Continuity and Rupture in Roman Mediterranean Gaul: An Archaeology of Colonial Transformations at Ancient Lattara 9781789255669, 9781789255676, 2020941679, 178925566X

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Continuity and Rupture in Roman Mediterranean Gaul An Archaeology of Colonial Transformations at Ancient Lattara

Benjamin P. Luley

Oxford & Philadelphia

Published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by OXBOW BOOKS The Old Music Hall, 106–108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JE and in the United States by OXBOW BOOKS 1950 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083 © Oxbow Books and the author 2020 Hardback Edition: ISBN 978-1-78925-566-9 Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-78925-567-6 (ePub) A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Control Number: 2020941679 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher in writing. Printed in Malta by Melita Press Typeset by Versatile PreMedia Service (P) Ltd For a complete list of Oxbow titles, please contact: UNITED KINGDOM UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Oxbow Books Oxbow Books Telephone (01865) 241249 Telephone (610) 853-9131, Fax (610) 853-9146 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] www.oxbowbooks.com www.casemateacademic.com/oxbow Oxbow Books is part of the Casemate Group Front cover: Top, funerary stela from Roman-period necropolis at Lattara (photo: courtesy of the Musée archéologique Henri Prades); Bottom, reconstruction of Lattara in the third century BC (drawing: author). Back cover: Photo of the archaeological site of Lattara today (photo: author).

For Laëtitia ~ merci d’être toujours là pour moi ~ and Eileen and James ~ grá go deo ~

Contents Acknowledgements���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������vii 1. Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 1 2. “They Make a Desolation and Call it Peace”������������������������������������������������������������� 21 3. Living Together, Living Apart������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 49 4. From the Home to the Villa����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 85 5. Turning People into Things��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 119 6. Community and Cosmology at Lattara�������������������������������������������������������������������� 147 7. Feasting, Power, and Money�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 179 Epilogue: After Lattara��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 215 Bibliography������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 223 Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 241

Acknowledgements Archaeology is, by its very nature, always a collaborative effort and never an individual one. As such, I feel immensely grateful to have been able to be a part of the research team at Lattes since 2006. For all those at Lattes who have helped me along the way, je vous remercie. In particular, I would like to acknowledge and thank Michael Dietler, Núria Rovira, Éric Gailledrat, Denis Lebeaupin, Pierre Garmy, Nasrine Anwar, Joe Bonni, Allison Cohen, Anne-Marie Curé, Martin Doppelt, Benoît Favennec, William Meyer, Sébastien Munos, and Maxime Scrinzi. I am especially grateful to Michel Py and Thierry Janin, both former directors at Lattes, for graciously allowing me access to the vast amount of data from the years of excavations of Lattara as I conducted my dissertation research. Diane Dusseaux, Lionel Pernet, and Marco Mario – all affiliated, or formerly affiliated, with the Musée archéologique Henri-Prades (Lattes) – helpfully provided me with images of museum pieces and allowed access to some of the unpublished data from the necropolis. Above all, I am indebted to Gaël Piquès, with whom I have worked together for the past eight years to excavate the Roman occupation of Lattara, both within the settlement and in the port, for all his friendship, advice, support, and archaeological knowledge. In part, this book is based upon my Ph.D. dissertation, the research of which was made possible through a grant from the Georges Lurcy Charitable and Educational Trust for study in France and a National Scientific Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant. The write-up stage of my dissertation was funded by a Mellon Foundation Dissertation-Year Fellowship through the University of Chicago. I am grateful to all the support and help I have received from my colleagues here at Gettysburg College – in particular Matthew Amster, William Bowman, Amy Evrard, Julie Hendon, Ian Isherwood, Rachel Lesser, Donna Perry, GailAnn Rickert, Stephanie Sellers, Carolyn Snively, David Walsh, and Katheryn Whitcomb (who in particular read multiple drafts). I also would like to acknowledge all my students, especially those who excavated with me at Lattes. A special thanks should also go to my good friend and mentor Steve Warfel, the former curator of archaeology at the State Museum in Harrisburg, PA, who first trained me in archaeology when I was a young undergraduate. While credit should go to the numerous individuals who helped me out along the way, any errors or mistakes found in the text are solely my own. Lastly, I would like to thank my family who have generously supported me throughout the writing of this book, especially my wife and two children, and my parents, Richard and Nancy (it was my mother who first urged me take a class in anthropology), to whom I owe so much.

Chapter 1 Introduction Structure, Agency, and Power in Roman Mediterranean Gaul

For my part, if I have recalled a few details of these hideous butcheries, it is by no means because I take a morbid delight in them, but because I think that these heads of men, these collections of ears, these burned houses, these Gothic invasions, this steaming blood, these cities that evaporate at the edge of the sword, are not to be so easily disposed of. They prove that colonization, I repeat, dehumanizes even the most civilized man; that colonial activity, colonial enterprise, colonial conquest, which is based on contempt for the native and justified by that contempt, inevitably tends to change him who undertakes it. Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism1

The Mediterranean Sea has always brought together diverse groups of people, although the exact nature of these connections has varied throughout time, from the establishment of small trading enclaves to the creation of vast empires – most notably the Roman Empire. Lying near these connecting shores in the region that the French today call le Midi, the artifacts and remains from 700 years of occupation at the ancient settlement of Lattara certainly attest to a long and complex history of interaction and exchange with the wider Mediterranean world. Largely forgotten until its rediscovery by archaeologists in the 1960s, the layers of history at the site, spanning a period from approximately 500 BC to AD 200, reveal interactions and exchanges between the local Celtic occupants of the town and various outsiders – first Etruscans, then Greeks, and then finally Romans.2 In contrast to the relative autonomy Lattara enjoyed during the period of contact with the Etruscans and Greeks, the settlement came under direct Roman rule by the end of the second century BC. Between 125 and 121 BC, Roman armies violently subjugated the peoples of what is today Mediterranean France, and then put down a series of uprisings against Roman rule over the course of the next half century. In the decades following the suppression of these revolts,

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Roman influences became more and more noticeable at Lattara: public buildings in the center of the town, courtyard houses with red roof tiles and white-washed walls, and eventually, temples dedicated to Roman deities like Mercury. At a more quotidian level, new goods also began to appear, such as the shiny red gloss ceramic known as terra sigillata, olive oil, and the pungent fish sauce known as garum that was so loved by the Romans.3 In the past, scholars have often interpreted the appearance of Greek or Roman material at sites throughout the Mediterranean as evidence for the “Hellenization” or “Romanization” of local peoples, supposedly resulting in a decline in local identity and the adoption of foreign practices and beliefs.4 However, over the course of the past several decades, researchers have sought to either significantly nuance this paradigm of “Hellenization” and “Romanization,” or to reject it entirely.5 In particular, a growing number of works have come to an appreciation of how the native inhabitants of the Roman Empire actively constructed complex and multi-faceted local identities within the conquered provinces.6 Similarly, in the broader field of the archaeology of colonialism, there has also been a heightened awareness of the dynamism of indigenous societies both before and after colonial contact, as well as the active role that local people can play in the creation of complex identities that do not conform to a strict binary divide between native/colonized vs. foreigner/ colonizer.7 Indeed, anthropologists for the most part have long ago done away with the myth of the static and timeless native, living in a state of primordial bliss until the arrival of disruptive foreign invaders and colonizers.8 However, in so far as the focus within scholarship has shifted to an analysis of the diversity of local identities and experiences within the Roman Empire, there is ironically an overall dearth of extended, detailed analyses of the experiences of different individuals and groups of people living within a single community.9 Instead, scholars have often examined the issue of identity at the analytical level of entire provinces – or even multiple provinces – potentially obscuring the varied experiences of different communities within the Roman Empire, as well as the divergences in social life amongst those within the same community.10 Furthermore, understanding the potentially darker side of empire – what those recording history wish to forget or ignore – in particular means understanding colonialism not at the level of provinces or vast swaths of territory, but at the local level of towns, villages, and households, where communities of individuals lived and died with the realities of foreign rule.11 Along similar lines, the traditional and lamentable emphasis that researchers have often placed on understanding above all the experiences of the highest socio-political echelon of people in the provinces – those who would have had the most stake in the Roman Empire – has often persisted in many recent works. As a result, scholars are still left with a quite incomplete understanding of how the less fortunate experienced life under Roman rule in specific contexts.12 In part, this is arguably the result of the overall incompleteness of the archaeological record, with few sites producing sufficient data on daily life

1. Introduction

3

for a truly local analysis, and with “elite” sites often much more visible in the archaeological record.13 The extensive results from over 35 years of excavations across the town and port of Lattara in the Roman province of Mediterranean Gaul thus offer an important means to conduct a “bottom-up” analysis of the impact of Roman rule in the provinces. Here, at a settlement like Lattara, archaeologists can comprehend the long-term effects of Roman rule not as impersonal global history, but rather as the local experiences of real people whose lives under the Roman Empire left countless traces in the layers of history unearthed at the site. Although looking at the small-scale experiences of a single community at first glance could seem to be overly focused, it is precisely at this level that we can fully comprehend the articulations between local and global within a larger system of structural asymmetries in control and power. In this way, through a study of the intricacies and details of the experiences of those living under Roman rule at one community, the site of Lattara offers the possibility for the kind of “thick description” famously advocated by the noted anthropologist Clifford Geertz, without it ever being simply a study of just one community.14 As Geertz writes, “The locus of study is not the object of study. Anthropologists don’t study villages (tribes, towns, neighborhoods…); they study in villages. You can study different things in different places, and some things – for example what colonial domination does to established frames of moral expectation – you can best study in confined localities. But that doesn’t make the place what it is you are studying.”15 This book thus hopefully offers a detailed analysis of the various changes in social life within one specific community in the wider world of the provinces following the Roman conquest. At the same time, this work seeks to build upon earlier works on identity by moving beyond the issue of agency to more fully examining how larger structures of power can constrain individual choices. In particular, this means investigating the changing nature of social relationships which provided the context for the creation and articulation of specific kinds of diverse and multi-faceted local identities within the wider Roman Empire. In so much as the creation and recreation of identity is a constant and active process – rather than something static and unchanging – the creation of these locally situated identities and social relationships emerge from specific historical events and circumstances. It follows, then, that the historically specific events of the Roman conquest – so different from the arrival of Etruscan and Massaliote merchants at Lattara three to four centuries earlier – had an important effect on local relationships within the community during the first century BC. How, then, did the Roman conquest potentially impact the structuring web of social relationships linking together the people of Lattara in culturally and historically specific ways? Certainly at the level of specific communities in the provinces, scholars of the Roman world have not always intensively examined in any critical manner the potential links between the creation of local identities in the Roman provinces and the long and often violent processes by which Rome asserted its authority over formerly autonomous peoples.16 In some sense, this lack of understanding between

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violence, power imbalances, and local social relationships should be surprising, since the establishment of Roman rule in the provinces was based upon violent conquest and was often met with considerable resistance by local natives – this is certainly true for Mediterranean Gaul as we will see in the next chapter.17 Furthermore, the ongoing process of maintaining local Roman rule – at least for an initial extended period – was often dependent upon a strong military presence, making it far different from, for example, the globalized world of today.18 In the case of Roman Mediterranean Gaul – where several major revolts broke out throughout the first century BC – Roman armies were regularly present in the province from the time of the initial conquest in 125–121 BC to the elevation of the province to senatorial status in 21 BC, or some 100 years, roughly akin to the amount of time the French army occupied Algeria or the British did so in India.19 As we will see further in Chapter 2, the changes in material culture so evident at Lattara in the second half of the first century BC thus occurred in a context of approximately a century of violent conquest, revolts, taxation, and land confiscations. In many ways, the development of “identity” as a focus in Roman archaeology has been part of the growing influence of “post-structural” thought on the social sciences emerging by the 1980s, emphasizing individual agency and the creative capacity of these individuals to articulate local meaning and identity through the selective consumption of both foreign and local material goods in a way that is not predetermined by any larger structure.20 In this regard, these post-structural works on consumption have certainly succeeded in bringing out questions of agency and local meaning that had been largely absent from the macro- and structuralist analysis of many scholars working within the earlier framework of Dependency Theory or World-Systems Theory.21 At the same time, however, the increasing emphasis on agency also meant that any deep analysis of structural power that had been so central to more traditional Marxist analyses also often went by the wayside.22 In fact, an overemphasis on the actions of individuals, all seemingly pursuing their own goals and motivations in order to create local meaning for themselves, seems to mirror a great deal of traditional economic theory going back to Adam Smith.23 Indeed, Karl Polanyi has argued that the very notion of an independent, self-regulating market requires – both conceptually and practically – the presence of individual actors all seeking to maximize their economic gain.24 He writes, “To separate labor from other activities of life and to subject it to the laws of the market was to annihilate all organic forms of existence and to replace them by a different type of organization, an atomistic and individual one.”25 Given in particular the links between modern colonialism and the emergence of this kind of market, the risk is that an overemphasis on the autonomy of individuals as social actors in scholarly analyses can actually tend to recapitulate the very bourgeois ideology implicit behind colonial and neo-colonial projects of “development.” What can start off as a critique of colonialism can come to seemingly reinforce key aspects of Western colonial thought.26

1. Introduction

5

To avoid practicing what noted ethnographer and social theorist David Graeber in his characteristic wit has referred to as, “anthropology as it might have been written by Milton Friedman,” 27 requires understanding the changes in the material record at Lattara after the Roman conquest as part of a larger structure of power that was constantly being articulated through the material practices of people living in the province. This perspective is certainly central to the recent work of Louise Revell in her study of urbanism in Roman Britain and Hispania that examines precisely this relationship between structure and agency.28 Her analysis thus focuses on, “the way in which Roman power and Roman culture were actively reproduced at a local level through the agency of those incorporated within its sphere of influence … The day-to-day encounters within the provincial town formed the point of reproduction, when the power of Rome was recreated in the lives of its subjects.”29 Somewhat similarly, David Mattingly has also recently pointed out that, “While native agency was clearly a significant factor in many colonial situations, we should not lose sight of the distorting effect of imperial power,” and elsewhere he adds, “negotiation and the choices taken by subject peoples (collectively or as individual bodies) were thus not made in a power vacuum.”30 Finally, Andrew Gardner has also recently argued that, “There is a danger that if we limit our application of postcolonial theory to attempts to describe provincial cultures as composites of fragmentary, fluid and hybrid identities, seemingly involving a fair degree of choice and flexibility, we will fail to analyze the power relationships that create and sustain inequality. Partly this requires us to recognize the continuing role of violence in imperial society, but also it necessitates a deeper engagement with theories of agency, personhood and the significance of material transformation to everyday life, and a concomitant interest in the structural characteristics of Roman imperialism as a process.”31 This book, then, seeks to examine the ways in which the material changes evident in the archaeological record at Lattara were part of larger structural changes in power resulting from the violent creation and maintenance of Roman rule in Mediterranean Gaul. Specifically, I argue that the extensive and varied archaeological evidence from over 35 years of excavations at the site, which we will see presented throughout this book, suggests that quite different social relationships and forms of interactions emerged at Lattara in the course of the first century BC in the wake of the Roman conquest. This involved a new organization of domestic space and living arrangements, new relationships structuring the production and exchange of material goods, different relationships between the community and the wider spiritual world, and new strategies for acquiring political influence and power, based upon the increasing importance of material wealth. All of this occurred by the first century AD despite the continued persistence of many aspects of traditional, local identity. Furthermore, these new social relationships were arguably paramount in the daily practices of reproducing Roman rule at Lattara and in the larger province of Mediterranean Gaul more generally, practices that were in particular rooted in an ever-increasing socio-economic hierarchy.

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Continuity and Rupture in Roman Mediterranean Gaul

Ancient Rome and Colonialism Before pursuing these themes further within the context of Lattara, it is useful here to first define several key terms, most notably “colonialism,” and to address the debate within Roman archaeology concerning the applicability of post-colonial theory and comparative terms such as “colonialism” to the study of the ancient world. As scholars became increasingly skeptical of the efficacy of Romanization as an explanation for the material changes evident in the conquered provinces, many turned to the field of post-colonial studies as a way of better illuminating the differing experiences of local peoples living under Roman rule.32 However, a considerable debate has ensued concerning the applicability of post-colonial theory to the ancient world, and more generally, the appropriateness of employing terms such as “colonialism” and “imperialism” – with their potential modern connotations – when analyzing the Roman Empire.33 In a large part, this debate has arguably been deeply rooted in a larger divide within the field of Mediterranean archaeology.34 On one side, some archaeologists have advocated an approach rooted in the comparative social sciences and privileging as the goal of analysis a critical understanding of the diversity of human experiences

Fig. 1.1: Map of the Roman Empire, ca. AD 120, showing the location of ancient Lattara (map: author).

