Segodunum
SEGODU´NUM (Σεγόδουνον). Ptolemy (Ptol. 2.7.21) calls Segodunum the chief town of the Ruteni [RUTENI], a Gallic people west of the Rhone, in the Aquitania of Ptolemy. In some editions of Ptolemy the reading is Segodunum or Etodunum. In the Table the name is Segodum, which is probably a corrupt form; and it has the mark of a chief town. It was afterwards called Civitas Rutenorum, whence the modern name Rodez, on the Aveyron, in the department of Aveyron, of which it is the chief town.
[G.L]SEGODU´NUM (Σεγόδουνον), a town of southern Germany, probably in the country of the Hermunduri, is, according to some, the modern Würzburg. (Ptol. 2.11.29; comp. Wilhelm, Germanien, p. 209.)
[L.S]The Gallic oppidum of Segodunum and the Gallo-Roman town which was the capital of the civitas of the Ruteni both occupied the steep hill—now the site of the modern town—above the right bank of the Aveyron. The amphitheater was excavated on two occasions in the 19th c. The aqueduct is known over a length of ca. 30 km. Apart from these, it has never been possible to undertake systematic investigations inside the town. The finds of the past twenty years, the accidental products of road and housing construction, include a large collection of pottery dating from the 1st c. B.C. to the 4th c. A.D. They have led to the accurate determination of the ancient stratigraphy of certain districts, to the discovery of several funerary pits of the 1st c. B.C., and to the probable discovery of a very large building near the cathedral and of an important villa near Saint-Amans.
BIBLIOGRAPHYA. Albenque, Inv. de l'archéologie gallo-romaine du département de l'Aveyron (1947) 108-32, nos. 282-362; id., Les Rutènes (1948) 187-211; L. Balsan, “Découvertes d'amphores rue Séguret-Saincric, à Rodez,” Rev. du Rouergue 13 (1959) 102-5; id., “Découvertes archéologiques place Emma Calvé, à Rodez,” ibid. 20 (1968) 30-33; J. Boube, “Les sarcophages paléochrétiens de Rodez,” Pallas 6 (1958) 79-111. Cf. M. Labrousse in Gallia 20 (1962) 552-53 & fig. 6; 22 (1964) 434; 24 (1966) 416-17 & fig. 7; 26 (1968) 521-22 & fig. 7.
M. LABROUSSE