Gallia Narbonensis
Gallia Narbonensis (Narbonese Gaul) was a Roman province located in what is now Languedoc and Provence, in southern France. Narbonese Gaul "lay between the Alps, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Cévennes Mountains. It comprised what is now southeastern France."[1]
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Names
The province of Gallia Transalpina (Transalpine Gaul) was later renamed Gallia Narbonensis, after its capital the Roman colony of Narbo Martius (Narbonne), founded on the coast in 118 BC. The Romans called it Provincia Nostra ("our province") or simply Provincia ("the province"), being the first significant permanent conquest outside the Italian peninsula. The name has survived in the modern French name of the region, Provence, now a région of France.
Founding
By the mid-second century BC, Rome was trading heavily with the town of Massalia (modern Marseille) just north of Italy. Massalia was a Greek colony that by this point was centuries old and quite prosperous. Rome entered into an alliance with Massalia, by which it agreed to protect the town in exchange for a small strip of land that it wanted in order to build a road from Italy to Spain, to assist in troop transport. The Massalians, for their part, cared more for their economic prosperity than they did their territorial integrity. In this strip of land, the Romans founded the town of Narbonne, which turned out to be a major trading competitor with Massalia. It was from this that what was then the province of Transalpine Gaul was founded.
Later history
Bordering directly on Italy, control of the province gave the Roman state several advantages, such as control of the land route between Italy and the Iberian peninsula; a buffer against attacks on Italy by tribes from Gaul; and control of the lucrative trade routes of the Rhone valley, over which commercial goods flowed between Gaul and the trading center of Massalia. It was from the capital of Narbonne that Julius Caesar began his Gallic Wars.
The area became a Roman province in 121 BC, originally under the name of Gallia Transalpina (Transalpine Gaul). This name was chosen to distinguish it from Cisalpine Gaul. Transalpine means "the far side of the Alps", while Cisalpine means "this side of the Alps". Cisalpine Gaul was on the east of the Alps range, in what is now northern Italy and parts of France; while Transalpine Gaul was to the west, in what is now south-east France. Together, the regions made up the region of Gaul, which was called Gallia by the Romans.
At one point, Narbonese Gaul and Transalpine Gaul were governed as separate territories - when the Second Triumvirate was formed, Lepidus was given responsibility for Narbonese Gaul and Spain, while Antony was given Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul.[2]
References
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Further reading
- Badian, E. “Notes on Provincia Gallia in the Late Republic.” In Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire offerts à André Piganiol, vol. 2. Edited by Raymond Chevallier. Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N., 1966.
- Drinkwater, J.F. Roman Gaul: The Three Provinces, 58 B.C.–A.D. 260. Cornell University Press, 1983.
- Ebel, Charles. Transalpine Gaul: The Emergence of a Roman Province. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1976. Limited preview online.
- Ebel, Charles. “Southern Gaul in the Triumviral Period: A Critical Stage of Romanization.” American Journal of Philology 109 (1988) 572–590.
- Fevrier, Paul-Albert. “The Origin and Growth of the Cities of Southern Gaul to the Third Century A.D.: An Assessment of the Most Recent Archaeological Discoveries.” Journal of Roman Studies 63 (1973) 1–28.
- Rivet, A.L.F. Gallia Narbonensis: Southern France in Roman Times. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd., 1988.
- Woolf, Greg. Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Limited preview online.
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