1. Introduction

7

across time and space – and thus not solely focused on the ancient Mediterranean world.35 For projects with this kind of orientation, comparative, heuristic terms are absolutely necessary for the analysis. Conversely, other archaeologists have preferred to maintain more traditional links with classical studies and ancient history, and have eschewed – or at least expressed deep reservations about – the applicability of a broader, comparative framework for analysis.36 In particular, many in this latter camp have raised important objections concerning the presumed links between the ancient Greco-Roman world and modern, capitalist society.37 This long-held presumption about the links between antiquity and modernity was prominent in much of the nineteenth and early twentieth century – when scholars saw classical antiquity as a direct forerunner to modern civilization – and is also still present in many recent popular works reaching out to a wider audience on the value of the classics today.38 In regard to the use of the terms “colonialism” and “imperialism” when analyzing the Roman Empire, the typical objection has been that the concepts are so laden with connotations linked up with modern Western colonialism of the past several centuries that any attempt to apply them to the more distant past inevitably produces a biased and necessarily anachronistic interpretation.39 While some of these reservations are potentially valid, there has also arguably been a certain naivety concerning the very possibility of disentangling modern scholarship from colonial legacies of the past two centuries. This is particularly evident in the suggestion that much of the post-colonial scholarship has supposedly been simply “anti-colonial,” seemingly implying the need in scholarship for a truly “neutral” analysis of the ancient Roman world.40 In regard to the notion of “neutral” in the sense that any analysis of the Roman world should be purely empirical, objective, and value-free, a significant body of archaeological theory since the 1980s has cast serious doubt on this very possibility.41 The material record of the past is on its own always inherently ambiguous, in the sense that it is only through the interpretations of archaeologists themselves – particularly through detailed analyses of contextual evidence – that the data can “speak” and obtain meaning in a modern context.42 In this regard, Richard Hingley, for example, has argued that, “Our knowledge of classical Rome can only exist in a contemporary context.”43 Modern scholarship is implicated in modern colonialism not just in terms of its long legacy within academia throughout the past two centuries,44 but also more importantly in the sense that colonial legacies persist throughout the world today, to the extent that many scholars – often those intimately familiar with the current state of affairs for formerly colonized peoples – have preferred the term “neo-colonialism” to describe the contemporary, “globalized” world.45 What often appear as more “neutral” assessments of colonialism, past or present, are often in part due to their larger position in discourses that tend to recapitulate the socio-economic status quo of the world today. To briefly cite a recent example, the controversy surrounding David Mattingly’s use of the word “occupation” to characterize Roman rule in Britain is arguably not solely tied to the potential applicability of the term as a valid interpretation; if nothing else, the violent

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uprisings against Roman rule and the continuing need for the presence of multiple Roman legions in the province points to the notion of “occupation.”46 Rather, the dissatisfaction with the term is seemingly just as much rooted in the way in which the term “occupation” deeply unsettled the traditional interpretations concerning the Roman Empire of both scholars and the general public alike, in a way that more “neutral” and “safe” terms such as “arrival,” “presence,” or simply, “Roman province” would not. Any way we characterize the past, we do so with modern words and symbols that are entangled in a larger web of modern discourses about the world. In this way, our analysis of the past is never “neutral.” What is arguably continuously needed is a more critical positionality on the part of Roman archaeologists, rather than a turn to a purely empiricist approach that feigns an objective neutrality. Secondly, in regard to a kind of “moral neutrality,” it is certainly true that merely reducing Roman imperial rule to a question of “good” or “bad” can prove distracting to a deeper analysis of the nuances and complexities of colonial rule in local settings. At least ostensibly for this reason, then, there has often been an insistence on the part of scholars that any analysis of the Roman Empire should remain “neutral” and refrain from any language that risks portraying Roman rule in an overly negative light.47 However, one wonders if this insistence is in fact due more to the convenient vastness of time separating the Roman Empire from the present; when the blood dries and no one is alive to speak out against empire, it is easy to assume an armchair neutrality that scholars can no longer afford to take, for example, in regard to the more recent but equally bloody conquest of the Americas.48 If nothing else, one wonders if the insistence that scholars of the Roman world refrain from any hints that the Roman Empire was “bad” has had the adverse effect of preventing a deeper analysis of the potentially negative effects that Roman rule had on local communities.49 Although vast structural differences do exist between the Roman Empire and modern colonialism, the subaltern voices and perspectives of those who have experienced modern colonialism and its enduring legacies clearly attest to the overwhelmingly negative and traumatic effects that colonial rule can and does have on the vast majority of local peoples.50 Especially given that these kinds of subaltern voices – the voices of those who did not benefit from the Roman conquest – have not really survived from the ancient Mediterranean world, can scholars afford to ignore these perspectives entirely when seeking to understand the various experiences of those living under the Roman Empire?51 In regard to a critical application of post-colonial theory to an analysis of the Roman Empire, Jane Webster writes, “At the very least it may help us to remember, where we often seem in danger of forgetting it, that the Pax Romana, like the [modern] Pax Britannica, brought violence, disruption, and the loss of freedom for many indigenous peoples, and was met by resistance as well as consent.”52 Similarly, in a recent comparative volume on the archaeology of colonialism across space and time, archaeologist Audrey Horning reminds us that, “If we can say anything at all about colonialism in different spaces and places and times … it is that colonialism was and is ugly, unfair, violent, and disfiguring. In seeking to understand colonialism

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and how it reverberates and is still being enacted around the world, we cannot and must not lose sight of that essential fact.”53 Lastly, the suggestion that the use of the term “colonialism” to analyze the Roman Empire is somehow ultimately bound to be solely anachronistic has arguably been something of a red herring; Jane Webster, for example, in an early important work on post-colonial approaches to the Roman Empire was quite emphatic that the use of the term “colonialism” and the application of post-colonial analyses meant identifying differences between Rome and modern empires as much as similarities, and furthermore, that the ancient Roman Empire was not simply analogous to modern colonialism.54 Similarly, Peter Van Dommelen has more recently pointed out that the use of a comparative term such as “colonialism” for both the ancient and modern world, “does not imply that they are identical overall but that specific aspects can be identified that are similar or contrasting.”55 If we accept the inherently interpretative nature of archaeology, the crucial issue revolves around the key issues and terms we use as starting point for analysis, which in turn allow for a critical and comparative understanding of the past through a modern lens without ever predetermining the conclusion.56 If the goal is to understand the flow of material goods in the Roman Empire and the ways in which individuals assigned local meaning to these “commodities,” then a term such as “globalization” does in fact have an important efficacy.57 By contrast, when seeking to understand the potential impact that the Roman conquest had on local forms of social relationships, the term “colonialism” has the advantage of focusing on the asymmetrical power relationships that can emerge in situations in which local peoples fall under foreign rule through violent conquest. Leaving aside for a moment certain key structural differences between ancient Rome and modern colonialism (see below), what underlying elements does Roman Mediterranean Gaul share with, for example, the French in Algeria, the Spanish in the Americas, the British in Ireland, Africa, or India, or the United States in the far west?58 In all cases, foreign armies arrived to violently conquer local peoples, claiming territorial control with little or no consent from these indigenous populations. Following the initial conquest, to varying degrees foreign colonists then arrived to settle on this newly conquered land. Furthermore, in all these cases, the attempts at foreign control met significant local resistance. Returning again to a recent comparative work on the archaeology of colonialism, Horning also points out that, “Violence, death, poverty, marginality, destruction, and displacement are attendant upon all colonial experiences to varying degrees, given that the one element of colonialism that remains true through time and space is the operation of unequal power relations.”59 As used in this book, then, colonialism implies this violent and unequal relationship of control between a foreign people and locals,60 and here I draw upon a recent definition by Peter Van Dommelen, who writes, “In structural terms, the definition rests on two key features, namely, in the first place, the presence of one or more groups of foreign people (the colonizers) in a region at some distance from their own place of origin and, in the second place, asymmetrical socio-economic relationships

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between the colonizing and colonized groups – inequality, in a single word.”61 In conclusion, to do away with a concept such as “colonialism” when attempting to analyze Roman Mediterranean Gaul during the first century BC is to risk dismissing the role that violence and exploitation played in the construction of local communities in the Roman provinces, and further risks promoting (at best) a naïve, sanitized version of the past, and (at worst) a vision of ancient Rome that potentially normalizes neo-colonial relationships present in the world today.62 With this in mind, it is also worth pointing out a crucial difference between Roman colonialism – as defined above – and modern examples: the ways in which cultural conceptions of race and ethnicity were or were not used to institutionalize difference and inequality within the colonial provinces. Unlike in much of modern colonialism – with its creation of clear racial and ethnic hierarchies – it is quite apparent that in the Roman Empire, perceptions of ethnic or geographical difference were not a systemic or structural barrier to participating in local rule following the Roman conquest, or even in the larger rule of the empire.63 As Nicola Terrenato has quite rightly pointed out, the documented rise of certain local people from the conquered provinces, including Gaul, to senatorial status in the Roman world would be akin to, “an Indian Rajah becoming a member of the House of Lords in the aftermath of the British conquest.”64 As Greg Woolf has discussed, a far more important criterion for advancement in the socio-political hierarchy of the Roman Empire was the extent to which local peoples acquired the necessary humanitas (a Latin term roughly translating as “culture” or “civilization”), involving at once “intellectual and moral accomplishments and qualities” that would set one apart from the “barbarians” of the world.65 This can be seen, for example, in the remark by the Greek geographer Strabo, writing at the end of the first century BC about the Mediterranean Celts following the Roman conquest: “They [the Celts] are no longer barbarians [βαρβάροι] but have changed fully into the type of Romans in both language [τῇ γλώττῃ] and in ways of life [τοῖς βίοις], and some also in civic life [τῇ πολιτείᾳ].”66 This quote, however, also shows the way in which traditional Celtic language and culture could in fact be potential barriers to successfully integrating oneself into Roman society: although the ethnic origin of someone did not preclude participation in Roman socio-political life, full participation did require humanitas, and that meant acquiring the “civilized” urban lifestyle of the Roman elite, including a mastery of the Latin language. Along somewhat similar lines, there is to a certain point a debate amongst scholars concerning the extent to which the Romans were actively prejudiced against non-Roman peoples.67 Certainly, at the time of the conquest of Mediterranean Gaul, there were very clear linguistic and cultural differences between the local Celtic peoples and the Roman conquerors.68 Based upon the surviving passages in later authors, the now lost “ethnographic” account of the Celtic peoples by the Greek traveler and philosopher Poseidonios of Apameia, who journeyed in Mediterranean Gaul around ca. 90 BC, illustrated the vast differences the Greeks and the Romans saw between themselves and these Celts.69 Furthermore, as the example noted by Strabo seemingly illustrates,

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Fig. 1.2: Map of the excavations of Lattara (courtesy of Lattes excavations). The numbers indicate excavation zones that have been excavated from 1983 to the present. The letter “s” before a number (sondage) denotes an area of the site excavated in the 1970s by the GAP.

these differences did matter in the way Romans perceived the Celtic peoples: when one acquired the trappings of humanitas, including the Latin language, an urbanized existence, and political involvement in the Roman civitas, one was no longer a “barbarian.” As we shall see in the next chapter, there are furthermore some remarks by the Roman orator and politician Cicero from the early first century BC that express a great deal of antipathy toward the Mediterranean Celts, although the extent to which this is simply oratorical rhetoric meant for the specific context of a trial against a former Roman governor of Mediterranean Gaul has been debated by scholars.70

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Continuity and Rupture in Roman Mediterranean Gaul

Understanding Colonial Transformations at Ancient Lattara As way of a general background for understanding the impact of Roman rule at Lattara, the region today known as Mediterranean France extends from the shores of the Mediterranean to the rugged uplands of the Cévennes to the north. In turn, the region is bordered on the east by the Alps and on the west by the Pyrenees. In ancient times, the Greeks referred to this land as Keltiké, home of the Keltoí (the Celts), and the Romans would eventually name this same territory Gallia (Gaul). Following the Roman conquest, the Romans specifically designated the region of Mediterranean Gaul first as Gallia Transalpina (literally “Gaul on the other side of the Alps” to distinguish it from the Gaul of northern Italy), and later as Gallia Narbonensis. From this comes the general term “Mediterranean Gaul,” which I use here to refer to the region in ancient times. Today, this region incorporates two modern French administrative régions: Occitanie to the west of the lower reaches of the Rhône River (corresponding imperfectly to the historical province of Languedoc), and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur to the east of the Rhône. The historical name for this latter territory, “Provence,” ultimately derives from the Romans in the first half of the first century BC referring to the region as the provincia, contrasting it with the other parts of Gaul that had not yet been conquered.71 Archaeologists generally refer to the period preceding Roman rule in Mediterranean Gaul as the Iron Age, beginning with the earliest appearance of iron tools around 750 BC and continuing to 125 BC. The Romans conquered Mediterranean Gaul in a series of campaigns between 125 and 121 BC, organizing the region into a conquered province.72 Until the rise of Caesar Augustus at the end of the first century BC, Rome was officially a republic, with power shared between the Senate and a number of elected magistrates, including above all two consuls chosen annually. By 27 BC, Caesar Augustus, previously known as Octavian, had assumed complete de facto control over the Roman state, and scholars generally designate the period from Augustus to the reforms of Emperor Diocletian in AD 284 as the Early Empire, or the Principate. By the fifth century AD, centralized Roman authority over the western provinces of the Roman Empire, including Mediterranean Gaul, was crumbling due to a number of factors, including the movements of people from beyond the Empire’s borders into Roman territory. The Roman Empire in the west officially came to an end with the deposition of the last western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, in AD 476. Around this time, Mediterranean Gaul came under the rule of the Visigothic kings, who created the Kingdom of Septimania, with its capital at Narbonne (the old Roman colony at Narbo Martius). Historically, from the end of the Roman Empire to the beginning of the twentieth century, this cultural region of Occitània was populated by speakers of Occitan, a Romance language deriving from late Latin. After the introduction of a standardized French school system, in which Parisian French became the only acceptable language, however, Occitan has rapidly declined in use, and today less than 1% of the region’s population are fluent speakers.73

1. Introduction

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Fig. 1.3: Map of the region of eastern Languedoc surrounding the settlement at Lattara, indicating the location of different places mentioned in the text (map: author).

Today, the ancient settlement of Lattara lies within the modern town of Lattes, just to the south of the city of Montpellier in the French région of Occitanie. The Greek author Pomponius Mela, writing in the mid-first century AD, made reference to a castellum Latara, and as early as the seventeenth century, some French scholars linked the site mentioned by Pomponius Mela with the medieval town of Lattes. 74 Beginning in 1963, a group of amateur archaeologists working under the direction of the school teacher Henri Prades (known as the Groupe archéologique Painlevé or GAP) began excavating at the domaine Saint-Saveur just to the south of the small medieval core of Lattes. Based upon the rich finds they uncovered, including an inscription mentioning the Lattar[enses] (the people of Lattara), the archaeologists were able to confirm the site as the location of ancient Lattara.75 Recognizing the importance of the growing number of archaeological finds, the French government acquired the land during the 1970s. Since 1983, Lattes has been the site of significant and extensive excavations by international teams of archaeologists from France, Catalonia, Spain, the United States, and other countries, until recently under the direction of Michel Py and then Thierry Janin, both with the French Centre national

14

Continuity and Rupture in Roman Mediterranean Gaul

Fig. 1.4: The excavations of Zone 75 at Lattes (photo: author).

de la recherche scientifique (Figs 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4). Currently, the ongoing excavations at the site are focusing on the Roman-era port to the south of the actual settlement.76 Today, the archaeological site is a 10-minute walk from the lagoon known as the Étang du Méjean, which is separated from the Mediterranean Sea proper by a series of barrier islands, punctuated by several openings allowing the lagoon to flow into the sea. Geological surveys have shown that, in antiquity, the site lay directly next to the lagoon and was furthermore situated between two branches of the Lez River. Thus, the site was ideal for trade, with the calm lagoon providing a haven for ships, and the Lez River serving as an avenue for shipping goods into the interior. The ubiquity of wine amphorae and other imported ceramics at the site attest to the importance of trading relations between the local Celtic population at Lattara and foreign merchants, some of whom were likely living at times within the settlement itself on a permanent or at least semi-permanent basis. Since the foundation of the settlement around 500 BC, the site was protected by a formidable rampart of stone and mudbrick, reinforced by a series of towers, enclosing an area of approximately 3.5 hectares. The settlement grew in size over the next several

1. Introduction

15

centuries, and by around 200 BC had significantly outgrown the confines of the original fortification walls. After the Roman conquest of Mediterranean Gaul between 125 and 121 BC, Lattara continued to be an important settlement in the region and a center of trade with the Mediterranean world. The port area of the settlement expanded significantly at the end of the first century BC. By the end of the second century AD, however, the harbor had become increasingly silted up, and the settlement was gradually abandoned beginning around AD 200. Thus, the archaeological site of ancient Lattara offers important insights into changing social relationships within a single community over approximately seven centuries, three hundred years or so of which were under Roman rule. Returning to the issue of Roman colonialism, then, the next chapter examines specifically the historical and archaeological evidence for Roman colonial practices throughout the region of Mediterranean Gaul in the first century BC. In turn, the subsequent chapters analyze the impact that Roman rule had on various aspects of social life at Lattara.

