Burdigala
BURDI´GALA or BURDEGALA (Βουρδίγαλα: Bourdeaux or Borceaux), the chief town of the Bituriges Vivisci, on the left bank of the Garonne, or, as Strabo (p. 190), the first writer who mentions the place, describes it, on the aestuary (λιμνοδάλασσα) of the Garonne, which aestuary is named the Gironde. The position of Burdigala at Bordeaux is proved by the various roads in the Table and the Antonine Itin. which run to this place from Mediolanum (Saintes), from Vesunna (Perigeux), Aginnum (Agen), and from other places. It was the emporium or port of the Bituriges Vivisci, and a place of great commerce under the empire. Ausonius, a native of Burdigala, who lived in the fourth century, describes it in his little poem entitled Ordo Nobilium Urbium;a nd though he describes it last, he describes it more particularly than any of the rest. Ausonius is our authority for the pronunciation of the name:-- Burdigala est natale solum, dementia caeliMitis ubi, et riguae larga indulgentia terrae.
It was in the early centuries of the Christian aera one of the schools of Gallia. Ausonius (Cominenr. Prof. Burd. ) records the fame of many of the professors, but they are all rhetoricians and grammarians; for rhetoric and grammatic, as the terms were then used, were the sum of Gallic education. Tetricus assumed the purple at Burdigala, having been proclaimed emperor by the soldiers when he was governor of Aquitania. (Eutrop. 9.10.) The importance of Burdigala in the Roman period appears from the fact of its having the title of Metropolis of Aquitania Secunda (Metropolis Civitas Burdegalensium), after the division of Aquitania into several provinces. Burdigala was taken by the Visigoths, and it was included in their kingdom during their dominion in the south-west of Gaul; but Toulouse was their capital.
We know little of Burdigala except from the verses of Ausonius. He describes the city as quadrangular, with walls and very lofty towers. The streets were well placed, and it contained large open places or squares (plateae). He mentions a stream that ran through the middle of the city into the Garonne, wide enough to admit ships into the town when the tide rose. In fact, the channel of this little stream was converted into a dock; but it does not exist now. Ausonius mentions a fountain named Divona, which supplied the city with water. Some traces of a subterraneous aqueduct have been discovered near Bordeaux, a short distance from the Porte d'Aquitaine on the great road from Bordeaux to Langon. The only remaining Roman monument at Bordeaux is the amphitheatre commonly called the Arènes or the Palais Gallien. This building had externally two stories surmounted by an Attic, altogether above 65 feet high. The length of the arena was about 240 English feet, and the width about 175 feet. The thickness of the constructions, which supported the seats, is estimated at about 91 feet, which makes the extreme length 422 feet. Of the two great entrances at each extremity of the ellipse, the western entrance alone remains, and it is still complete (1842). This noble edifice has been greatly damaged at different times, and is now in a deplorable condition. (Notice in the Guide du Voyageur, par Richard et Hocquart, from M. de Caumont.) Another Roman edifice, probably a temple, existed till the time of Louis XIV., when it was demolished.
[G.L]The modern Bordeaux; the chief town of the Bituriges Vivisci, on the left bank of the Garumna (Garonne). Under the Empire it was a place of great commercial importance. Ausonius (q.v.), who was born there, describes it in his little poem entitled Ordo Nobilium Urbium. The only remaining Roman monument in the town is the amphitheatre locally known as the Arènes, or Palais Gallien. It is in a greatly damaged state.
A port on the estuary of the Garonne, 90 km from the Atlantic, this was the chief city of the Celtic tribe of the Bituriges Vivisci. It was founded in the 3d c. B.C. for the purpose of controlling the Gallic isthmus which was on the route of the tin trade. The city was almost certainly a municipium under Vespasian, then became the capital of the province of Aquitania. Still later, in the period of the Tetrarchy, it was the capital of the second Aquitania province, the vicarius of the diocese of Gaul having his residence there. The Vandals seized it in 409 and the Visigoths in 414.
Very little is known of the town plan of Burdigala or its first monuments; the original forum (on Mont Judaïque?) has not been located, and the plan of the streets is conjectural. From Ausonius' writings and from chance finds and excavations we know more about the city rampart: in the Tetrarchy it confined what had been an open city in the Early Empire (125 ha) within an area of only 31 ha. This small castrum formed an almost regular oblong. The river was connected to the inland port by the Navigère gate; the city got its water supply from a tributary of the Garonne, the Devèze, which was canalized. And according to Ausonius, a certain fountain of Divona captured the waters of a sacred spring and spewed forth abundant, swift torrents of water from its 12 bronze mouths. Both the quays and the rampart of the port had strong foundations resting on wooden piles and girders. The foundations were made from the debris of all sorts of monuments, piled up skillfully, as a precaution, into a mass 6 m high and S m thick. The wall proper was 3 m high and built of mortared rubble-work faced on either side with small blocks, every 10 or 12 rows being banded with three rows of brick. The rampart was strengthened by semicircular towers that were set every 50 m; the four corners were fortified by larger towers, the wall having only three gates (Porta lovia to the W and two gates dominating the principal cardo).
Outside the rampart is the amphitheater known now as the Palais Galien, the only monument that has left any lasting trace of the monumental splendor of the Severan age; still visible in the cellars of some Bordeaux buildings today, it was ruined in the Germanic invasions of A.D. 276. Seven rings of arcaded walls of ellipsoidal plan supported the wooden tiers. These walls have a core of rubble faced with small blocks, with a triple band of brick every seven courses. The 15,000 spectators, divided among three caveae, reached their seats by a skillful arrangement of sloping corridors, wooden stairs, and passageways. On the long axis (132.30 m; small, 110.60 m) are some monumental entries over 22 m high, the design of whose inner walls recalls the frontes scenae. They led to some carceres under the podium steps. For draining the arena, which measured 69.80 x 46.70 m, there was a carefully built stone sewer which ran to the foot of the podium.
Another Severan monument, the so-called Piliers de Tutelle, disappeared in the 17th c. These piers have no connection with any temple of Tutela but look as if they belonged to the portico that ran around the Severan forum.
A Christian quarter grew up outside the Porta lovia around the Saint-Etienne church and the necropolis, which flourished in the 4th c. Architectural and sculptural finds are housed in the Musée d'Aquitaine.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. C. Jullian, Hist. de Bordeaux depuis les origines jusqu'en 1895 (1895); R. Etienne, Bordeaux Antique (1962) MPI; id., in l'Hist. de l'Aquitaine (1971) 65-127; id., L'amphithéâtre du Palais Galien (Bordeaux), in preparation. For reports since 1962, see Gallia 21 (1963) 505-9; 23 (1965) 413-16; 25 (1967) 327-28; 27 (1969) 343-47.
R. ETIENNE