Tullum
TULLUM(Τούλλον), in Gallia Belgica, is one of the cities of the Leuci, who bordered on the Mediomatrici. (Ptol. 2.9.13.) Nasium is the other city [NASIUM]. The Notitia of the Provinces of Gallia mentions Tullum thus: Civitas Lencorum Tullo. Toul, which is Tullum, has preserved its name instead of taking the name of the people, like most other capital towns. Toulis in the department of the Meurthe.
[G.L]Now Toul; the capital of the Leuci in the southwestern part of Gallia Belgica (Ptol.ii. 9, 13).
Capital of the civitas Leucorum, one of the most extensive in Roman Gaul, Tullum owed its relative importance, which apparently was mostly administrative, to its location on the westernmost point of the course of the Moselle, and on the crossroads of two great roads, one going from Lyon to Trier by Langres and Metz, the other coming from Reims by Nasium. The town is cited by Ptolemy (2.9.12), the Antonine Itinerary, the Peutinger Table (Tullo), and in the Notitia provinciarum (civitas Leucorum Tullo). Fabius Valens, Vitellius' lieutenant, may have first heard at Tullum of the murder of Galba and the accession of Otho (Tac., Hist. 1.64).
The ramparts of the ancient town were in large part preserved (with 15 towers) and kept in use until 1700, when military works almost completely obliterated them. However, the destruction suffered by the town in 1940 led to the discovery at several places, not merely of foundations, but of fairly well-preserved sections of the ancient walls. A fairly precise map of their plan can be established. Indeed, a section of the fortifications survives today in the middle of the town. The enclosed area was approximately circular, had a circumference of ca. 1300 m, and covered 10 to 11 ha. What is known about the construction of the ramparts suggests that they date to the end of the 3d or beginning of the 4th c. At any rate, they are earlier than the reign of Valentinian. As yet there have been no systematic excavations at Toul. However, many ancient remains have been collected since the 18th c., especially when the ramparts were demolished, for they had been built with reutilized fragments of architecture and funerary and religious monuments.
Many of these remains no longer exist, mostly as a result of the 1940 fire. For example, only a drawing survives of an altar with a representation of the mallet-god. The most recent finds have been collected in a small museum which is being restored. Among the most interesting finds are the following: a funerary stela of the house type with an inscription and decoration of three rosettes; two pieces of a bas-relief depicting Mercury; a group of three personages in high relief, probably a trinity of Gallo-Roman deities; and several bronze objects, among them a bust of Apollo, a bull, a cornucopia, a very worn statuette depicting Jupiter, and a dish decorated with palmettes and twining vegetal motifs. A certain number of interesting architectural and sculptural fragments (in particular a relief apparently depicting Attis in an attitude of sorrow) are kept in the Musée Lorrain at Nancy. Most of the artifacts found testify to the close connections which existed throughout the Gallo-Roman period between Toul and the other Moselle towns, Metz and Trier.
The observations made during the rebuilding of Toul suggests that the built-up area in antiquity was never very large. The Gallo-Roman town occupied the site of a small Gallic settlement. Subsequently it spread S. Then, at the end of the 3d or beginning of the 4th c., it shrank and shut itself up behind ramparts built with materials taken from the edifices of the original town, or their ruins.
BIBLIOGRAPHYM. Toussaint, Répertoire archéologique du département de Meurthe-et-Moselle (1947) 116-24; J. Choux & A. Liéger, “Découvertes archéologiques à Toul,” Gallia 7 (1949) 88-101PI.
R. BILLORET