Notes

1 From the English translation by Joan Pinkham, Césaire 2000, 41. For original French, see Césaire 2004, 20–21. Unless otherwise stated, all translations are by the author. 2 For a largely up to date review of the over 35 years of archaeological work at Lattara, see Py 2009. 3 For changes in dining practices at Lattara based upon ceramic tableware, see for example Luley 2014a; 2018a and for changes in cooking practices at Lattara – along with a great deal of continuation – see Luley 2014b. 4 For traditional examples of this paradigm of “Hellenization,” see for example Benoit 1965; Boardman 1999. For traditional approaches to “Romanization,” see for example Haverfield 1915; Collingwood 1934; Blagg and Millet 1990; Wood and Queiroga 1992; MacMullen 2000. In general, the paradigm of Hellenization and Romanization shared many theoretical perspectives and concerns with the “Acculturation” model that was popular among American anthropologists in the early twentieth century. See for example Redfield et al. 1936. 5 For a critique of Hellenization, see for example Dietler 2010. For more nuanced versions of Romanization, see Millet 1990; Metzler et al. 1995; Woolf 1998; Keay and Terrenato 2001. For various critiques of Romanization, see for example Hingley 1996; Barrett 1997; Webster 2001; Mattingly 2002; 2004; 2011. For calls to reject Romanization, see in particular Mattingly 2011, especially pp. 39–41. 6 E.g. Wells 1999; Hingley 2005; Gardner 2007; Van Dommelen and Terrenato 2007; Revell 2009; 2016; Van Dommelen and Knapp 2010; Mattingly 2011; Mullen 2013; Johnston 2017. 7 Within archaeology specifically, see for example Lyons and Papadopoulos 2002; Given 2004; Gosden 2004; Stein 2005; Hodos 2006; Lightfoot 2006; Dietler 2009; 2010; Dietler and LópezRuiz 2009; Oland et al. 2012; Cipolla and Hayes 2015. More generally for anthropology, see for example, Comaroff and Comaroff 1991. For a discussion in regard to breaking down the binary divide between “Romans” and “Natives,” see Woolf 1997. 8 See, for example, Oland et al. 2012. In regard to the western Roman Empire, see especially Wells 1999, especially p. 33. 9 See, however, Richard Hingley’s (2018) detailed study of Iron Age and Roman London. Louise Revell (2016, 149), for example, has recently stated the need for, “Further localized detailed

16

Continuity and Rupture in Roman Mediterranean Gaul

studies, using a wider range of archaeological materials, from more regions and provinces coupled with more synthetic and comparable works.” 10 To cite two important recent examples from Roman Gaul: Greg Woolf ’s (1998) fundamental study of Roman Gaul, Becoming Roman, for example, examined all four provinces of Gaul, and while he certainly makes distinctions between temperate and Mediterranean Gaul, there is little discussion of specific communities, and the issue of domestic space – a fundamental aspect of local social life – is largely lacking. Andrew Johnston’s (2017) recent study moves to an even larger scale, and uses evidence gathered from across seven different provinces (three in Hispania and four in Gaul) to form conclusions about the persistence of local identities in the western Roman Empire. While the conclusions are certainly interesting, there is again a serious risk of overgeneralizing the experiences of those living under the Roman Empire. 11 On the issue of “discrepant experience” and the ways in which the Roman Empire had quite negative effects on local peoples, see Mattingly 2011, especially pp.  26–37. On the negative impact of colonial rule in modern times, see, for example, Newsinger 2006. 12 See the discussion throughout Revell 2016. Johnston (2017, 5), for example, admits that his evidence is, “heavily weighted toward expressions of identity by various members of the local elite.” One wonders then, if the general conclusion that there was “always a place” (Johnston 2017, 282) for local Gauls in the Roman Empire is really only applicable above all to a very restricted kind of Gaul (i.e. the elite). 13 See Revell 2016, 83–84 on the bias in the archaeology of the Roman provinces toward “elite” material culture. 14 See Geertz 1973. 15 Geertz 1973, 22. 16 A notable recent exception to this is the work of Louise Revell (2009; 2016) – see below in text – although the fact that she begins her analysis with the second century AD – well after the establishment of Roman rule – does not allow for a study of how the long and extended Roman conquest and “pacification” of western Europe was an integral part in the creation of local identities. 17 In this regard, Greg Woolf ’s work Becoming Roman (1998, 29–34) is one of the few studies that does attempt to make explicit this relationship between conquest and cultural transformations. This is much more lacking in the more recent discussion of Johnston (2017), where issues of violence and exploitation seem to be largely absent. There is likewise relatively little explicit discussion of power relations in Pitts and Versluys 2015. In fact, Versluys (2015, 10) seems to dismiss the need for its centrality in analyses of the Roman Empire. On revolts in the Roman Empire, see Dyson 1971. 18 E.g. Gardner 2013, 8. This certainly complicates attempts to fully apply theories of “globalization” to an understanding of the Roman Empire, at least for periods before, for example, the second century AD. Although see Graeber (2014, 127–129) for a discussion of the violence, often hidden but nevertheless implicit, in the maintenance of the contemporary globalized world. 19 This is simply, however, to point out comparatively how long a period this was, and I do not wish to imply a priori any inherent structural similarities between the different examples. 20 E.g. Appadurai 1986; 1990; 1996; Miller 1987; 1995. In particular in regard to the issue of agency and structure – especially the concepts of habitus and “structuration” – see Bourdieu 1980; 2000; Giddens 1984. 21 E.g. Baran 1957; Frank 1967; 1978; Rodney 1972; Wallerstein 1974. 22 The noted anthropologist David Graeber (2001, 26–30), for example, has argued that this rise in consumption studies ultimately occurred within the larger social milieu of the 1980s that

1. Introduction

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saw the concomitant demise of Marxist scholarship in academia, the decline in truly leftist politics, and the rise of neoliberalism. See also McGuire 2002. 23 E.g. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations 4.2. 24 Polanyi 1949, especially pp. 43–44, 59–60, 71–72. 25 Polanyi 1949, 171. 26 On the preeminence of Adam Smith and “Formalist” discussions of the “economizing man” in a great deal of modern social thought, see for example Graeber 2001; 2014. I would argue that an emphasis on “globalization” in the context of the Roman Empire – especially given the structural imbalances of power throughout the provinces – is at risk of doing this, and potentially “sanitizing” the power imbalances present in the empire in similar way to how a great deal of neoliberal thought has ignored the violence and exploitation implicit today in the contemporary globalized economy. 27 Graeber 2001, 33. 28 Revell 2009. See also in particular Revell 2007; 2016. 29 Revell 2009, 15. See also Revell 2016, 38–39. 30 Mattingly 2011, 32, 120. See also Mattingly 2011, 95–96 for his argument that many studies of colonialism have separated an understanding of agency from larger structure. 31 Gardner 2013, 6. See also Hingley 2015, 42: “We have tended to create versions of the Roman empire that integrate more fully into the way we wish the contemporary world to be … A post-colonial Roman empire often appears to be a place where all (or at least the vast majority) had some power to determine their own lives and live in active and creative ways.” 32 E.g. Webster and Cooper 1996; Mattingly 1997; 2011; Van Dommelen 1998; Webster 2001. More generally for the ancient Mediterranean, see Van Dommelen 2011; 2012. See Goff 2005 for the application of post-colonial theory to classics. See Gardner 2013, 3–6 for a helpful summary of some of the trends in these works. For a general overview of post-colonial theory more broadly, see for example Ashcroft et al. 2007. 33 For various perspectives on this argument, see, for example, Hurst and Owen 2005; Osborne 2008; Van Dommelen 2012; Gardner 2013. 34 On this divide, see, for example, Knapp and Van Dommelen 2010, 3; Van Dommelen 2012, 397; Gardner 2013, 9. See also the related discussion in Millet 2007, 30–31 concerning the divide between what he refers to as “classical archaeology” and the “archaeology of the classical world.” 35 E.g. Van Dommelen 1998; 2012; Vives-Ferrándiz 2008; Dietler and López-Ruiz 2009; Dietler 2010. David Mattingly (2011, 269–270) and Greg Woolf (1998, 26) have also both argued for the importance of a critical comparative approach to understanding the Roman Empire. See also a number of edited volumes on comparative colonialism that have included case studies from the ancient Mediterranean, for example Lyons and Papadopoulos 2002; Stein 2005; Cipolla and Hayes 2015. 36 E.g. Owen 2005; Terrenato 2005; Sommer 2012; Versluys 2015. In a recent work, A. Johnston (2017, 7) rejects a “post-colonial” reading of Roman Gaul – and in particular rejects the emphasis on finding resistance among the conquered Gallic peoples – although he offers no substantive explanation for this. 37 E.g. Terrenato 2005, 61, 65–66, 70; Osborne 2008; Versluys 2015, 9. 38 E.g. Stephen Greenblatt’s (2011) The Swerve: How the World Became Modern or Charles Freeman’s (2003) The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and Fall of Reason, or really anything dealing with the burning of the Library of Alexandria. 39 E.g. Owen 2005, 5; Terrenato 2005, 66; Versluys 2015, 6. See also Gardner 2013, 8 for a discussion of important structural differences between the Roman Empire and the modern world. In a recent article, Miguel John Versluys (2015, 9) has gone so far as to suggest that scholars should discard the terms “colonialism” and “imperialism” altogether, advocating instead the value of

18

Continuity and Rupture in Roman Mediterranean Gaul

the term “globalization.” There is of course, a distinct irony in advocating the complete rejection of one set of terms linked to the modern world only to replace it with a term (globalization) equally rooted in modern discourse. 40 E.g. Sommer 2012, 238; Versluys 2015, 3–5, 9. Although Jane Webster (1996a, 6) was quite clear from the beginning that post-colonialism was not meant to be simply “anti-colonial.” 41 E.g. Shanks and Tilley 1987; 1992; Hodder 1995; 1998; Johnson 1999. 42 See especially Hodder 1995, 21, 191. See also Hingley 2015, 35–36. Geertz (1973, 15) also famously states that, “In short, anthropological writings are themselves interpretations, and second and third order ones to boot. (By definition, only a ‘native’ makes first order ones: it’s his culture.).” 43 Hingley 2015, 33. Italics are my own. 44 E.g. Hingley 2000; Dietler 2010, 28–43. 45 See the brief opening remarks, for example, in Mattingly 2006, 3. On the idea of “neo-colonialism,” see, for example, Nkrumah 1966; Birmingham 1995, 25–38. 46 Mattingly 2006, 3. For a critique of his use of the term and his more general project, see for Beard 2006; example De la Bédoyère 2006; Selkirk 2006; Versluys 2015, 8. 47 E.g. Beard 2006, 55; Versluys 2015, 9. 48 A major difference between the archaeology of the Americas and the Roman Empire is in the continuing presence of indigenous peoples who suffered directly from conquest and colonization. One wonders if the growing field of indigenous and decolonized archaeology (see for example Bruchac 2013) in the Americas has certain insights that might be useful for future directions in Roman archaeology. 49 This is certainly a key premise of David Mattingly’s work, see, for example Mattingly 2006; 2011. Furthermore, can one really be “neutral” from a moral perspective, for example, in regard to the Roman biographer Plutarch’s (Life of Caesar 14) statement that Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul between 58–51 BC resulted in one million dead Gauls and another one million enslaved? While Plutarch may in fact significantly overestimate the actually number of dead – Velleius Paterculus (2.47.1), for example, suggests 400,000 dead – it is unclear whether “talking down” the numbers (“well it was only 400,000 …”) makes any difference. 50 E.g. Fanon 1952; 1961; Memmi 1985 ; Césaire 2004. 51 See Mattingly 2011, 26–29 on the lack of surviving subaltern voices for the most part from the ancient Mediterranean world. 52 Webster 1996a, 9. 53 Horning 2015, 235. 54 Webster 1996a, 4–9. See also Van Dommelen 2012, 50. 55 Van Dommelen 2012, 397. The italics are my own. 56 See again Mattingly (2011, 269–270) and Woolf (1998, 26) on the value and importance of a critical comparative approach to Roman colonialism. 57 To be clear, I certainly do see an important space for analyses that take a “globalization” perspective (see for example Pitts and Versluys 2015), in particular for the Roman Empire at its height in the late first century AD and the second century AD, when the pacification of the provinces was no longer an important issue for Roman rule. 58 Certainly, the varying motivations for these conquests were quite different, as were the ways in which the conquerors sought to incorporate local peoples into colonial rule. 59 Horning 2015, 235. This also seems to be a major point of Mattingly 2011. 60 For various definitions of colonialism, see, for example, Said 1993, 9; Webster 1996a, 5–6; Osterhammel 1997, 16–17; Rowlands 1998, 328; Lyons and Papadopoulos 2002, 11–12; Gosden 2004, 1–5; Mattingly 2006, 23; 2011, 6–7; Ashcroft et al. 2007, 40–44; Dietler 2010, 15–19; Van Dommelen 2012, 398. Woolf (1998, 26) prefers to use the term “imperialism,” which in his usage of the term overlaps significantly with the definition of “colonialism” given here.

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61 Van Dommelen 2012, 398. Despite Robin Osborne’s (2008) strong objections to the use of this definition when examining earlier Greek settlements in the ancient Mediterranean, seemingly by his own admission, this definition does apply to the Roman Empire (Osborne 2008, 281). 62 E.g. Hingley 2015, 42. 63 E.g. Thompson 1989; Gruen 2011. 64 Terrenato 2005, 66. 65 See Woolf 1998, 54–60. 66 Strabo, Geography 4.1.12. 67 See, for example, the differing opinions in Isaac 2006 and Gruen 2011. 68 In many ways, I suggest that this sets Roman rule in Mediterranean Gaul – and really anywhere else in western Europe – apart from the earlier period of Roman colonization of the Italian peninsula south of the Apennines that Terrenato (2005) focuses on in his critique of the use of “colonialism.” In regard to early Roman expansion in Italy (as opposed to outside the Italian peninsula) there was in fact a great deal more socio-cultural – and even linguistic – affinities between the Romans and other conquered Italic peoples. 69 For a reconstruction of this lost work of Poseidonios, see Tierney 1960. 70 See Gruen 2011, 146–147. 71 See, for example, Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars. 72 See, however, Chapter 2 for certain nuances in regard to the question of when exactly Roman rule was established in the region, as well as the meaning of the term “province” in this context. 73 Bernissan 2012. As of 2018, UNESCO considers Languedocien, the specific dialect of Occitan spoken in the region of Languedoc to be a “severely endangered language.” (See UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, Moseley 2010). 74 Pomponius Mela, De Chorographia 2.5.80; Py 2009, 5. 75 Arnal et al. 1974. 76 Under the overall direction of Gaël Piquès, with the Centre national de la recherche scientifique. For the author’s specific work on the project, see the preliminary reports Luley 2018b; 2019.

Chapter 2 “They Make a Desolation and Call it Peace” Roman Rule in Mediterranean Gaul

Since its foundation around 500 BC, Greeks, Etruscans, and other merchants from distant lands all came to Lattara to trade their wares, and the countless ceramic sherds of amphorae – large storage jars for transporting wine – attest to these connections (Fig. 2.1). Although the Greek colony of Massalia (the modern French city of Marseille), established around 600 BC some 160 km to the east of Lattara along the rocky shores of Provence, did not always have an entirely peaceful relationship with the neighboring native peoples, neither could these Massaliote Greeks impose any kind of real control over the hinterlands of the region.1 By contrast, the invasions of the Roman legions into Mediterranean Gaul by the end of the second century BC brought about a fundamentally new era in the history of cross-cultural exchange at Lattara and elsewhere in the surrounding lands. In the previous chapter, I suggested that at a broad, comparative level, colonialism involves asymmetrical relationships of power between a local people and a foreign state – with foreign colonists often settling in this subjugated territory. In this chapter, we will see how Roman rule in Mediterranean Gaul was based upon the violent conquest of the region, and furthermore that the “pacification” of the province was only complete a half century or so after the initial conquest, as multiple rebellions against Roman rule broke out amongst various local peoples. In addition, Roman rule also involved the imposition of taxes and grain levies, forced conscriptions into the Roman army, and land confiscations and redistributions – all of which likely impacted local communities such as Lattara to varying degrees in quite negative ways. After a brief review of a few key terms and the history of Lattara before the Roman conquest, this chapter details this colonial history of Roman rule at Lattara and elsewhere in Mediterranean Gaul from the late second century BC to the end of the first century BC.

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Continuity and Rupture in Roman Mediterranean Gaul

Fig. 2.1: Etruscan (left), Massaliote (middle), and Italic amphorae (right) used for transporting wine (drawing: author).

