Fanum Martis
FANUM MARTISin Gallia Transalpina.
1.Mentioned in the Not. Imp., gave the name of Pagus Fanomartensis to a great part of the modern Hainauin the kingdom of Belgium. The Fanum Martis was in the territory of the Nervii, and in the division of Belgica Secunda. Fammarsnear Valenciennes, in the French department of Nord, is the site of Fanum Martis. Fanum was the residence of the praefectus of the Laeti Nervii, as we may conclude from the Notitia. The remains of a large building of the Roman period have been discovered at Farmmars.
2.The Ant. Itin. places a Fanum Martis on the road from Alauna to Condate Redonum ( Rennes), between Cosedia and Fines. D'Anville conjectures that Fanum Martis may be the commanding position of Mont-martin, which is on the line of the Roman road. Walckenaer fixes it at a place called Tanie;and Ukert (p. 487), at Le Faouet. The position we may assume to be unknown.
The Table places Fanum Martis between Reginea and Condate. If the position of Reginea were certain, perhaps that of Fanum Martis might be found. D'Anville supposes this Fanum Martis not to be the same as that mentioned in the Antonine Itin. between Alauna and Condate, and he fixes it at Dinan;but, Walekenaer, who supposes Reginea to be Granville, fixes Fanum Martis at Tanie. [G.L]
The ancient city, the center of which is now occupied by the small township of Corseul, was one of the chief towns of the Coriosolites tribe, and became the capital of the new civitas under Augustus. Built on a N-S and E-W grid plan, the city grew in the Claudian period and flourished under the Antonines. After uncertainty and economic recession in the 3d c. the city shrank in size, and many quarters were abandoned. In the 4th c., however, with the renaissance under Constantine, it came to life again although it had lost its title of capital to Aleto (St. Servan sur Mer), and the abandoned quarters were once more occupied.
To the E and outside the limits of the ancient city stands the most important monument, the temple of Le Haut-Bécherel. All that is left of this edifice—in area, the greatest religious monument in all Armorica, even in all Gaul—is the impressive remains of the cella. Excavations ca. 1868 traced the general plan of the temple (110 x 101 m). A huge central court, rectangular in shape, was open to the E and lined on the other three sides by a gallery formed by two parallel walls, the first of which probably supported a colonnade. The sanctuary proper, to the W, consisted of a hexagonal cella built of mortared rubble faced with small blocks and with iron joints, surrounded by an ambulatory. The sanctuary was reached by a monumental entrance opening on the W colonnade. On either side of the sanctuary, in the outer gallery wall, were two small rectangular rooms, and there were two other identical rooms in the N and S passageways. In the NE and SW corners of the courtyard were two quadrangular structures projecting into the interior; they had sturdy buttresses on their outer corners. The E wall of these structures extends to close off part of the great central court. It is not certain to what divinity this temple was dedicated, but the name would indicate that it was the god Mars.
Recent excavations have uncovered a residential sector, in particular the plan of a villa urbana from the Claudian period. Actually a country house in an urban setting, the building is of the so-called horseshoe type. The main building, rectangular and facing S, is flanked to the W by a wing at a right angle, forming a courtyard that is closed to the E by a wall. The courtyard, which contains a well, is lined on three sides by a portico and opens to the S on one of the paved streets of the ancient city. Excavation also revealed the substructures of a bath building erected in the 4th c. when this section of the city was reoccupied.
Most of the objects found can be seen at the Corseul Mairie, but some are in the museums of Rennes and Dinan. The Corseul church contains a fine funerary inscription dedicated to a woman from the Roman provinces of Africa.
BIBLIOGRAPHYE. Fornier, “Rapport sur les fouilles du Haut-Bécherel en Corseul,” Bulletin de la Société d'émulation des Cötes du Nord (1870); “Informations,” Gallia 27, 1 (1969) 248-51; 29, 2 (1971).
M. PETITIn the Belgica province of Gaul. Situated on a narrow strip of land extending N-S between the marshy valley of the Escaut and the Rhonelle, 5 km S of Valenciennes. This spot, which had previously been the site of a Celtic settlement (Gallic coins) was a crossroads on two ancient routes from Tournai and Mons. In the first half of the 1st c. A.D., at the latest, two monuments were erected here: a temple dedicated to Mars, after whom the site was named, and a large group of bath buildings. In the Late Empire the baths were damaged by fire, probably during the Germanic invasions of the second half of the 3d c., and partly torn down to serve as the foundations of a castellum. This fortress was a purely military installation, not a rampart designed for an existing civilian settlement; the seat of the praefectus laetorum Nerviorum (Not. Dig. 11.2), it also provided quarters for some of the troops under the magister peditum praesentalis. The invasion of Clodion, king of the Franks, which led to the capture of Tournai and Cambrai in 431, probably signified the end of the Roman presence at Famars.
The sanctuary has not been located, but excavations carried out in the early 19th c. and resumed during WW I have uncovered the remains of the bath buildings and part of the Late Empire walls. Part of the rampart can still be seen. The dimensions and plan of the complex suggest that these were public bath buildings connected with the Temple of Mars. Various structures have been identified: the heated rooms, cold pools, draining channels, and great sewer and, especially in the W section, some very large basins. The finds made at Famars (terra sigillata, fibulas of the first half of the 1st c.) indicate that the Roman occupation of the site goes back to the beginning of the Empire; the baths, which were restored on several occasions, are probably later (2d c.). The water supply may have come from the aqueduct at Artres (9 km S of Famars).
The remains of the W part of the castellum are still standing (the wall is preserved to a height of 2.5 m, and the tower was reused in the corner tower of the Chateau de Pailly). The study of these remains and the continuing excavations give a fairly clear idea of the general plan of the rampart. It was more or less square (105 m to the N, 140 m to the E, 110 m to the S, and 165 m to the W where the wall becomes slightly convex, probably allowing for the presence of buildings next to the baths), and enclosed an area of ca. 1.8 ha. The rampart includes an original wall, relatively narrow (less than 1.8 m), the foundations of which are laid on large quarry-stones and reused architectural blocks.
This first rampart is duplicated over a large part of the original perimeter by a second one, wider (2.3 m) and more carefully built (a mortar of crushed bricks). At the same time some semicircular towers were put up which projected on the outside (every 24 m on the N side). The first wall, hastily built, was probably a makeshift, but the second seems to have been erected according to a systematic design. The fact that the baths, now destroyed, were not yet filled in by the beginning of the Constantinian period (coins) means that the construction of the castellum in its first form dates at the earliest from the end of this period, a time of relative peace when elaborate fortifications were not necessary. On the other hand, we may date the reinforcing of the castellum from the middle of the 4th c., when the recurring Germanic invasions forced Julian, and especially Valentinianus I, to put the defenses of the Empire in order— or, less likely, at the very beginning of the 5th c., the period of the penetration of the Rhine (406).
BIBLIOGRAPHYH. Guillaume, “L'aqueduc romain de Famars,” Revue du Nord 42 (1960) 353; G. Bersu & W. Unverzagt, “Le castellum de Fanum Martis,” Gallia 19 (1961) 159.
C. PIETRI