It occupied one of the central blocks of the Roman city, three hundred Roman feet on each side. It was probably built in the second part of the 1st century AD, based on coins found; it was renovated in

34278-533: The west diverged into groups that no longer identify as Romans. In the Alpine regions north of Italy however, Roman identity showed considerable tenacity. The Romansh people of Switzerland are descended from these populations, which in turn were descended from Romanised Rhaetians . Though most of the Romans of the region were assimilated by the Germanic tribes that settled there during the 5th and 6th centuries,

34475-411: The west, Rue Saint-Jacques on the east, rue Cujas to the north and Rue G. Lussac and rue Malbranch to the south. It was two Roman blocks wide and one block long, 177.6 x 88.8 m. Only a small part of a wall of the old forum remains above ground today, but the foundations have been extensively excavated since the 19th century. The forum was surrounded by a wall, with entrances on the north and south. Along

34672-457: The west, and the creation of the Merovingian dynasty in the 5th century, with its capital placed in Paris by Clovis I , confirmed the new role and name for the city. The adjective Parisiacus had already been used for centuries. Lutetia had gradually become Paris, the city of the Parisii. The Forum of Lutetia was in the centre of the city, between the modern streets of Boulevard Saint-Michel on

34869-414: The writings of Cicero, what made people barbarians was not their language or descent, but rather their customs and character, or lack thereof. Romans viewed themselves as superior over foreigners, but this stemmed not from perceived biological differences, but rather from what they perceived as a superior way of life. 'Barbarian' was as such a cultural, rather than biological, term. It was not impossible for

35066-430: Was a Gallic king and chieftain of the Arverni tribe who united the Gauls in a failed revolt against Roman forces during the last phase of Julius Caesar 's Gallic Wars . After surrendering to Caesar and spending almost six years in prison, he was executed in Rome. Vercingetorix was the son of Celtillus the Arvernian, leader of the Gallic tribes. Vercingetorix came to power after his formal designation as chieftain of

35263-545: Was a common cultural idiom, one of the strengths of the Roman Empire was also its ability to incorporate traditions from other cultures, notably but not exclusively Greece . The collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century ended the political domination of the Roman Empire in Western Europe , but Roman identity survived in the west as an important political resource. Through the failures of

35460-465: Was a geographically vast and chronologically long-lived state, there is no simple definition of what being Roman meant and definitions were inconsistent already in antiquity. Nevertheless, some elements remained common throughout much of Roman history. Some ancient Romans considered aspects such as geography, language, and ethnicity as important markers of Romanness, whereas others saw Roman citizenship and culture or behaviour as more important. At

35657-519: Was a status symbol among Roman citizens. The source of the aqueduct was in the hills outside the city at Rungis and Wissous in the present department of the Essonne where a collection tank was excavated. The aqueduct was built in the second half of the 1st century AD mainly to supply the monumental public baths of Cluny. The aqueduct could deliver an estimated 2000 m of water a day. The masonry and cement conduit, about 1/2 metre wide and 3/4 metre deep,

35854-440: Was also far from homogeneous. There was a common cultural idiom, large portions of which was based in earlier Hellenistic culture , but Rome's strength also laid in its flexibility and its ability to incorporate traditions from other cultures. For instance, the religions of many conquered peoples were embraced through amalgamations of the gods of foreign pantheons with those of the Roman pantheon. In Egypt, Roman emperors were seen as

36051-466: Was both a trading centre for art works, through its access to water and land routes, and, later, the home of workshops ceramics and other decorative works. Sculpture was widely used in monuments, particularly in the several necropoli, or Roman cemeteries, in the outskirts of the city. The Pillar of the Boatmen was donated to the city in about 14-17 AD (dedicated to the Emperor Tiberius ) by

36248-464: Was closely attached to the river, which served as a trade route to other parts of Europe. The original location of the early capital of the Parisii is still disputed by historians. They had traditionally placed the main settlement on the Île de la Cité , where the bridges of the major trading routes of the Parisii crossed the Seine. This view was challenged after the discovery between 1994 and 2005 of

36445-569: Was imprisoned in the Tullianum in Rome for almost six years before being publicly displayed in the first of Caesar's four triumphs in 46 BC. He was ceremonially strangled at the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus after the triumph. A plaque in the Tullianum indicates that he was beheaded in 49 BC. Napoleon III erected a 7-metre-tall (23 ft) Vercingétorix monument in 1865, created by

