Gallia Lugdunensis

The central Gallic province, built around a city founded by refugees and turned into the administrative heart of the whole country. Augustus created it in 27 BC out of the middle of Caesar's conquest, running from the Loire and the Seine to the Saone, and named it for Lugdunum, the modern Lyon. The city had been founded in 43 BC for Roman settlers displaced from Vienne, and its position at the confluence of the Rhone and Saone made it the natural hub of the Gallic road network that Agrippa laid out. It housed the imperial mint for the western provinces and the altar of the Three Gauls, where delegates from sixty tribes met annually - a deliberate device for giving Gallic elites a shared institution that was Roman rather than tribal. Claudius was born in the city and later argued in the Senate for admitting Gallic nobles to it, a speech preserved both by Tacitus and on a bronze tablet found in Lyon. The province contained the Parisii, whose island settlement grew into Paris, and the Aedui, Rome's oldest Gallic allies. Christianity arrived early: the martyrs of Lyon were killed in 177 and Irenaeus was bishop there. Two rival emperors fought a decisive battle outside the city in 197 and it was sacked afterwards. Diocletian divided the province into four. Its network of roads still shapes French geography. Lyon is now the third largest city in France. The province was governed by an imperial legate rather than the Senate. Two emperors, Claudius and Caracalla, were born there. Its amphitheatre and odeon survive on the Fourviere hill.

MyHistorian
A causal knowledge graph of history