The Peoples of Ancient Mediterranean Gaul Well before the emergence of Rome as the dominant power in the ancient Mediterranean world, Greek sailors and traders exploring the far western reaches of the Mediterranean encountered peoples whom they would come to refer to as Keltoí.2 Unfortunately, nothing survives today that could tell us definitively what these indigenous peoples living in what is today Mediterranean France may have called themselves. By the time of the Roman conquest, the Greeks had come to refer to all this land as part of Keltiké, the land of the Keltoí (the Celts). To the Romans, this territory was part of Gallia, the habitation of the Galli (Gauls). The Latin term Galli (singular Gallus) likely derived from the Greek word Galátes, which the Greeks also used occasionally to refer to the Keltoí. Whether Keltoí is a Greek term, or whether it is ultimately an indigenous word used by the peoples of western Europe themselves, is still unclear. However, it appears that the alternate term Galátes (plural Galátai), and by extension Galli in Latin, comes from a Celtic word meaning “boldness” or “ferocity,” and ultimately “foreigner.”3 Indeed, the modern Irish word for “foreigner” is still gall. In addition, a large corpus of stone inscriptions

2. “They Make a Desolation and Call it Peace”

23

and graffiti on ceramic sherds found concentrated on both sides of the lower basin of the Rhône River, dating to between the third and first centuries BC, indicate that the peoples of the region were speaking a language or series of languages that modern scholars have referred to as Celtic, drawing upon the terms used by ancient authors.4 These inscriptions were written using the Greek alphabet, borrowed from Massaliote merchants, and are thus usually referred to by scholars as Gallo-Greek inscriptions.5 Their presence in eastern Languedoc and western Provence in the Late Iron Age clearly demonstrates the affinity between the language or languages spoken before the Roman conquest in the region, including the settlement of Lattara, and modern Insular Celtic languages such as Irish, Welsh, or Breton. Farther to the west, beyond the Hérault River in today’s western Languedoc, the evidence from inscriptions and ancient texts attests to the presence of Iberian peoples, speaking a non-Indo-European language and using a form of writing adopted from the Phoenician alphabet.6 To the east, ancient authors also referred to peoples known as Ligurians in the more eastern parts of Provence, who apparently also spoke a non-Indo-European language.7 There is at least some reason to believe that the ethnic term Keltoí was originally an indigenous term, specifically applying to at least some of the ancient peoples of Mediterranean Gaul. Diodorus Siculus, likely drawing upon the earlier work of a Greek writer and traveler named Poseidonios (who, as mentioned in the previous chapter, had visited Mediterranean Gaul at the beginning of the first century BC) writes: It is useful to make a distinction that is overlooked by many. For those who inhabit the lands in the interior beyond Massalia, and those along the Alps, and even those on this side of the Pyrenees Mountains they name Celts (Κελτοί), while those established beyond Celtica in regions stretching to the north, both along the ocean and the Hercynian Mountain, as well as all those in turn as far as Scythia, they call Galatai (Γαλάται). The Romans, however, include all these people together under one name, calling them all Galatai.8

The geographic limits of the Celtica mentioned by Diodorus Siculus seem to conform to the modern extent of Mediterranean France, and the implication is that between the Pyrenees and the Alps the region was inhabited by people whom the Greeks at least called Keltoí. The region farther to the north in temperate Europe, between the Atlantic and western Germany, according to Diodorus, was in turn inhabited by Galátai. Elsewhere, the Greek geographer Strabo, also drawing upon the earlier writings of Poseidonios, echoes this point when he writes, “These things we thus relate concerning those who occupy the province of Narbonensis, whom they used to name Celtae (Κέλται) in former times. And it was, I think, from these people that all the Galatai (Γαλάται) as a whole were called Celts (Κελτοί) by the Greeks.”9 Unfortunately, neither Diodorus nor Strabo specify whether these peoples actually called themselves something like “Keltoí,” or whether the name originally came from the Greeks. A small detail, however, in the writings of Julius Caesar seems to suggest the former as a likely possibility – i.e. that the peoples of Mediterranean Gaul, and perhaps elsewhere in Gaul, called themselves “Celts” in their own language. This

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Continuity and Rupture in Roman Mediterranean Gaul

reference by Caesar comes from his Gallic Wars, describing his conquest of temperate Gaul between 58 and 51 BC. In the opening lines of this work, familiar to generations of beginning Latin students, he famously writes, “The whole of Gaul (Gallia) is divided into three parts, of which one part is inhabited by the Belgae, another by the Aquitani, and a third by a people who in our language are called Gauls (Galli), and who in their own language (qui ipsorum linguā) are called Celts (Celtae).”10 Unfortunately, however, it is unclear in Caesar whether all the peoples whom he names as Gauls thought of themselves as “Celts,” or if this was an ethnonym only for some. Returning to the remark by Diodorus that the peoples beyond Mediterranean Gaul were known as Galátai, one wonders if this distinction between “Celts” and “Gauls” was made first by the Mediterranean Celts themselves, who had been in earlier and closer contact with Greek merchants arriving on the shores of the Mediterranean. The peoples of Mediterranean Gaul – referring to themselves perhaps generally as something like “Keltoí” – when speaking with these Greek merchants may have in turn referred to their neighbors beyond the rugged Cévennes using a Celtic word signifying “warrior” or “foreigner,” from which the Greeks thus obtained the term Galátai. In any case, given the unfortunate lack of explicit indigenous references attesting to what the native peoples of ancient Mediterranean France would have called themselves, and following the linguistic evidence as well as the testimony of Diodorus and Caesar, I have elected to refer to the peoples of the region as “Celts.” Since this book deals with the period of Roman rule, during which Romans referred to the region as Gallia (Gaul), I have, however, elected to use this term to signal ancient France, rather than the much less commonly recognized term Celtica. At the same time, it is also important to note that despite the linguistic affinity and certain cultural or religious practices linking the Celtic peoples of Mediterranean Gaul with the rest of western Europe, the past four decades of extensive archaeological work throughout Europe have made clear the notable diversity in cultural practices and social organization across the continent during the Iron Age, including Mediterranean Gaul, which clearly possessed its own distinct material culture and history.11 Furthermore, it should be noted that in Francophone scholarship, most archaeologists prefer the term Gaulois (Gauls) rather than Celtes (Celts), privileging Latin writers such as Caesar who used the term Galli – a tendency going back to Napoleon III’s fascination in the nineteenth century with the text of the Gallic Wars.12 Lastly, it is worth noting that within English literature on the subject, especially in Great Britain, the term “Celt” has not always been without its share of controversy. Indeed, in the past several decades there has been a vocal movement of “Celtoscepticism” among many archaeologists, especially those trained in Great Britain, calling for the complete abandonment of the term “Celt” altogether, at least for the ancient peoples of the Atlantic Isles (i.e. Ireland and Britain).13 However, the recent notable exhibition at the British Museum in 2015 entitled The Celts: Art and Identity seems to perhaps reflect a shift in thinking toward a more balanced and nuanced use of the term “Celt,” rather than its complete rejection.14 Furthermore, it is also worth noting that the debate about the validity of the

2. “They Make a Desolation and Call it Peace”

25

term “Celt” or “Celtic” is not altogether unrelated to the larger issues of colonialism discussed in this book.15

Mediterranean Gaul Before the Roman Conquest Today, most archaeologists working in pre-Roman Mediterranean France have come to a consensus that the Celtic speakers inhabiting the region at the time of the Roman conquest had dwelt there since as early as the Bronze Age (ca. 2200–750 BC).16 The Iron Age (750–125 BC) was characterized by two important developments that set this period apart from the earlier Bronze Age. The first was the development of increasingly intensive contacts with other Mediterranean peoples, centering on the importation of wine into the region – an entanglement that would eventually culminate in the Roman conquest some five centuries later. The second was the emergence of densely settled, fortified settlements beginning in the sixth century BC, which archaeologists often refer to by the Latin name oppida (singular oppidum). In regard to the former development, beginning around 625 BC, Etruscan merchants from central Italy began to trade extensively with the Celtic settlements in the lower Rhône basin.17 Subsequently, around 600 BC, Greek colonists from the city of Phocaea in Asia Minor founded the colony of Massalia (modern Marseille).18 A generation later, around 580 BC, the same Phocaean colonists founded the colony of Emporion (today’s Empúries) in what is today Catalunya (Catalonia). By the end of the sixth century BC, wine amphorae produced at Massalia began to replace Etruscan amphorae in popularity at the native Celtic settlements of the region, something that archaeologists have interpreted as evidence for the end of Etruscan influence in the region and the corresponding growth in influence of these Massaliote Greeks.19 Although the question of merchants and ethnic identity in the ancient world is certainly a complicated one – and likely far different from, for example, the mercantilism of eighteenth-century Europe – it is certainly true that for the fifth through third centuries BC, the vast majority of foreign objects imported into the region were Greek, and generally of Massaliote origin.20 What the local peoples traded in exchange for goods from these Greek merchants is unclear, although the ancient Greek geographer Strabo records that the rocky territory around Massalia was unsuited to growing cereal grains, with the Massaliotes instead focusing on growing vines and olive trees and relying instead on trade to supply the city with the necessary grains.21 It is quite possible, then, that local peoples at sites like Lattara were exchanging agricultural produce, especially cereal grains, for Greek imported wine. Later still, Massalia founded a number of military outposts and trading enclaves all along the coast in order to protect its commercial interests. In regard to the second development occurring during the Iron Age, at the very beginning of the sixth century BC, new fortified settlements began to emerge throughout the region (Fig. 2.2). These oppida were generally located near the mouths of important rivers, facilitating trade with Etruscan and Greek merchants, or on easily

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Fig. 2.2: Map of Late Iron Age and early Roman Mediterranean Gaul (map: author).

defended hilltops. Archaeologists generally use the Latin term oppidum (plural oppida) found in texts by Roman authors like Julius Caesar to describe these settlements. Based upon evidence from linguistics and ancient places names found throughout Europe, indigenous peoples may have used the Celtic word dunon, ultimately related to the modern Irish word dún (fort), to describe these settlements, at least those on hilltops.22 Although earlier settlements from the Late Bronze Age IIIb (900–750 BC) had existed on strategic hilltops, often occupying the same site of the later Iron Age oppida, these new oppida were now most notably characterized by the presence of imposing systems of ramparts and towers, built of stone and mudbrick, which were almost certainly inspired by Phoenician, Etruscan, and Greek fortifications.23 Originally, the houses of these settlements were built like those of the earlier Late Bronze Age IIIb, with wooden walls and thatched roofs scattered throughout the site. By the end of the fifth century BC, however, the occupants of these oppida had begun to replace the traditional wooden houses with square houses built with stone foundations and mudbrick walls. This house form, in which the stone and mudbrick houses of one to three rooms were grouped together into long blocks, remained the dominant architectural style in Mediterranean Gaul until the end of the first century BC.24 The settlement of ancient Lattara, (within the modern town of Lattes), is typical of these two developments transpiring in Iron Age Mediterranean Gaul.25 The earliest evidence to date for the occupation at Lattara dates to around 500 BC, or just prior to this, when a formidable fortification wall of stone and mudbrick – along with at least

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one supporting tower – was constructed, enclosing an area of approximately 3.5 hectares.26 Archaeologists have also found from this same time period a series of large storerooms near the port area of the settlement, full of Etruscan wine amphorae and communal ceramics, with the latter sometimes having Etruscan characters inscribed on the bottom.27 Interestingly, some of the amphorae contained cereal grains, perhaps suggesting that the Etruscan merchants were shipping grain back to Etruria.28 Thus, the original settlement at Lattara appears to have developed within the context of trade between the local peoples and Etruscan merchants, and archaeologists have postulated that Lattara may have been the site of an actual trading settlement or center established by Etruscan merchants.29 Furthermore, an indigenous fortified settlement at the site of La Cougourlude several kilometers to the north of Lattara had already been in existence for over a century when Lattara was founded ca. 500 BC.30 The earliest period of occupation at Lattara came to an abrupt end around 475 BC, when the storage rooms were destroyed in a large conflagration. At the same time, at least parts of the fortification wall were likewise pulled down, suggesting that some outside group had violently seized the site and had at least partially destroyed the settlement.31 Interestingly, the indigenous settlement at La Cougourlude appears to have been definitively abandoned precisely around the same time, and one wonders about the possible relationship between these two events. After this seemingly violent destruction of the site, the ramparts at Lattara were rebuilt, following the original outline of the earlier ones, and the interior of the settlement was occupied by post-built houses of wood and wattle and daub identical to those from the earlier settlement at La Cougourlude. At the same time, the number of Etruscan ceramics at the site dropped significantly, to be replaced by an increasing number of imported amphorae and tableware ceramics from the Greek colony at Massalia.32 By the end of the fifth century BC, stone and mudbrick architecture began to replace the earlier wooden houses, and a definite urban plan was emerging for the settlement within the fortification walls, characterized by long rows of stone and mudbrick houses separated by narrow streets.33 Three main streets, each one running parallel to the fortification walls of the settlement, provided the main circulation routes, with numerous smaller streets and passages further dividing the blocks of houses. Over the course of the next two centuries, the settlement at Lattara expanded beyond the limits of the original settlement as defined by the fortification walls, particularly to the north. In addition, around 200 BC, the area to the south of the fortification walls, which originally had been part of the lagoon but which was slowly silting up, was transformed into a port for arriving vessels.34 The settlement seems to have reached its maximum size in the course of the second century BC, with the overall settlement now likely encompassing ca. 11–12 hectares, with a population of at least several thousand people (Fig. 2.3).35 Unfortunately, most of our knowledge of this extramural part of the settlement comes from more limited exploratory excavation trenches conducted by the GAP in the 1970s, since this area today has been built over by modern housing developments. A similar expansion in

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Fig. 2.3: Reconstruction of ancient Lattara, as it likely would have looked in the late third century BC (drawing: author).

the size of indigenous oppida occurred at other sites in the region, such as at Anagia (the Castels at Nages-et-Solorgues), or Entremont (near Aix-en-Provence). In these two cases, where a great deal is known about the expansion of the settlements, it seems that these settlements expanded due to a growing population.36 As evident at Lattara and other indigenous settlements in the region, throughout the entire Iron Age, by far the most important of the imported commodities, whether of Etruscan or Greek origin, was wine, shipped in ceramic amphorae, along with ceramic drinking vessels.37 Other cultural influences, such as the use of the Greek alphabet for writing or the use of coins inspired by Greek models, appeared quite late in Iron Age Celtic society of Mediterranean France, while other elements of Greek culture, such as religious beliefs and practices, civic and public institutions, and Greek culinary traditions were apparently never widely adopted by the Celtic peoples.38 Instead, the relationships between the native Celtic inhabitants of the region and the Etruscans and Greeks was largely structured by the wine trade, with foreign wine and drinking cups incorporated into existing indigenous social and political traditions and practices.39 As we shall see throughout this work, in this way, later Roman colonialism – especially in terms of its wide-ranging impact upon local material culture – differed significantly from earlier forms of cultural and commercial interaction and exchange in pre-Roman, Iron Age Mediterranean Gaul. Although the political structure of local societies during the Late Iron Age will be discussed more fully in Chapter 7, here it is worth noting that there is little

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evidence for any kind of major political centralization that would have linked Lattara with other settlements in the region in a hierarchical manner during the Iron Age. Instead, it appears that ethnic ties may have linked together individual oppida into a number of very loose confederacies of people, but that each individual oppidum nevertheless remained largely politically autonomous.40 Although very early on some scholars speculated that Lattara may have served as the port for the oppidum further up-river at Sextantio (today’s Castelnau-le-Lez), today there is a consensus among archaeologists working at the site that Lattara was largely politically autonomous, and was certainly not under any kind of external political domination during the Iron Age.41 Furthermore, it is even unclear if the ethnic and political groups that ancient Greek and Roman authors described for Roman Mediterranean Gaul were ever fully present during the Iron Age. In fact, there are very few specific references by ancient authors writing before the Roman conquest to any specific ethnic or political groups in eastern Languedoc for the Iron Age. The famous Greek author Polybius, who wrote an extensive history of Rome sometime in the second half of the second century BC, before the Roman conquest of Mediterranean Gaul, mentions the peoples of eastern Languedoc while discussing the march of the Carthaginian army under Hannibal across Mediterranean Gaul on its way to invade Italy in 218 BC.42 Polybius, however, simply uses the general term Galátai to describe the peoples whom Hannibal encountered along the lower Rhône River, rather than any specific political group or polity.43 Indeed, the ethnonyms of various indigenous peoples in Gaul recorded by later authors, such as Livy – writing well after the Roman conquest of 125–121 BC – are strikingly absent in Polybius. The Roman politician Cato the Elder, writing in the middle of the second century BC, does allude to a group of people known as the Cenomani, living near Massalia in the territory of the Volcae.44 The term Volcae would later be used to refer specifically to the peoples of the region around Lattara, but here it seems to be a general term for the Celtic peoples of Mediterranean Gaul, perhaps more or less synonymous with the general term Keltoí or Galátai. Indeed, etymologically the term may simply derive from a general Indo-European word for “peoples,” related to the modern German word Volk.45 It is only after the Roman conquest of 125–121 BC that ancient Greco-Roman authors mention more specific names of individual peoples inhabiting Mediterranean Gaul. Specifically in regard to the region of what is today eastern Languedoc, GrecoRoman writers refer to a people known as the Volcae Arecomici, with the settlement of Lattara apparently falling within their territory.46 The earliest definitive evidence for the name Volcae Arecomici comes from a series of coins, bearing the legend VOLC or VOLC AREC that were minted at Nemausus (modern Nîmes to the north of Lattara) between 75–60 BC.47 Interestingly, originally, the earliest coins minted at Nemausus, which first appeared at the end of the second century BC, only bore the name of the settlement (NAMAΣAT or NEMAY), without any reference to the Volcae, which again casts doubt on the theory that a strong indigenous political confederacy of Volcae Arecomici existed prior to the Roman conquest.48 The earliest textual reference to