36642-416: Was in a steep decline by the 7th and 8th centuries. The great turning point in the history of the latter-day Romans of the west was the wars of Justinian I (533–555), aimed at reconquering the lost provinces of the Western Roman Empire. During Justinian's early reign, eastern authors re-wrote 5th-century history to portray the west as "lost" to barbarian invasions, rather than attempting to further integrate

36839-527: Was in use from the beginning of the first until about the fourth century AD. About four hundred tombs, a fraction of the tombs that were once there, have been excavated. Tombs were often placed one above the other. Some remains were buried in stone sepulchres, others in wooden coffins, others simply in the ground. It was a common practice to bury the dead with some items of their belongings, usually some of their clothing and particularly their shoes, placed in vases. Sometimes items of food and silverware were placed in

37036-410: Was keeping with Roman tradition and serving the Roman state. Cicero's view of Romanness were partly formed by his status as a "new man", the first of his family to serve in the Roman Senate, lacking prestigious lines of Roman descent himself. This is not to say that the importance of blood kinship was wholly dismissed. Orators such as Cicero frequently appealed to their noble contemporaries to live up to

37233-563: Was mainly below ground level over the distance of 26 kilometres to the city. The major obstacle it faced was crossing the valley of the river Bièvre where the conduit was raised on arches, some of which still exist in the Valley of Arcueil-Cachan. Vestiges of the aqueduct have been discovered in several places including under the Institute Curie. Beginning in 307 AD, the increasing number of invasions of Gaul by Germanic tribes forced

37430-535: Was maintained by both groups. Per the writings of the 6th-century eastern historian Procopius , the Libyans were descended from Romans, ruled by the Romans, and served in the Roman army, but their Romanness had diverged too much from that of the populace of the empire as a result of the century of Vandal rule. Imperial policy reflected the view that the North Africans were no longer Romans. Whereas governors in

37627-682: Was maintained by several Eastern Romance peoples. Prominently, the Romanians call themselves români and their nation România . How and when the Romanians came to adopt these names is not entirely clear, but one theory is the idea of Daco-Roman continuity , that the modern Romanians are descended from Daco-Romans that came about as a result of Roman colonisation following the conquest of Dacia by Trajan ( r.   98–117). The Aromanians , also of unclear origin, refer to themselves by various names, including arumani , armani , aromani and rumani , all of which are etymologically derived from

37824-472: Was not only an ancient Greece, but also a modern one. The modern Greek people still sometimes use Romioi to refer to themselves, as well as the term "Romaic" ("Roman") to refer to their Modern Greek language. Roman identity also survives prominently in some of the Greek populations outside of Greece itself. For instance, Greeks in Ukraine , settled there as part of Catherine the Great 's Greek Plan in

38021-583: Was not wholly opposed to the Jews, since there was a sizeable Jewish population in Rome itself, as well as at least thirteen synagogues in the city. Roman antisemitism , which led to several wars, persecutions, and massacres in Judea , was not rooted in racial prejudice, but rather in the perception that the Jews, uniquely among conquered peoples, refused to integrate into the Roman world. The Jews adhered to their own set of rules, restrictions and obligations, which were typically either disliked or misunderstood by

38218-401: Was occupied by two gymnasia and at the centre of the facade was a monumental fountain. Beneath there are several lower rooms with vaulted roofs. The drain for emptying the frigidarium pool is still visible that encircled the baths and ran into a main drain located under Boulevard Saint-Michel. Remains of other baths have been discovered. The best-preserved were found in the 19th century within

38415-416: Was one of the key elements that ensured its success. In antiquity, it was significantly easier as a foreigner to become a Roman than it was to become a member or citizen of any other contemporary state. This aspect of the Roman state was seen as important even by some of the emperors. For instance, Emperor Claudius ( r.   41–54) pointed it out when questioned by the senate on admitting Gauls to join

38612-419: Was somewhat paradoxical: living Romans, in Rome and elsewhere, had a poor reputation, with records of anti-Roman attacks and the use of 'Roman' as an insult, but the name of Rome was also used a source of great and unfailing political power and prestige, employed by many aristocratic families (sometimes proudly proclaiming invented Roman origins) and rulers throughout history. Through suppressing Roman identity in

38809-574: Was the civic basilica, fulfilling the judicial functions transferred from the Left Bank. It stood between the modern Rue de la Cité and the Tribunal de Commerce , near where the flower market is today. It was discovered in 1906 during the construction of the Paris Metro station. It was 70 x 35 m with a central nave. The entrance was probably on the Rue de la Cité, the Cardo Maximus which crossed

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