ROMAN URBAN TOPOGRAPHY in Britain and the western Empire

Drinkwater: Urbanization in the three Gads: some observations
135-6; cf Rivet 1975, 111), and the rural sanctuaries.
Many were very small, but some were social, economic,
religious, and administrative centres of considerable
significance. As far as Gaul is concerned, we must not
restrict our thinking on urbanization and topography to
the civitas capitals or to the few full colonies. Equal if not
greater attention should be paid to complementary
agglomerations, the archaeology of which, indeed, tends
to be more reliable and productive than that of the cities
because it is less restricted and more recent (eg Roussel
1979; Roussel nd).
These other centres were, of course, not directly part of
the administrative framework of the New Order, and thus
did not at first attract the same input of imperial or local
aristocratic wealth as did the colonies and cities. However,
they had strong economic lives of their own, and through
artisanal, commercial, and religious activity throve and
prospered. Indeed, it has long been noted that the
surviving material from places such as Arlon, St Ambroix,
and Sens seems to show them more active in these respects
than many a civizas capital. An identical picture is coming
out of new excavations; the richness and vitality of the
Comatan vici is now almost an archaeological truism
(Allain 1968; Roussel 1979; Roussel nd; cf Drinkwater
1983, 135). On top of this self-generated prosperity there
may also, in the end, have come direct stimulation from
local aristocrats who, having exploited the opportunities
of the civitas capitals to the full, now sought the acclaim of
other audiences. I have long argued that sub- civitas ties
and loyalties remained strong in the Three Gauls, particularly
at pagus level (Drinkwater 1979, 93–4); by acting as
benefactors of local centres artistocrats would give themselves
the opportunity to be adulated by other, and
possibly more appreciative, crowds. Perhaps the creation
of a virtual ‘new town’ at Alléans, across the river from the
old oppidum centre, was the result of such generosity
(Leday 1980, 311-13)? 5
As a result, building at the lesser
centres boomed, and their growth and appearance may
provide us with a useful external means of measuring the
artificiality or otherwise of the layout of the cities.
Towns and sanctuaries
As far as the vici are concerned, viewed in this light, it
must be significant that orthogonal street planning is very
rare indeed. Although often claimed, it has, in my view,
seldom been conclusively proved to have existed on a very
large scale within a particular community. 6
Exceptions
exist, but may be explained away; for example, at
Mirebeau-sur-Bèze the civil settlement was plainly influenced
by the neighbouring army base (Gallia, 28
(1970), 381-2). At Mâlain initial, possibly quite ambitious,
formal planning of the vicus was subsequently
abused in a way which is never found in the cities; a length
of a main street was overbuilt, went out of use, and was
eventually used as a rubbish dump (Roussel 1979, 203,
208-10, 227; cf Goudineau 1980,270). Again, this should
not surprise students of Romano-British small towns,
used to the unformed development of most native vici.
However, the difference here, as I have already hinted, is
that the Gallic towns were plainly much richer than their
British counterparts. They had the resources to develop
themselves, and the ways in which they used them are
54
interesting. The fashion was for public buildings - places
of resort, entertainment, and administration: they seem to
have possessed open areas, porticoes, market halls, temples,
bath buildings, theatres, even basilicas (which would
suit the notion of their role as important centres of pagus
administration), sometimes on a very grand scale indeed,
and in a way not yet clearly seen in Britain (eg Allain 1968;
de Böe 1976; Leday 1980; Le Gall 1980; Planson 1976;
Roussel 1979; Willems & Lauwerijs 1973). Indeed, the
largest vici could boast many of the facilities of the cities -
except for the street grid. In plan they look like the cities
with the framework, the corset, of orthogonal planning
removed; and perhaps their inhabitants preferred it this
way? In other words, perhaps to the Gallic mind, the rigid
street planning of the civitas capitals, which at the time so
much determined their layout and which today, either
directly or indirectly, still governs the thinking of scholars,
was not a prerequisite for the development of all
urban life. In many vici the resources must have been
available to effect such a change, but the option was
spontaneously rejected.
This rejection is all the more interesting if we remember
that other sites show that the Gauls were not averse to
order and symmetry for their own sake. Such a borrowing
from Roman architectural practice is to be found in many
villas and, above all, in the great rural sanctuaries, where
axiality is combined with massive monumentality and the
desire to establish a striking prospect.
These ambitions were realised most of all in the large,
purpose-built complexes which have been termed conciliabula,
and which, with their vast courts and porticoes,
their baths, theatres, and basilicas, as well as their
temples, have been seen as a way by which local aristocrats
sought to bring the benefits of town life to the remoter
parts of their civitates (Frere 1975, 6; 1977, 87; Walthew
1982, 228; Drinkwater 1983, 179-81). Thus they may be
called ‘quasi-urban’. Clearly, a great deal of thought and
work went into designing and building them, and a special
effort was made to create an impression of order and
grandeur. However, as with the vici, the greatest emphasis
was put on the public buildings and places of public
resort. Effect was created by the careful juxtaposition of
such structures, not by their insertion in a prearranged
system of roads or avenues; and the permanent settlements
which grew up alongside as orthodox vici were just
as disordered as those elsewhere.
In the end, however, is the word ‘disorder’ itself unfair,
arising out of the orthogonal prejudices inspired in us by
too close an acquaintanceship with the civitas capitals?
Possibly urban topography is too often and too closely
associated with town planning. There is a tendency for
scholars to recoil from the idea of establishing any sense of
order or arrangement within the Gallic vici, and to dismiss
such settlements as chaotic straggles (Leday 1980, 317).
However, I doubt most strongly whether any long-settled
centre of human activity can be dismissed in such a way;
over time all places develop a rhythm and personality of
their own. I would suggest that, as the evidence becomes
available, the internal patterns of vicus settlement will
repay closer study. It already seems to me, for example,
that in many places the inhabitants of the vici made efforts
to arrange their public buildings in some form of recognizable
civic centre, as certainly can be seen at Alesia and is
also distinguishable at Clavier-Vervoz and, perhaps, at St