Colonnes de César
Also known asColonnes de Cesar
Photo Jclpaca · CC BY-SA 3.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Colonnes de César are four Roman milestones standing at Beaucaire, in the department of Gard, in southern France. They were found beside the Via Domitia, at the locality called Peyrous Plantadous or Peires Plantades, in the Clos des Mélettes.
The milestones are of the thirteenth mile from Nîmes and relate to campaigns of repair on the road under the emperors Augustus and Tiberius, and under Claudius or, more probably, Antoninus. The four stones are still in situ, and the site is protected as a historical monument.
Read on Wikipedia2 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
Article
Colonnes de César
The location has sometimes been given wrongly as Jonquières-Saint-Vincent, a mistake made by some specialists.
SettingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Colonnes de CésarCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Colonnes de CésarCC BY-SA 4.0
The location has sometimes been given wrongly as Jonquières-Saint-Vincent, a mistake made by some specialists. The milestones are in fact on an axis between Beaucaire and Jonquières-Saint-Vincent. They can be reached only on foot or by two-wheeled vehicle. They stand 450 m east of the crossroads formed by the chemin de Bieudon, the chemin de l'Enclos d'Armin and the chemin d'exploitation du Plateau, on a dead-end track that prolongs the chemin de Bieudon and is known as the Via Domitia on the IGN map.
The four stones remain in place on the northern edge of what was then called rural road (C.R.) 56, from before the development of a cement works in the surrounding area. The works eventually cut across the road leading to Beaucaire, 4 km further east.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Colonnes de CésarCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Colonnes de CésarCC BY-SA 4.0
The inscriptions are catalogued in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL XVII-02) as numbers 210 to 213. Number 210 refers to Augustus and number 211 to Tiberius. The Tiberian stone is the only milestone known for that emperor that gives an indication of distance, as noted by Jacques Gascou. Numbers 212 and 213 carry no inscription; they are attributed to Claudius or, more probably, Antoninus.
Research historySources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Colonnes de CésarCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Colonnes de CésarCC BY-SA 4.0
The milestones were cleared and set upright by the service of historical monuments in November 1962, on the occasion of the first classification, which was supported by the then recently founded Société d'histoire et d'archéologie de Beaucaire.
ConservationSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Colonnes de CésarCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Colonnes de CésarCC BY-SA 4.0
Three of the milestones were classified as historical monuments in 1963. A further uninscribed base was classified two years later, on 12 January 1965. The section of the Via Domitia adjoining the stones, which also lies in the communes of Redessan and Jonquières-Saint-Vincent in Gard and of Castelnau-le-Lez in Hérault, was entered on the supplementary inventory of historical monuments on 21 December 1984 and 5 February 1987.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Colonnes de CésarCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Colonnes de CésarCC BY-SA 4.0
A Roman milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route to indicate distances to towns or landmarks. It carries inscriptions that state its function, so it can often be placed within a particular reign.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
French steles, milestones and memorials
The Atlas's French steles are a mixed group. A stele is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected as a monument, with text, ornament, or both. Steles were made as grave markers, as government notices and boundary markers, and as memorials to battles. Among the French records are Gaulish steles, funerary steles, Roman milestones and a number of modern memorials.
A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route to indicate distances to towns or landmarks. In the Roman world a cippus was a low, round or rectangular pedestal set up for purposes such as a milestone or a boundary post, with inscriptions that indicated its function or the area it enclosed. A Roman milestone carries inscriptions that indicate its function, so it can often be placed within a reign.
In Rome cippi marked the limits of the pomerium after the city walls were expanded, the course of aqueducts and of the imperial post; cippi lined up in rows were often numbered, and sometimes carried the name of the magistrate responsible. Roman cippi were made of wood or stone. Stelae were also erected as memorials to battles, and the Gaulish and Roman examples of France sit in that long tradition.
Modern memorials are recorded as stone monuments in the registers, and the Atlas keeps them, but they are not prehistoric.
When visiting, read the inscription, which is the quickest way to tell a Roman milestone from a modern memorial.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Stele, Wikipedia: Milestone, Wikipedia: Cippus · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 1141
73, 78 et 80 (Publications de l'Association pour la recherche archéologique en Languedoc oriental, 15-16) (ISSN 1141-4499) (OCLC 493624447).
Source - 1962
Elles ont été dégagées et redressées par le service des monuments historiques en novembre 1962, à l'occasion du premier classement soutenu par l'alors jeune Société d'histoire et d'archéologie de Beaucaire.
Source - 1987
Terrer, Ugernum, Beaucaire et le Beaucairois à l'époque romaine, Caveirac, ARALO, 1987, p.
Source - 1996
II, Les témoignages épigraphiques », dans Revue archéologique de Narbonnaise, 29, 1996. p.
Source - 1999
Carte archéologique Michel Provost, Carte archéologique de la Gaule 30/2. Gard [= CAG-30-2], 1999, p.
Source - 2002
Études André Michelozzi, La Voie Domitienne entre Beaucaire et Nîmes, Beaucaire, Éditions de la Société d'histoire et d'archéologie de Beaucaire, 2002 (ISBN 2910270092).
Source
Photographs
1 photograph, each with its author and licence
Where it stands
France
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 43°48′58″ N, 4°35′57″ EFor a GPS or map app: 43.81610, 4.59929
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
_02.jpg){kind=link}
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
1 source behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q2984336wikidata.org
Image files
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- Fragment de base de mil·liari<0.1 km E
- 2 Roman milliaria in Beaucaire2.5 km E
- cip funerari de Meinas8.0 km NW
- Borne milliaire d'Antonin-le-Pieux10 km W
- Castelet hypogeum13 km SE
- hypogées de Fontvieille14 km SE
- grotte de la Source14 km SE
- grotte Bounias14 km SE
- dolmen de Coutignargues14 km SE
- Cordes hypogeum14 km SE
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Colonnes de César" (French), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (French): Colonnes de CésarCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q2984336CC0