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the Volcae Arecomici comes from Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars, which was written in its final form around 49 BC.49 However, the degree to which the Volcae Arecomici existed as a clearly defined people before the Roman conquest, or whether they were in fact created by the Roman state as administrative units to facilitate colonial rule, is still a matter of debate.50 In any case, the Greek author Pomponius Mela, when mentioning the castellum Latara also referred to the stagna Volcarum (the lagoons of the Volcae) – almost certainly a reference to today’s Étang du Méjean – providing important evidence that at least by the time of the Roman conquest the settlement of Lattara was considered to be within the territory of the Volcae Arecomici.51

The Roman Conquest Toward the end of the Iron Age, the societies of Iron Age Mediterranean France were coming into increasingly close contact with the peoples of the Italian peninsula. By the third century BC, for example, wine amphorae from the Italian peninsula began to overtake Massaliote amphorae in numbers at Lattara and elsewhere, and black gloss ceramic plates and bowls, mainly from the region of Campania in central Italy, became the dominant fine ware vessel imported into the region, although Massaliote merchants still likely remained important for facilitating these commercial exchanges.52 Additionally, the upheaval associated with Hannibal’s passage across Mediterranean Gaul during the Second Punic War (218–201 BC) between Rome and Carthage appears to have notably affected the region. In particular, a number of settlements seem to have been violently destroyed right around 200 BC. These settlements appear to be concentrated in western Languedoc, as evident at sites like Pech Maho, and in western Provence, around Massalia, at sites like Roquepertuse, which was destroyed twice during this time period.53 These episodes of violence and destruction seemingly were linked somehow to either the passage of Hannibal and his army, or to later punitive expeditions by Rome against the local peoples who may have helped Hannibal in his passage across the region. This latter possibility seems more likely, given the apparent general non-resistance by the peoples of Mediterranean Gaul to the passage of Hannibal, although unfortunately nothing is recorded in any surviving ancient sources.54 However, slightly later in time, ancient sources do record Roman campaigns against a people called the Ingauni (in today’s eastern Provence) in 181 BC, and against the Oxybiens and Deciates (also in eastern Provence), who were attacking the Massaliote outposts of Nikaia and Antipolis, in 154 BC.55 Here, Rome seems to have been concerned with protecting its ally Massalia and keeping the roads open from Italy to the Greek colony and then onward into Spain, following the old road known as the “Heraklean Way.” Further Roman intervention occurred in 125 BC when, at the behest of Massalia, the Roman Senate launched a campaign farther to the west, deeper into the heart of Mediterranean Gaul. In that year, the consul Marcus Fulvius Flaccus attacked the Salluvii/Salyes, who, according to ancient sources, were menacing

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Massalia.56 The following year, the consul Gaius Sextius Calvinus again led a second campaign against the Salluvii, seizing by force the ‘city of the Gauls’, which archaeologists have traditionally identified with the oppidum at Entremont (near modern Aix-en-Provence).57 Diodorus Siculus records that the surviving inhabitants of the settlement were sold into slavery, with the exception of 900 fortunate ones, who had been loyal to Rome and were thus spared.58 In 123 BC, Sextius Calvinus, remaining with the legions in Mediterranean Gaul as proconsul, again defeated the Salluvii and established a permanent garrison for his troops near the partially ruined oppidum of Entremont, at a site he dubbed Aquae Sextiae (modern Aix-en-Provence).59 Upon defeat, the Salluvian leader (rex) Toutomotulus fled to the neighboring Allobroges, farther to the north along the banks of the middle Rhône.60 Archaeological evidence attests to the violent end suffered by many settlements around Massalia in western Provence during this time period. Archaeologists have unearthed significant destruction layers dating to approximately 130–120 BC at a number of archaeological sites, including major settlements such as Saint-Blaise and Entremont, all likely related to these Roman campaigns against the Salluvii.61 In many of these cases, archaeologists have found catapult balls and bolts associated with these destruction layers, almost certainly shot from Roman siege engines against the inhabitants of the settlements.62 Citing the fact that the Allobroges refused to hand over the Salluvian leader Toutomotulus, who had escaped the slaughter, combined with the aggression of the Allobroges against the Aedui, traditionally a staunch ally of Rome situated in modern Burgundy, Rome continued its invasion of Mediterranean Gaul with further campaigns ever farther into the interior. In 122 BC, the consul Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus marched against the Allobroges, and along the way apparently met with the ambassador from King Bituitos of the powerful Arverni, located farther to the north in today’s Auvergne of the Massif Central region.63 Whatever negotiations that took place between the Roman consul and the Arvernian ambassador were apparently unsuccessful, because the following year in 121 BC, the Arverni aligned themselves with the Allobroges against Rome. At the conflux of the Rhône and Sulgas rivers, at a place called Vindalum (apparently somewhere in western Provence), the Roman legions under Domitius Ahenobarbus, now a proconsul having served his one-year term as consul, defeated the Allobroges.64 Around the same time, another Roman army under the current consul Quintus Fabius Maximus won a major victory against the Arverni and Allobroges at the convergence of the Rhône and Isar rivers (farther to the north near modern Valence). The ancient historians record that an army of 30,000 Roman legionnaires and auxiliaries managed to defeat 200,000 Arverni and Allobroges, losing only 15 soldiers in the process.65 Florus claims that the Roman victory was so complete because of the use of elephants by the Roman army, whose size sparked panic among the Gallic warriors.66 Elephants or not, the Roman victory at the Isar was apparently a resounding one, since no text records any subsequent campaigns in Mediterranean Gaul for the next two decades. The defeated King Bituitos of the Arverni prepared to surrender to the victorious consul Quintus Fabius Maximus.

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However, the proconsul Domitius Ahenobarbus, apparently jealous of Fabius’ success, lured Bituitos into a parley, where he was treacherously seized along with his son Congonnetiacus and sent to Rome as a prisoner.67 Much of the violence by the Roman state described here seems to have been concentrated first against the Salluvii of western Provence, who represented an immediate threat to Rome’s ally Massalia, and then toward more powerful groups of people farther to the north, namely the Allobroges and the Arverni. It is interesting to note that at least at this point in time Rome does not appear to have focused its attention on conquering or subduing eastern Languedoc, instead concentrating on more powerful or more politically centralized groups of people. The fact that Roman historians mention the names of specific leaders for the Salluvii and Arverni in particular, referring to them as “kings” (reges), again suggests that the peoples of eastern Languedoc at the time of the conquest were seemingly far less politically centralized, and thus were less of an immediate target for Rome.68 Whether Lattara and the territory making up today’s eastern Languedoc were significantly affected by this initial conquest is somewhat unclear, although the region’s hostility to Rome is evident in the later revolt in ca. 74 BC.

Roman Colonial Rule in Mediterranean Gaul Following these defeats of the native Celtic peoples between 125 and 121 BC, the Roman state then proceeded to incorporate the conquered region of Mediterranean Gaul into the Roman province of Gallia Transalpina, meaning literally “Gaul on the other side of the Alps” (there was already a province of Gallia Cisalpina in northern Italy). In 118 BC, the Roman Senate, after a period of intense debate, decreed that a colony should be established just down-river from the site of the native oppidum of Naro (today the archaeological site of Montlaurès), naming the new colony Colonia Narbo Martius, after Mars, the Roman god of war.69 Unlike later colonies, the original colony at Narbo Martius was a citizen colony, settled by Roman civilians rather than military veterans. In fact, the colony seems to have been envisioned in a large part as a way to alleviate social pressures in Italy by providing land and a livelihood to poorer Roman citizens. Around the same time as the founding of Narbo Martius, the proconsul Domitius Ahenobarbus likely constructed the Via Domitia, an important road which ran parallel with the coast along Mediterranean Gaul, connecting Spain and Italy, and following the earlier Heraklean Way. Some scholars have suggested, however, that at least the westernmost parts of Mediterranean Gaul (the region of western Languedoc especially), may have already been, at least nominally, part of the province of Hispania Citerior (in the Iberian peninsula) since its creation at the end of the Second Punic War in 197 BC.70 This would certainly explain why Rome does not appear to have particularly targeted the region of Languedoc at all during the campaigns of 125–121 BC, and would also explain the destruction evident at several important settlements from western Languedoc dating to around 200 BC. Furthermore, Polybius mentions the Romans as having measured

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the distance between New Carthage in Hispania Citerior (modern Cartagena in Spain) to the Rhône, placing milestones every eight stadia.71 Polybius died right around the time of the Roman conquest, and depending upon when he wrote Book 3, the passage possibly suggests that the Romans had already begun to establish at least partial control over the region of Languedoc before the conquest of 125–121 BC, laying out the important road that would later be known as the Via Domitia.72 In any case, it is important to note that during this period, the term provincia did not have the same connotation of a concrete territorial unit with fixed boundaries, as it would in later times, or as implied by the modern term “province.” Instead, in the late republican period, provincia above all designated the sphere outside of Italy within which a Roman official held imperium.73 Imperium, from whence we get the modern word “empire,” likewise originally referred to the capacity of a Roman official to wield coercive, military force, including the right to command soldiers and execute criminals.74 An official possessing imperium was known as an imperator (hence the modern term “emperor”), and the later Roman emperors were officially recognized by the Senate as holding maius (greater) imperium than anyone else. The military official (imperator) appointed by the Senate in Rome to oversee military operations in a conquered territory was thus what we would think of as a “governor,” but without any real distinction made between military and civilian rule. These governors served for several years in the province after having already served in a public office in Rome, and were either known as a propraetor, if the year before he had been a praetor, or a proconsul, if previously a consul. Thus, Cicero refers to Gaius Valerius Flaccus, the “governor” of Gallia Transalpina in 83 BC, as imperator.75 Elsewhere, he, notes that Lucius Licinius Murena, who was propraetor of Gallia Transalpina in 64–63 BC, ruled the province summo cum imperio (with the highest military authority).76 The first century BC was a time of political turmoil and war not just in the newly conquered province of Mediterranean Gaul, but within the actual Roman Republic as well. This turmoil included the Social War between Rome and her allies in 91–88 BC, the civil war between Sulla and Marius culminating in Sulla being declared dictator in 82 BC, the uprising of Sertorius, the governor of Spain, between 80–73 BC, and the major slave revolt by Spartacus between 73–71 BC. Further civil wars then erupted in the 40s and 30s BC involving the “First” and Second Triumvirates. Although relatively few ancient histories and other sources survive from the second century BC – especially compared with later centuries – there are a few details in the surviving accounts that hint at a level of devastation and violence wrought by the Roman armies upon the local populations living in Mediterranean Gaul. As we saw above, for example, the Greek geographer Strabo states that the Roman army “cut down” (katekopse) 200,000 Celts in a single battle.77 While it is difficult to estimate what percentage of the local population this represents – and whether it is even an accurate figure – it is nevertheless likely that few families in the communities who sent out their warriors would have been spared. Likewise, we see in Diodorus Siculus’ account of the taking of the “city of the Gauls” – presumably Entremont – that only a small proportion of the population who

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survived the initial slaughter by the Romans were spared from being enslaved. Later, writing in regard to the conquest of Gaul in 58–51 BC, Julius Caesar gives some insight into the potential level of destruction that could be wrought by the Roman armies, although it should be remembered that he quite likely exaggerated the numbers of casualties to magnify the extent of his victories. In the case of his major victory against the Helvetii in 58 BC, Caesar claims that the written records that he captured from the Helvetii after the battle indicated that the population of the Helvetii was around 368,000 people total before the battle. Caesar then claims that only 110,000 (or less than a third of the population) escaped the battle, with the remaining either killed or enslaved.78 Later, the Roman biographer Plutarch would claim that during the course of Caesar’s conquest of temperate Gaul, the Roman legions killed one million Celts and sold another million into slavery, although Velleius Paterculus puts the figure at 400,000 killed, with an unspecified greater number of Gauls enslaved.79 Estimates of the actual population of Gaul for the time vary, but if these numbers are accurate on the part of Plutarch, likely between a quarter and a third of the native population had been ripped from their families and loved ones in the decade of warfare in the 50s BC.80 Writing later about the wars in Britain, the Roman historian Tacitus claims that a certain war leader of the Britons, Calgacus, rallied his warriors against the Roman army by reminding his men that the Romans were, “Robbers of the world … To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname imperial rule: they make a desolation and call it peace.”81 While Tacitus cannot possibly have known what a relatively unknown British chieftain beyond Hadrian’s Wall may have actually spoken to encourage his men, the words do perhaps betray a certain unease that Tacitus himself may have felt in regard to imperial conquest and his own impression of what the Roman armies left behind in their wake. There is thus certainly reason to suspect that the earlier conquest of Mediterranean Gaul between 125 and 121 BC, especially in the area of western Provence, was likely as equally devastating to local communities as it was in later wars in temperate Gaul. One interesting piece of archaeological evidence that may attest to the widespread violence in eastern Languedoc between the initial conquest and the revolt of the Volcae is the marked increase between ca. 125 and 50 BC in the number of so-called “warrior tombs” in the countryside, in which the deceased was buried with a number of weapons. Beginning precisely around the time when the Roman legions invaded Mediterranean Gaul, more and more tombs appear that contain weapons, as well as larger numbers of grave goods. These grave goods were often quite common in domestic contexts, suggesting perhaps not so much an increase in socio-economic inequality, but rather new funerary practices in which the community elected to set apart certain deceased individuals – who often were seemingly marked as warriors given the presence of weapons – in new ways.82 After the initial conquest, the surviving inhabitants of the province then saw their lands occupied and divided up, and sometimes then subsequently settled by foreign colonists arriving from the Italian peninsula. In addition, the Roman officials appointed by Rome to rule over Mediterranean Gaul levied heavy taxes and forced

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young men to serve in the Roman army. Although the textual evidence for this is unfortunately not particularly abundant, several important details from the writings of the famous Roman politician Cicero make this quite clear. For example, in a speech given in defense of a former governor of Gallia Transalpina (Mediterranean Gaul), Cicero details extensively the oppressive nature of Roman rule and how it was impacting the indigenous Celts of the province in the first century BC. In his speech “In Defense of Fonteius” (Pro Fonteio), given in 69 BC, Cicero defends his client Marcus Fonteius, who had been governor of the province (propraetor) between 74 and 72/71 BC, from accusations brought against him by the peoples of Mediterranean Gaul of extortion and corruption. Cicero specifically mentions that the delegation of Celts bringing charges against Fonteius consisted of representatives from the Volcae and the Allobroges.83 Unfortunately, it is somewhat unclear who Cicero is referring to when he mentions the Volcae, although it is possible that this includes the peoples in eastern Languedoc. As already mentioned, in later texts we see the use of the term Volcae Arecomici for the peoples of eastern Languedoc, including Lattara, but earlier, Cato the Elder, writing in the second century BC, seems to use the term Volcae as a very general term for the inhabitants of the entire region of Mediterranean Gaul. However, Caesar’s later remark that Pompey specifically punished the Volcae Arecomici during the rule of Fonteius certainly raises the likelihood that the peoples specifically of eastern Languedoc may have been involved in bringing charges against Fonteius.84 In particular, Cicero mentions a series of land confiscations, forcing numerous people off their land as punishment for their resistance to Roman violence, as well as heavy taxes and other demands, most notably grain levied from the surviving population who had been “fortunate” enough to be able to stay on their lands. He writes: Marcus Fonteius, as I said, ruled over this province, which is composed of a variety of peoples. Those who were enemies he subjugated, those who had in recent times been enemies and had been punished he forced to leave their lands. Then in order that the remaining peoples, who had frequently been conquered in great wars, might be forevermore obedient to the Roman people, he demanded from them large quantities of cavalry (magnos equitatus) for the wars which were then being waged by the Roman people all throughout the world, as well as large quantities of money [magnas pecunias] for the purpose of financing these wars, and the greatest amount of grain possible (maximum frumenti numerum) for the war that was about to be waged in Spain.85

