DRAFT

Edifice on St. Antoine's Mound

Contributor: Yichen Liu
Published: 2021-04-21
Modified: 2025-06-29

Province

Province Description

Ancient Roman colony (founded 118 BCE) and senatorial province located in modern southern France, along the Mediterranean. This province had stronger cultural and political ties to Italy than the rest of Gaul.

Location

Sublocation

Edifice on St. Antoine's Mound

House

Edifice on St. Antoine's Mound

Keywords

House Description

This grand residential edifice may be either a public building or a great mansion. Built on St. Antoine's mound, it is situated in the southwest corner of network A of the town plan. In immediate proximity of the port, it was first interpreded as the praetorium of the naval arsenal (A. Donnadieu 1932). Then it was assigned the role of residence of the perfect of the fleet or the occasional palace for the governor of the province (P.-A. Février, 1977). Less luxurious than the edifice of the platform (see below), it has been classified in the recent l'Atlas topographique de Fréjus among the public buildings of the city.

Less than half of the plan is known. The residence occupied more than 15,000 square meters, of which at least 6,000 were living space. The construction appears to go back to the first century B.C. with a poorly known prior condition.

The house was organized around a principal courtyard with porticos [1] with concrete floors. Composed of very many rooms, the mansion had a very large axial ceremonial room and four dwelling units, two of which were organized around peristyles leading to the apartments. Only peristyle [11] (5 x 10 m) can have had a garden; it is ornamented by a square pool with a frame about 1.30 meters long on each side.

The residence perhaps enjoyed an exterior garden in the vast open space of arable land along the eastern side of the construction. As in the intervallum of the military camps, some see in the open space a extensive garden estimated at 2,600 square meters. Irregular in shape and enclosed within the rampart, it overlooks the port.

Plans

Plan of Edifice on St. Antoine's mound
Edifice on St. Antoine's Mound

Bibliography

  1. Atlas Des Maisons De Gaule Narbonnaise. Avignon: Service d'archéologie du Conseil général de Vaucluse, 1996, P. 94-96 et fiche n°1, P. 100-101. (worldcat)

  2. RIVET, D. BRENTCHALOFF, S. ROUCOLE, S. SAULNIER, Fréjus, Atlas topographique des villes de gaule méridionale, R.A.N., supplément 32, Montpellier, 2000, P. 278-281. (worldcat)

Places

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