Elsewhere, while still writing about these indigenous peoples (as we have seen earlier, as was typical in Latin he referred to them as Gauls), he continues: Of these Gauls, even those in the best situation have again and again – and often most unwillingly – been forced to provide horsemen (equites), grain (frumentum), and money (pecuniam), while in regard to the others, some have been deprived of their lands in past wars (agro multati), and some have been conquered and suppressed in this current war.86

These grain requisitions were apparently so severe that Pompey, who had been campaigning in Mediterranean Gaul and Spain at the time, noted that the region, which

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was also suffering from a crop failure at the time, could hardly feed itself.87 As we will see in Chapter 4, there is good archaeological evidence throughout Mediterranean Gaul for the Roman practice of centuriation, in which land was systematically divided up and distributed to Roman settlers and loyal local peoples, with four different instances of centuriation specifically evident around the settlement of Lattara.88 At first glance, it might be somewhat odd, in a defense of the former governor Marcus Fonteius from the charges of corruption and extortion, that Cicero would so unabashedly describe just how brutal a governor Fonteius was. After all, in terms of winning the hearts and the minds of the jury by making Fonteius an endearing person, it would hardly seem an appropriate legal strategy in court, at least according to our modern sensibilities. Nonetheless, what is striking about all this is the fact that Cicero actually uses all of this as evidence for the unreliability of the Volcae and Allobroges as witnesses to the charges of corruption. Cicero in fact argues that these Celts brought charges of corruption and extortion against his client not because they had in fact any legal case to be made against Fonteius in court, but rather because of their hatred for what this governor had inflicted upon them and their people.89 Apparently, brutalizing an occupied province, and thereby incurring the everlasting hatred of the native population, was simply part of the job description of Roman provincial governors, and certainly was not the kind of thing for which good Roman citizens were hauled into court. While all of this was going on, Italic and Roman settlers were also apparently arriving in the province, eager to take advantage of the recently relinquished lands. At the same time that Cicero criticizes the reliability of the Gauls as witnesses against Fonteius, he also argues for the baseless nature of their charges by stating that no Roman citizen had offered testimony against Fonteius, despite the multitude of Romans already present in the province. Cicero continues, “Gaul is packed with merchants, full of Roman citizens. No one among the Gauls does any business without a Roman citizen.”90 In addition, he refers to Roman merchants (negotiatores), colonists (coloni), tax-collectors (publicani), farmers (aratores/agricolae), and cattle-raisers (pecuarii) as all being present in the province by this time.91 In one of his first orations as a public defender, Cicero also references the fact that as early as the 80s BC, Romans were acquiring property in Gallia Transalpina in order to create large estates worked by slaves. In his speech “In Defense of Quinctius” in 83 BC, Cicero argues on behalf of his client, Publius Quinctius, in a dispute with another Roman, Naevius, concerning the estate in Gallia Transalpina that Publius had inherited from his deceased brother Gaius. While the specific matter of the case is unimportant here, Cicero does mention several important details: namely, that both Publius Quinctius and Gaius Quinctius owned property (res privatae and praedia privata) in Gallia Transalpina (near or in the colony of Narbo Martius in the case of Publius), and that Gaius Quinctius also jointly owned a large cattle or sheep farm (fundus) also in the province that was worked by slaves (servi).92 The fact that the word for “private farm” (praedia privata) is in the plural suggests that Gaius Quinctius owned extensive

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land holdings. In addition, both Publius Quinctius, as well as the other Roman in the dispute (Naevius), as well as perhaps Gaius Quinctius, owned property and slaves in Rome as well – Cicero refers to their domus, or homes – suggesting that these farms in Gaul were seen as a source of revenue, rather than their actual domicile. Finally, in the same speech, Cicero also alludes to the trade in enslaved Gauls, and specifically mentions “boys” (pueros venales) being brought to Italy for sale as slaves.93 Elsewhere, Diodorus Siculus mentions how ubiquitous the sale of enslaved Celts had become, writing, “For these men [Italian merchants] transport the wine in boats on the navigable rivers and in wagons through the plains, and they receive an incredible price for it; for they give an amphora of wine for a slave (παῖς, literally “child”) – a servant (διάκονος) in exchange for a drink.”94 Diodorus wrote his history in the middle of the first century BC, and regardless of whether he was quoting the earlier work of Poseidonios or not, in either case the quote speaks to how pervasive the sale of other human beings had become in Gaul following the conquest in 125–121 BC.95 As a result of all these deprivations under Marcus Fonteius and other Roman governors, the Celts repeatedly rose up in rebellion.96 In 107 BC, the Volcae Tectosages of western Languedoc revolted, following the defeat of a Roman army beyond the borders of Gallia Transalpina in Aquitania, and perhaps also taking advantage of the turmoil associated with the incursions of invading peoples known as the Cimbri and Teutones between 113 and 102 BC into Roman territory.97 Strabo records that the Roman general who put down this rebellion, Quintus Servilius Caepio, also captured Tolosa (modern Toulouse), the chief settlement of the Tectosages, and seized the vast treasures of gold he found in the temple there.98 In 90 BC, there was a failed major revolt among the Salluvii/Salyes of western Provence against Roman rule, which was violently put down by the Roman general Gaius Caecilius.99 Archaeologists have uncovered evidence for the revolt from the destruction layers at sites like Entremont and Glanum, which date to this time and appear to have been linked to the rebellion.100 At Entremont, the destruction seems to have been so complete that the site was only ever sporadically reoccupied afterwards.101 Although few details are ever provided, we also know that in 81 BC, the then governor (proconsul) of Gallia Transalpina, Gaius Valerius Flaccus, celebrated a triumph in Rome against the Gauls and the Celtiberians, suggesting perhaps unrest either within the province or along its frontiers.102 Later, by around 74 BC, other Celtic peoples, including the Volcae Arecomici of eastern Languedoc, revolted against Roman rule during the time that Marcus Fonteius was the governor (propraetor) of Gallia Transalpina.103 This revolt coincided with civil strife in the Roman provinces in Spain, fomented by the rogue Roman general Sertorius between 80 and 73 BC.104 A young Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (generally today referred to as Pompey “the Great”), who was leading an army from Rome to aid fellow general Metellus Pius in Spain, was obliged to fight his way through Mediterranean Gaul. Before reaching Spain, Pompey, along with the governor Marcus Fonteius, put down the rebellion raging across Mediterranean Gaul, writing in a letter to the Roman Senate, “I have retaken Gaul” (Recepi Galliam).105 Cicero furthermore emphasizes the

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apparent brutality of Pompey’s campaign through Gaul when he mentions how the “way into Spain for our legions was opened by the massacre (internicio) of the Gauls.”106 Pompey then had a monument, still partially visible today, constructed in 71 BC high in the Pyrenees at the border between Gaul and Hispania, to commemorate his victory.107 Although nothing of the inscriptions on the monument survive today, Pliny the Elder records that on the monument was a mention of how Pompey subjugated 876 oppida – literally, “were reduced (redacta) to his authority/control (in dicionem)” – between the Alps and the borders with Spain as part of his pacification of Gallia Transalpina.108 Following the revolt, Pompey then issued a degree forcing the rebellious peoples to surrender their lands.109 Later, Julius Caesar would specifically state that the confiscated lands of the Volcae Arecomici were turned over to Massalia by Pompey.110 Given that Lattara falls within the territory of the Volcae Arecomici, it is quite likely that the inhabitants of Lattara were affected by the revolt and the subsequent redistribution of land as punishment. Although archaeologists working early at Lattara in the 1970s thought that they had found evidence for the general destruction of Lattara sometime in the late second century BC or early first century BC, today it appears somewhat doubtful that what they found represents any clear episode of violence within the settlement related to the Roman armies.111 However, given the proximity of Lattara to the Via Domitia (a little less than 7.5 km away), the major road linking Italy to Spain, it is certainly likely that Lattara was one of the 876 oppida subjugated (redacta) by Pompey. In 66 BC, war again broke out, this time among the Allobroges in the northern part of the province, which was put down by C. Calpurnius Piso.112 Another revolt among the Allobroges then followed in 62 BC.113 After this, the ancient sources fall silent for Mediterranean Gaul, although there are references to general disturbances in Gaul in 13–12 BC related to the census, which Drusus put down.114 Further outbreaks of discontent occurred in Vienna, the chief city of the Allobroges, in AD 9.115 During the course of the first century AD, other serious revolts broke out throughout Gaul in AD 21 and AD 68, although it is unclear if Mediterranean Gaul was seriously affected by this unrest. However, large-scale violence in Mediterranean Gaul continued into the second half of the first century BC with the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey, which spilled into the province. Specifically, in 49 BC, Julius Caesar seized the city of Massalia, which had lent support to his political rival Pompey during the civil war, and as a punishment to the city ended the political autonomy of the Greek colony. Archaeologists have noted destruction levels at a number of settlements around Massalia for this time as well, most notably at La Cloche, likely related to Caesar’s campaigns to seize Massalia.116 Furthermore, there is some evidence as well for more localized, small-scale violence and discontent even if the resistance of whole communities was breaking down by the middle of the first century BC. For example, the Roman historian Suetonius records that, sometime after 6 BC, the people of Nemausus (modern Nîmes in eastern Languedoc) toppled the busts and statues dedicated to Tiberius, at the time a Roman general and later an emperor, suggesting

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the possibility of other smaller-scale disturbances and public discontentment that were not recorded by Roman historians.117 By the middle of the first century BC, at a time when these revolts against Rome seem to have begun to die down (at least the major revolts that historians felt compelled to record), Rome began to prop up its rule of Gallia Transalpina further with the active settlement of colonies populated by Roman citizens, as well as granting some indigenous settlements certain rights as well. During the dictatorship of Julius Caesar between 48 and 44 BC, the Roman state, through Caesar’s representative Tiberius Claudius Nero, established two colonies for veterans of the Roman legions. Colonies were founded at Arelate (Arles) for veterans of the sixth legion and at Narbo Martius (Narbonne) for the tenth. Later, between 36 and 35 BC, Octavian (later Caesar Augustus) settled veterans from his campaigns during the civil wars at Baeterrae (Béziers) for the seventh legion and at Arausio (Orange) for the second (Fig. 2.2). After his victory over Mark Anthony at Actium in 31 BC Octavian then founded a colony at Forum Iulii (Fréjus) for veterans of the eighth legion. Later in the first century AD, colonies were also established at Valentia (Valence) and Vienna (Vienne).118 In addition, beginning under Julius Caesar, at least 62 towns in Mediterranean Gaul received the ‘Latin Right’ (ius latinum), the legal and constitutional rights traditionally given to Rome’s allies. Latin Right settlements were generally comprised of indigenous inhabitants and were governed by local magistrates ruling on behalf of the Roman state, rather than Roman officials sent from Rome.119 The bestowal of Latin Rights upon the population of Mediterranean Gaul was a typical way of attempting to politically and socially integrate certain important native males of a province with the colonial state. In particular, the Latin Right allowed for the growth of a citizenship among the elites of a native settlement, since under the Latin Right, elected magistrates in a town automatically received Roman citizenship.120 Specifically, it appears that the oppidum of Nemausus received the status of a Latin colony (colonia latina) sometime between 52 and 48 BC.121 Coins from Nemausus dating to the end of the Republic with the legend NEM COL (Nemausus colonia) refer to this status of Nemausus as a Latin colony.122 At the same time, 24 other oppida in the surrounding region – unfortunately the ancient sources never record their specific names – also apparently received the Latin Right as oppida latina.123 Writing during the rule of Caesar Augustus (toward the beginning of the first century AD), Strabo mentions that by the time he was writing, Nemausus held authority over 24 other neighboring settlements (κώμαι, generally translated as “villages”), suggesting that at some point these anonymous oppida lost their autonomy and came under the direct control of Nemausus, which the local Roman authorities had clearly selected as the seat of the local colonial regime.124 It is likely that Lattara was one of these unnamed oppida who received the Latin Right, and a later reference by Pliny the Elder that the stagnum Latera (the lagoon of Lattara) was in the territory of Nemausus (in Nemausiensi agro) seems to confirm that Lattara was under the authority of this city by the first century AD.125 The granting of the Latin Right by Caesar, and in particular the privileged status of Nemausus, was

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likely a reward for the aid of Nemausus against Pompey during the recently ended civil wars.126 If this is the case, one wonders if the reason Nemausus and other Celtic settlements in the area aided Caesar against Pompey was somehow related to the memory of Pompey’s apparently brutal destruction – at least as implied by Cicero – of the province several decades earlier. Later, during the rule of Caesar Augustus (27 BC–AD 14), in 21 BC a series of administrative reforms was undertaken in Mediterranean Gaul, which Augustus reorganized as the province of Gallia Narbonensis, named after the provincial capital at Narbo Martius (modern Narbonne).127 As part of these reforms, Augustus officially withdrew the Roman armies from the province, elevating it to the status of a senatorial province. Augustus also had the province subdivided into a number of territorial units referred to as civitates (singular civitas), which in theory were often based upon preexisting local ethnic or political boundaries.128 One of the largest of these civitates was that based at Nemausus, corresponding to the supposed territory of the Volcae Arecomici in pre-Roman times, including the settlement at Lattara, although as mentioned above, there is little archaeological evidence for any clearly defined political centralization within this territory during the Iron Age.129 The Italian-born veterans and their children and grand-children at the colonies would have composed the majority of Roman citizens (cives romani) in Gallia Transalpina. In addition, Roman commanders, such as Caesar or Pompey, granted Roman citizenship to a select number of loyal native elites, often as a reward for military service. Not surprisingly, based upon all the known inscriptions, the most common and third most common Roman family names among the inhabitants of Mediterranean Gaul during the Roman period were Iulius and Pompeius, reflecting service in the Roman army under Julius Caesar or Pompey.130 In general, however, very few native men in Gallia Transalpina would have been Roman citizens, and would have been classed instead as peregrini (literally “foreigner” or “from abroad,” but more generally meaning “non-citizen”).131 The tombstones found at the necropolis from Lattara dating to the end of the first century BC and first century AD confirm this broad distinction between civis (citizen) and peregrinus. Of the 30 individuals buried within the necropolis with legible tombstones that have survived to this day, based upon their names only five were Roman citizens, and one was the daughter of a Roman citizen.132 The remaining individuals would have had the status of peregrini, although determining the exact ethnic origin of each one is not always clear; five of the deceased individuals whose tombstones survived had clearly Celtic names, while several others had parents with Celtic names although they themselves possessed Latin names.133 Émilienne Demougeot, who first studied the tombstones from Lattara, suggests that at least in a few cases, the Roman citizens from the necropolis were descended from colonists arriving from Italy, rather than native Celts who had received citizenship.134 Scholars have also suggested that some of the peregrini with Latin names may have been of Italic, rather than Celtic, origin – presumably if this were the case, coming from Gallia Cisalpina, where freeborn men were not automatically citizens

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until 49 BC.135 In any case, the evidence from the Roman-period necropolis at Lattara certainly suggests a division between a very small, privileged group of Roman citizens (both Italic and local in origin), and a large number of more disadvantaged peregrini, many of whom would likely not have been able to pay for an inscribed tombstone, suggesting that the ratio of citizens to peregrini we see from the surviving archaeological evidence is inflated. As mentioned in the previous chapter, it is quite clear that compared with modern examples of colonialism, notions of “race” or ethnicity in the Roman Empire did not play the same role in systemically subjugating the local population. Nevertheless, in his defense of Marcus Fonteius, Cicero depicts a stark and unambiguous divide in the province between – on the one hand – the honorable Roman colonists (coloni populi Romani), Roman citizens (cives Romani) more generally, and their Massaliote allies (socii Massilientes), and – in contrast – the untrustworthy Gauls (Galli), whom Cicero refers to in numerous places as “barbarians” (barbari).136 In regard to the unreliability of the testimony brought by the native Gauls against Fonteius, Cicero proclaims, “If it is appropriate to consider the people themselves in question … ought we to compare any among the most honorable in Gaul with even the lowest Roman citizen, let alone the highest men of our state?”137 Cicero then later derisively refers to how the Celtic witnesses were clothed in cloaks and breeches (sagatos bracatosque), and elsewhere falls back on the frequent Greco-Roman stereotype of the Celts: that they were warlike, suggesting that they “have waged war even with the immortal gods themselves.”138 In a recent important reevaluation of the overall Greco-Roman attitudes toward other peoples, the historian Erich Gruen has cast doubt on the idea that the rhetoric present in Cicero’s speech is indicative of any larger, deep-seated prejudice or ethnic hatred on the part of the Romans toward Celtic peoples.139 Although we ultimately cannot evaluate the extent to which Romans of different backgrounds and statuses across time and space harbored any kind of systematic prejudice against the Celts, we can see in the speech of Cicero how negative discourses against Celtic peoples could circulate in public institutions such as law courts. While it is certainly true that Cicero employed a great deal of obvious rhetoric, it is also true that this kind of rhetoric evidently resonated quite effectively with a Roman audience – the Roman jury, after all, appears to have acquitted Marcus Fonteius – and suggests the power of this kind of discourse constructed against recently conquered peoples as a tool for justifying Roman rule.140 This kind of discourse emphasizes above all a deep divide between the “barbarian” Celts, who comprised the vast majority of the population of Mediterranean Gaul, and the minority group of Roman citizens.141 While the emergence of local identities in the province certainly cross-cut the binary divide between “colonized” and “colonizer” evident in this discourse, the apparent success of this kind of rhetoric in a Roman legal setting also seems to illustrate the way in which those holding peregrinus status at a community like Lattara could be excluded from fully participating in socio-political life in the conquered province. Certainly, more and more local Celts did manage to acquire Roman citizenship by the first century

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AD, but again, the evidence from the necropolis at Lattara suggests they were only ever a very small minority.142 Lastly, it is also useful to point out that Cicero’s speech underscores how Roman rule in Mediterranean Gaul was meant to benefit only the small minority of Roman colonists and other citizens, implying as he does that not a single Roman citizen came forward to bring accusations against Fonteius because they had benefited from his rule, whereas the specific legal accusations of the Celts were not based on fact, but rather were brought against Fonteius because – even by Cicero’s own admission – the Celts had suffered so cruelly under Roman rule.143

Conclusion Although it is unlikely that Cicero intended to document specifically the clearly negative effects of Roman colonial rule on local peoples, the details contained in his writings and in others speak of a violence and trauma for the local inhabitants of Mediterranean Gaul that cannot be overlooked when trying to understand the transformations in the province that occurred throughout the course of the first century BC and first century AD; hundreds of thousands of younger men (and women?), taking up arms no doubt against an enemy they saw as aggressively invading their homeland, fell before the swords and spears of the Roman armies. Many surviving members of local communities were enslaved, with Roman settlers and colonists – as well as some local Celts loyal to the winning side – seizing their lands. Those fortunate to survive the initial violence and enslavement were then burdened with mounting taxes and levies of grain, to the point that even Pompey “the Great” – not someone likely to sympathize with the local population given that his initial epithet was “The Young Butcher” (Adulescens carnifex) – noted that the inhabitants of Mediterranean Gaul were having trouble feeding themselves.144 Furthermore, the young men who survived the violence were compelled to serve in the Roman army, participating in further cycles of violence against their fellow Celts. The cycle of violence then repeated itself multiple times, as local communities rose up in revolt against Rome, only to see each rebellion ended by the Roman armies. Few local families would have been untouched by the trauma of conquest and colonization. Furthermore, the prevailing discourse seemingly present in the first century BC that distinguished between “barbarian” Celts and Roman citizens likely meant that only a small proportion of local Celts could immediately integrate themselves successfully into the dominant colonial society. While the nature of the evidence for this period makes it difficult to see individual experiences of these events, the human loss in all of this cannot be understated. The textual evidence suggests that the region comprising Lattara was heavily involved in the revolt against Roman rule in ca. 74 BC and suffered greatly afterwards as the Romans punished those who had participated in the rebellion with land seizures and redistributions, in addition to the ongoing enslavement of many defeated Celts and levies of taxation, grain requisitions, and forced conscriptions. In all this, the example of Roman Mediterranean Gaul seems to conform to the general definition

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of colonialism discussed earlier. Given what we know textually, it would be naïve to view the material changes evident at Lattara by the latter part of the first century BC as necessarily disconnected from this half century of violence and traumatic social disruption. Turning again to the writings of Tacitus, these patterns of violence and oppression certainly do not seem to be unique to Roman Mediterranean Gaul. In the same passage referenced earlier by Tacitus, the author, through the words of a rebellious British war leader (again seemingly invented by Tacitus but revealing perhaps how he viewed Roman colonialism), gives an insight into the kinds of daily violence that arose out of the Roman conquest: For everyone, children and kin are by nature those dearest to us, but they are stolen away through conscription to be enslaved elsewhere. And even if our wives and sisters escape the lust of the enemy, they are violated by supposed friends and guests. Our goods and possessions go as tribute, our land and harvest go as grain requisitions. Even our bodies and hands themselves are worn down amidst insults and beatings as we clear out roads in forests and marshes.145

Far from providing simply a backstory to later events, this loss of loved ones to violence and enslavement and the tearing of people from their lands arguably structured all subsequent experiences and the actions of individuals at Lattara under Roman occupation.

Notes

   1 For a detailed archaeological study of the complex relationships between the Massaliote Greeks and the local peoples of Mediterranean Gaul, see Dietler 2010.    2 The earliest reports, however, seem to distinguish only between Iberians, living in the western parts of this region and the Ligurians, living in the eastern parts, with the Oranus River (the Hérault?) dividing the two peoples (see for example Avienus, lines 612–614; Hecataeus of Miletus, Frags 20–21; Pseudo-Scylax 3.4). It is only with Polybius that we see references to Keltoí; see for example, 3.37.9, 3.39.4, 3.41.6.   3 Koch 2006.    4  Untermann 1980; Lejeune 1985; Lambert 1994.    5 For an important study of languages in Mediterranean Gaul, from the first millennium to the Roman period, see Mullen 2013.   6 Strabo, Geography 3.4.19; Untermann 1980; Lejeune 1985.   7 Barruol 1969a.   8 Diodorus Siculus 5.32.1.   9 Strabo, Geography 4.1.14.   10  Emphasis of italics is the author’s. Caesar, Gallic Wars 1.1.   11 Indeed, in the opening lines of what is still the definitive work on Iron Age Mediterranean Gaul, Michel Py (2012, 8) reminds us that, Les gaulois du Midi ne sont pas les gaulois de tout le monde (“the Gauls of Mediterranean France are not the same Gauls as everyone else”).   12 Michel Py, for example, one of the most important archaeologists of Iron Age Mediterranean France, thus refers to these people as the Gaulois du Midi (the Gauls of the South). A notable exception is Dominique Garcia’s (2004) important overview of Iron Age Mediterranean Gaul, entitled La Celtique méditerranéene, thus adopting the Greek term for the region.

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  13 See especially James 1999; Collis 2003. See also Chapman 1992 for a more anthropological critique of the term “Celtic” which proved to be highly influential in inspiring a generation of Celtoscepticism among archaeologists. For resistance to these attempts to completely eradicate the term in archaeology, see for example Megaw and Megaw 1996.   14  See Farley and Hunter 2015 for the exhibition catalogue.   15 On the idea of the Atlantic Celts being “bogus” and a “modern invention” see especially James 1999.   16  See for example Py 1974; 2012; Garcia 2004.   17 Py 1985; Gras 2000; Dietler 2010; for a recent discussion of the ethnic character of these merchants, see Dietler 2010.  18 Bats et al. 1992.   19  Bertucchi 1990; Py 1990 ; 2012.   20 For the problem of overanalyzing the question of ancient ethnicity and merchants, see Dietler 2010, 140–142.  21 Strabo, Geography 4.1.5.   22  Dejean 2012, 60.   23  Garcia 2004; Py 2012.   24  Py 1996; Dedet 1999.   25  For an up to date and detailed survey of the archaeological data from Lattara, see Py 2009.   26  Py 2009, 26–37.  27 Lebeaupin 2014.  28 McGovern et al. 2014, 290.  29 Lebeaupin 2014.   30 This site is currently being excavated by Inrap (Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives) as part of a large-scale preventive archaeological project.  31 Lebeaupin 2014.   32  Py 2009, 286.  33 Py 1996.   34 Garcia and Vallet 2002; As mentioned, ongoing excavations, begun in 2018, have focused on exploring further the later Roman port of Lattara in this area of the site.   35  Py 2009, 100.   36  For Entremont, see Coutagne 1993; For Anagia, see Py 1978; 2015.   37  Dietler 2010; Py 2012.   38  Bats 1988; Dietler 2010.   39  Dietler 1990; 2010, 242–256.   40  Py 1990, 177–181; 2012, 276–277; Vial 2011.   41  See Py 2009, 333.  42 Polybius 2.17.   43  See for example Polybius 2.17.   44  Fragment 12 of Book II, see Pliny, Natural History 3.130.   45  Kruta 2000, 865.  46 E.g. Strabo, Geography 4.1.12.   47  Py 1974, 253.   48  Feugère and Py 2011, 185–234.  49 Caesar, Gallic Wars 7.7,64; In his defense of Marcus Fonteius, Cicero mentions the Volcae and the Allobroges, although he does not specifically mention the Volcae Arecomici.   50  See for example Py 1974; 2012, 276–277; Vial 2011.  51 Pomponius Mela, De Chorographia 2.5.80.   52  Py 2012, 269–273.   53  Dietler 2010, 175.

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  54  This possibility is raised by Michel Py. See Py 2012, 198–200.   55  Livy, 40.18; Polybius 3.3.8–10.  56 Florus, Epitome 1.37.2; Livy, Summaries 61.   57  Benoit 1962, 8; Diodorus Siculus 34.23.   58  Diodorus Siculus 34.23.  59 Livy, Summaries 61; Strabo, Geography 4.1.5; Velleius Paterculus 1.15.  60 Livy, Summaries 61; Appianus 4.12.1.   61  Dietler 2010, 174.   62  Arcelin and Cayot 1984.  63 Livy, Summaries 61; Appianus 4.12.1; Florus, Epitome 1.37.2.  64 Livy, Summaries 61; Strabo, Geography 4.1.11, 4.2.3.  65 Florus, Epitome 1.37.2; Livy, Summaries 61; Strabo, Geography 4.1.11, 4.2.3.  66 Florus, Epitome 1.37.2.   67  Valerius Maximus 9.6.3.   68 Here it is important to note that the use of the term “king” (rex) by the Roman historians may perhaps be something of a distortion or misunderstanding. In many colonial encounters it is not unusual for colonial governments to misconstrue indigenous positions of influence or authority (see the discussion in Luley 2016, 33–34, 36). In particular, it is quite possible that the name Toutomotulos is in fact a title, perhaps reflecting some kind of magisterial position equivalent to the vergobret farther to the north in Gaul, rather than an actual personal name. A slightly altered version of the name appears one other time in the historical record: in Caesar’s Gallic Wars (6.31, 46) referring to the leader of the Nitiobroges. The name seems to mean approximately “one who is good for the people,” with “touto” referring to the Gallic word for people, related to the modern Irish túath, and “matos” meaning “good,” related to the modern Irish maith. Similarly, the leader of the Teutones and Cimbri in the invasions at the end of the second century BC was named Teutobodus (Florus, Epitome 1.38).   69 See Gayraud 1981, 119–136. for a discussion of the debate concerning the actual year of the founding of Narbo Martius, as well as the political context for its creation.   70  Goudineau 1978, 686–687.  71 Polybius 3.39.8.   72  See Goudineau 1978, 686.  73 Boatwright et al. 2013, 335. See also Tranoy 2010, 110.  74 Boatwright et al. 2013, 332.  75 Cicero, Pro Quinctio 28.  76 Cicero, Pro Murena 89.  77 Strabo, Geography 4.1.11, 4.2.3.  78 Caesar, Gallic Wars 1.29.  79 Plutarch, Life of Caesar 14; Velleius Paterculus 2.47.1. Strabo (Geography 4.3.3) also gives an estimate of 400,000 killed in the wars with Caesar.   80  See for example Cunliffe 1997, 247.  81 Tacitus, Agricola 30.5.   82  See Chapter 7 for further discussion of this with citations.  83 Cicero, Pro Fonteio 12.26.  84 Julius Caesar, Civil Wars 1.35.2–5.  85 Cicero, Pro Fonteio 6.  86 Cicero, Pro Fonteio 12.  87 Sallust, Letter of Gnaeus Pompeius 5.   88  See Chapter 4 for a more detailed discussion with citations.  89 Cicero, Pro Fonteio 13.27, 15.33.  90 Cicero, Pro Fonteio 5.

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 91 Cicero, Pro Fonteio 12, 46.   92 Cicero describes this farm estate as a pecuaria res ampla et rustica sane bene culta et fructuoisa (12), and elsewhere (83) describes it as a fundus. Scholars have suggested that this fundus was in the Durance Valley of Provence, see Barruol 1969, 291–293 for a discussion of the likely location of the farm.  93 Cicero, Pro Quinctio 24. The fact that elsewhere Cicero uses the term “servus” to describe those enslaved on the estate in Gaul suggests that these Gauls were quite young.   94 Diodorus Siculus 5.26. Here again there seems to be an emphasis on the young nature of these enslaved Gauls.   95 There is some doubt about the value of exchange, with one slave worth one amphora, especially given how frequently Italic amphorae appear in the archaeological record for this period. Regardless, the price given here at the least certainly emphasizes how common the slave trade had become in Gaul with the Romans.   96 For a general overview of the disturbances in the western Roman Empire, see for example Dyson 1971.  97 Dio, Fragments 90.  98 Strabo, Geography 4.1.13.  99 Livy, Summaries 73. 100  Roth Congès 1992, 362–363 ; Arcelin 1993, 64–65. 101  Coutagne 1993. 102  Granius Licianus 36.31.5. 103 Cicero, Pro Fonteio 13–14. Although Cicero actually confusingly uses the term praetor rather than propraetor. 104 Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, Life of Pompey; Livy, Summaries 40–46. 105 Sallust, Letter of Gnaeus Pompeius 5. 106 Cicero, De imperio Cn. Pompei 11.30. The word internicio (a variant of the more common internecio) is generally translated as “massacre,” “carnage,” “slaughter,” or “utter destruction,” and emphasizes a complete destruction. 107 Castelvi et al. 1995. 108 Pliny, Natural History 3.3.18. 109 Cicero, Pro Fonteio 14. 110  Julius Caesar, Civil Wars 1.35.2–5. 111 See Arnal et al. 1974, 333. Py (1988, 136) calls into question the conclusion of the GAP excavations, although as an aside, it is interesting to note that Prades to his credit did at least correctly identify the destruction of Lattara ca. 475 BC that was later shown at the so-called Etruscan merchant quarters in the settlement. 112 Cicero, Letters to Atticus 1.13.2; Dio 36.37.2. 113  Dio Cassius 37.47–8. 114  Cassius Dio 54.32; Livy Epit. 139. 115  Velleius Paterculus 2.121. 116  Marty 1999. 117 Suetonius, Tiberius 13.1. However, it should be pointed out that here specifically the cause of the disturbance was the decision of Tiberius to withdraw into a kind of early retirement in 6 BC, was not necessarily a disturbance specifically against Roman rule. 118  Pliny the Elder, Natural History 3.36. 119  See Chastagnol 1995. 120  See for example Strabo, Geography 4.1.12 in the case of Nemausus. 121  Goudineau 1976; Christol and Goudineau 1987. 122  Py 1974.

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123 See again Goudineau 1976; Christol and Goudineau 1987. For ancient sources see Strabo, Geography 4.1.12 and Pliny the Elder, Natural History 3.37. 124 Strabo, Geography 4.1.12. This is also echoed by Pliny the Elder (Natural History 3.36). 125  Pliny the Elder, Natural History 9.29–32. 126  Christol and Goudineau 1987; Monteil 1999, 494. 127  Dio Cassius 54.5; See also Drinkwater 1983; Rivet 1988; Woolf 1998. 128  For a general overview of the administrative system of Roman rule in Gaul, see Tranoy 2010. 129  Vial 2011. 130  Gros 2008, 30. 131  See for example Coulon 2006. 132 These numbers are based upon the interpretation of Christol 1999, who revised the original number of eight citizens and one daughter of a Roman citizen (amongst the individuals actually interred at Lattara) given originally by Demougeot (1972, 114). 133  Demougeot 1972. 134  E.g. Demougeot 1972, 75–76, 79, 100, 105. 135 E.g. Demougeot 1972, 66, 72, 74. After 88 BC, all freeborn men in Italy south of the Apennines (hence excluding Cisalpine Gaul) were automatically Roman citizens, and a settlement of Italic colonists before this date seems unlikely, although not necessarily entirely impossible in all circumstances, especially given Lattara’s position as a port. 136  See for example Cicero, Pro Fonteio 3, 5, 11, 15. 137 Cicero, Pro Fonteio 12. 138 This is a frequent stereotype of the Celts in Greco-Roman descriptions, and has even affected in turn modern scholarly portrayals of the ancient Celtic peoples. See Webster 1996b. 139  Gruen 2011, 146–147. 140 Although the overall book is quite informative and convincing, Gruen’s specific treatment of Cicero’s Pro Fonteio speech is quite short (only two pages) and is comparatively much weaker than other examples, even within the same chapter, nor is this specific example particularly important to the overall thesis of the book. This specific weakness is arguably evident when Gruen concludes by slipping into a vague passive voice, suggesting that, “the conventions [i.e. Cicero’s rhetoric] were seen for what they were – far from a faithful representation of general sentiment,” leaving the reader to wonder who exactly “saw them for what they were” and on what evidence this conclusion is based (there is no associated citation or ensuing discussion). See Gruen 2011, 147. 141  For a discussion of “discourse” see Hall 1992. 142 At least until the Roman Emperor Caracalla’s proclamation in AD 212 that elevated all free men in the empire to the status of Roman citizen – which falls well outside the temporal scope of this book. 143  See for example Cicero, Pro Fonteio 5–6. 144  Given for his brutality in Sicily, see Valerius Maximus 6.2.8. 145 Tacitus, Agricola 31.1–2.

Chapter 3 Living Together, Living Apart The Creation of New Domestic Relations

If the inhabitants of Lattara from before the Roman conquest could have seen the settlement over 100 years later in the first century AD, in many ways there likely would have been very little familiar to them: during the Iron Age, the settlement consisted of a dense network of mudbrick houses clustered together into long rows separated by narrow streets, or occasionally grouped together around a central courtyard. By the end of the first century BC, however, these blocks of small houses were increasingly disappearing, replaced by a new urban landscape comprised of monumental buildings and open spaces, concentrations of artisan workshops, and large courtyard houses incorporating Roman building techniques, from mortared stone walls to wall paintings and red roofing tiles. These physical changes so evident from the archaeological record at Lattara and elsewhere in the region reveal not just dramatic changes in material space and organization, but seemingly also significant transformations in social relationships within the community. As we will see in this chapter, prior to the Roman conquest, there was a notable continuity in the physical form of houses at Lattara for some five centuries until ca. 50 BC; despite some notable developments occurring in the third century BC, the basic domestic unit at the settlement seems to have consisted of two main symbolic and functional spaces, and each of these two-room domestic units was in turn aggregated into larger blocks of houses. These larger blocks of houses likely represented larger groups of families all living together and sharing important open spaces. By the end of the first century BC, however, we see the eventual demolition of these aggregated residences, and in their place the introduction of a strikingly different urban landscape of public buildings and courtyard houses. These new Roman-influenced courtyard houses in turn seem to reflect a quite distinct social unit from that present in pre-conquest society – what I identify as the domus – possibly comprising more mixed

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groups likely often including a dominant nuclear family and non-kin dependents and enslaved workers. While the architecture of these courtyard houses was inspired by both local and Roman domestic traditions to produce a truly local form of house, the social relationships engendered by these new domestic spaces appear to have been relatively different from what existed prior to the Roman conquest. Here, then, we see the largely unintended consequences of the consumption of Roman material culture, involving at once the creative appropriation and recontextualization of culture on the part of some wealthier local Celts, who were able to build far larger and grander houses than their ancestors, but also the reification of an increasingly rigid hierarchical society through the physical form of the house that likely disrupted many traditional social relationships within the community. Anthropologists have long acknowledged the importance of households – into which one is born and in which a great deal of social learning and experiences take place – as the key intermediary between the individual and larger society.1 When seeking to understand the possible changes in social organization at Lattara following the Roman conquest, it is thus perhaps helpful to begin with the social relations of domestic life. Here, then, it is important to clarify a distinction in the terms used: following a typical distinction made in anthropological literature, I define a “household” as the basic social unit of individuals, often related through some form of kinship, who generally reside together and cooperate together in daily, domestic tasks.2 A “house” by contrast refers to the physical space occupied by such a household. In order to understand the impact that the creation of Roman colonial rule may have had on the local community at Lattara, we must above all first investigate the changes evident in the form and function of houses at the site. However, an understanding of the social significance of changes in house form following the Roman conquest throughout the northwestern provinces of the Roman Empire has often been notably lacking, especially in terms of the relationship of individual houses to the larger social relationships creating specific forms of community. Furthermore, there are relatively few sites that have managed to provide a clear diachronic view of changes spanning across the Iron Age and the Roman period.3 This is arguably more generally true as well within the archaeology and anthropology of colonialism more broadly, where a specific analysis of the changing physical structure of houses is also often surprisingly absent in analyses.4

Domestic Space and Social Organization at Lattara: 475–225 BC After the apparent destruction around 475 BC of the probable Etruscan merchant settlement present at Lattara, the houses within the rebuilt fortification walls of the site reverted back to the oval-shaped, wooden houses typically seen in the region. In particular, it is notable that the houses at Lattara beginning around 475 BC resembled those from the neighboring indigenous settlement at La Cougourlude, which appears to have been definitively abandoned precisely around 475 BC, suggesting perhaps a

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shift in the native population of the region to Lattara.5 Over the course of the next 50 years the inhabitants of Lattara would increasingly experiment with new forms of architecture, adapting to changing circumstances at the site – including an increasing population density and an eventual increased level of agricultural production – all the while without exhibiting any clear break or social rupture in the organization of the settlement.6 In fact, despite the experimentation with foreign building styles and materials, a notable continuity is evident in the architecture of houses from Lattara throughout the period before the Roman conquest that draws heavily on earlier house forms and the use of domestic space based upon a bipartite division of space going back to the earlier Bronze Age and even as far back as the Neolithic.7 This bipartite division of space is evident, for example, at the Late Bronze Age site of Laouret à Floure, in western Languedoc, where archaeologists unearthed a typical one-room house with a central hearth dating to ca. 1000 BC (Fig. 3.1). This modest-sized house was also associated with a smaller outbuilding for storage.8 Closest to the door, archaeologists found a dense concentration of debris and refuse associated with cooking and food preparation, while the back portion of the house was much more devoid of artifacts and appears to have been kept relatively clean, suggesting that the members of the household slept here. Presumably, the location of the cooking area closest to the door was to allow for a better circulation of air into the kitchen and provide for the evacuation of smoke from the cooking fires, especially in the colder and rainier months of winter when it would have been impractical to cook outside. Throughout the house, archaeologists also found numerous storage jars and cooking vessels broken in place. Later houses from the first half of the Iron Age throughout Mediterranean Gaul show a similar division of space. Examples include a wooden oval-shaped house (in French this type of house is known as a maison à absides) from Ruscino in western Languedoc dating to ca. 600 BC, a semi-oval-shaped house (House A) from La Monédière in the Hérault valley dating to ca. 550–530 BC, and another oval-shaped house from ca. 450 BC at the site of Gailhan in eastern Languedoc.9 In general, the houses at pre-conquest Lattara seem to have drawn upon this earlier domestic organization evident throughout the larger region of Mediterranean Gaul. Within the Iron Age houses at Lattara, for example, there appears to have been a clear separation of cooking activities – usually located toward the entrance of the house – from the space reserved for sleeping and storage – generally situated in the back half of the house. A main hearth was often placed in a relatively central area, providing the focus for domestic activities, as is typical in many traditional homes throughout time and space. Increasingly over time at Lattara, this bipartite division of domestic space was also physically marked by an internal partition wall. Based upon the relatively modest size of these houses, it appears likely that they could have housed no more than a nuclear family, likely consisting of a mother, father, and unmarried children with perhaps also one or two other individuals, such as a grandparent.10 As evident in numerous ethnographies regarding the symbolic order of the physical house – most notably Pierre Bourdieu’s analysis of a typical Kabyle house in

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Fig. 3.1: The division of space in houses prior to the foundation of Lattara (top), and the evolution of houses at Zone 1 for the period 425–400 BC (map: redrawn by the author, courtesy of Lattes excavations; Laouret after Gascό 2000: 57; Ruscino after Garcia 2004: 54–55; Gailhan after Dedet 1990).

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Algeria – the physical space often tends to recapitulate the larger symbolic order of the cosmos, although we should be admittedly wary of assuming that this symbolic order is a static, timeless creation.11 Following from these anthropological studies, one is tempted to see in this bipartite division of space a potential symbolic opposition between light (the front part of the house with the cooking fires) and dark (the back part of the house), perhaps mediated in turn by a central hearth providing a kind of symbolic pillar for both the household and larger society, with other possible oppositions following from this most basic, and physically obvious, opposition. These individual houses at pre-conquest Lattara were then in turn systematically grouped together into patterned aggregations of individual houses, seemingly representing some larger social unit, perhaps some form of an extended family – although this is admittedly notoriously difficult to prove archaeologically. By the fourth century BC, more and more of the houses at Lattara were built with stone foundations and mudbrick walls, and these houses were now square in shape, rather than apsidal or ovular. Significantly, however, the choice of building materials – whether that be wood, earth, mudbrick, or stone – and the overall shape of the house – square or ovular – do not seem to have impacted the actual bipartite domestic organization of these houses at Lattara. All these trends are evident, for example, at the block of houses labeled as Zone 1 by archaeologists (Figs 3.1 and 3.2), where the excavations have revealed a continuous occupation from the foundation of the settlement ca. 500 BC to the second century BC. Significantly, archaeologists were able at this block of houses to perform a detailed analysis of the microstratigraphy in the dirt floors that had built up over centuries of occupation.12 In the front part of the houses – closest to the door leading to the outside and where the hearths were generally located – the analysis of this microstratigraphy consistently revealed household debris, including bits of charcoal and ash from fires, animal bones, fish bones, cereal grains, and microscopic grains of basalt from stone grist mills for grinding flour.13 By contrast, in the back half of the houses from Zone 1, the analysis of the microstratigraphy revealed a notable absence of this kind of household debris. Interestingly, the analysis of the microstratigraphy in House 129 (Fig. 3.1) suggested that woven mats for sitting and sleeping had likely been present along the back half of the room, which caused the soil of the dirt floor to retain its humidity to a greater degree than elsewhere in the house.14 Additionally, in some houses archaeologists found large mudbrick platforms which were large enough for several individuals to sleep on, such as parents and several children, again supporting the idea that the back, “dark” half of the houses at Lattara were generally reserved for sleeping.15 Here then, as elsewhere at the settlement, we see this bipartite division of space between a “light” front part of the house devoted to food preparation and cooking, and a “dark” half for sleeping. In addition, as early as ca. 450 BC there are signs at Zone 1, and more generally across Lattara, of a general organization of houses together into larger social units, an organization that is increasingly evident across the site by the fourth century BC. At Zone 1, the houses were first aligned together into long rows, with the short side

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Fig. 3.2: Evolution of houses at Zone 1 from Lattara for the period 375–200 BC (map: redrawn by the author, courtesy of Lattes excavations).

of the house opening out onto a street, but with a narrow alleyway separating the individual houses (Fig. 3.1). By the fourth century BC, however, the houses were now all seemingly grouped together one against another, sharing a common wall, perhaps due to an increasingly dense population at Lattara (Fig. 3.2). Generally, the doorways of individual houses opened out onto a common street, suggesting the potential importance of a shared communal space outside each house. This increasingly consistent pattern of physically aggregating individual houses into elongated blocks that shared a common street seems to suggest the potential existence of some kind of a larger social unit incorporating multiple individual households. One possibility is the presence of extended households in which the individual families were all related by some kind of common kinship, all sharing perhaps, a common set of parents or grandparents. Certainly, numerous anthropological studies have documented how frequent a phenomenon this is throughout the world in non-industrial societies.16 In

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many traditional agricultural societies in particular, this is especially important, since agricultural work can require at times a significant investment of labor, and larger groups tend to produce more than what a nuclear family could produce on its own.17 Likewise, in societies lacking overt centralized political institutions, kinship is often an important structuring principle that binds society together in a fundamental way.18 Supporting this latter point is the fact that there is no clear archaeological evidence at Lattara before the first century BC for any kind of centralized religious and political center for the community; temples and other public buildings are notably absent, and the archaeological evidence for ritual and religious activities instead suggests a focus on the household, rather than the community as whole.19 In particular, from the fifth century BC through the end of the first century BC, two somewhat interrelated ritual practices focused on the physical house itself: the interment of perinatal infants in the dirt floors of houses, and the deposition of votive or apotropaic offerings also within these dirt floors – often involving either a snake or a bird, sometimes placed within ceramic jars (Fig. 3.3).20 In addition, one of the few examples of surviving art at the site consists of square clay hearths that were decorated with intricate geometric motifs carved into the hardened clay and which often provided a central focus for

Fig. 3.3: Graph showing the relative frequency as represented in the archaeological record (occurrence by number of identified floor layers per period) for decorated hearths at Lattara (top), and perinatal infant burials and votive offerings (bottom).

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many of these houses (Fig. 3.4).21 Seemingly associated with these decorated hearths were rough terracotta depictions of animals – often either some kind of a ram or an ox – for holding burning logs, one of the very few zoomorphic representations found at Lattara.22 These terracotta figures served perhaps as apotropaic guardians of the house’s central hearth, and in many societies throughout the world, the central hearth of a house often provides the symbolic center of all cosmology.23 While it is somewhat difficult to discern clear patterns, decorated hearths were seemingly not present in every two-room domestic unit making up the elongated blocks of houses. Given the apparent significance of these decorated hearths, it is possible that the decorated hearths marked the abode of the ranking members of these aggregated extended households – elders of an extended family for example – with perhaps their adult children and associated families living in the adjacent rooms of the elongated block (see for example House 126 from Zone 1 at Lattara for the period 425–400 BC as depicted in Fig. 3.1). However, for reasons that are still somewhat unclear, by around 300 BC decorated hearths became less frequent at the settlement, to the point that they seem to have disappeared by the end of the third century BC (Fig. 3.3).24

Fig. 3.4: Photo of a decorated hearth, and a terracotta figurine (inset) used for holding burning logs on the hearth (photos: courtesy of Lattes excavations, UFRAL).

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Despite the disappearance of decorated hearths as a ritual focus of the house, the excavations at Zone 1 in particular, which have produced the deepest stratigraphic chronology at the site, seemingly indicate again a certain important continuity with the larger period of deep time preceding the foundation at Lattara (Fig.  3.2). The consistent pattern that emerges here at Block 1 and elsewhere across the site, is of relatively small, two-room units – each likely housing some kind of a nuclear family – physically grouped together into larger social units sharing a communal external space. As mentioned, this partite division of space is evident at many houses in the region from the earlier Iron Age, or even farther back into the Bronze Age as at Laouret à Floure, mentioned above. Certain changes do become evident by the third century BC at Lattara in terms of the domestic organization of the settlement, but at the same time, these changes seem to build upon the pre-existing social organization of the site, which in turn appears to have been rooted in domestic organization going back centuries. All of this seemingly reflects a rhythm of transformation that is strikingly different from the more abrupt social break in regard to new courtyard houses that we will see later for the first century BC following the Roman conquest.

Change and Continuity in the Later Iron Age at Lattara: 300–50 BC Among these developments evident by the third century BC, there was a seeming increase in rooms devoted to storage, involving larger and more numerous storage pits for holding large ceramic jars often known by the Latin term dolium (plural dolia).25 In part, even this development may not have been entirely without any precedence; after all, even the houses from the Late Bronze Age often had separate but adjacent rooms for the storage of agricultural produce and for sheltering livestock.26 Before the third century BC, it may be that the community at Lattara was keeping a great deal of its cereal grains outside the site in grain silos dug into the ground – as was clearly the case for the site of Ensérune in western Languedoc.27 Overall, however, at some level the increase in the numbers and overall size of storage rooms likely represents an important intensification in agricultural production at the site, as will be further discussed in Chapter 4. What is also significant is that in many cases these storage rooms were unconnected by internal doorways to any adjoining houses, with the entrance to these storage rooms opening out directly onto the communal street. Furthermore, often times – as we see for example in Zones 1, 8, 16, 52, and 54 – these storage rooms were often located at the end of a block of houses or opened out onto one of the main thoroughfares of the settlement. Seemingly, then, these storage rooms may have been associated with larger social groups incorporating several nuclear families, rather than being directly associated with any one nuclear family occupying a single house. In addition to this increase in agricultural production, another major development was the appearance of two different modifications to the basic social grouping of multiple two-room units arranged into elongated blocks. First, many of these elongated blocks were increasingly one-room deep, rather than two-room deep as before,

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perhaps related in part to an increase in population density at Lattara (as mentioned, we certainly know that during the third century BC the settlement expanded significantly to the north). Although the basic bipartite division of space into two rooms continues with these shallower elongated blocks, many of these rooms were now unconnected to one another by an internal doorway, instead opening out onto a communal street (Fig. 3.5). Secondly, by the third century BC, there was an increasing number of clusters of rooms that were now arranged around a central courtyard, rather than strung-out in an elongated block of rooms. Although archaeologists have often treated these “courtyard blocks” as a unique phenomenon, in many ways they arguably follow a similar logic to the elongated blocks of houses.28 While the elongated blocks share a common street, the courtyard blocks share a communal courtyard, but the basic domestic organization of these units is quite similar. Indeed, although archaeologists have referred to these groups of rooms as “courtyard houses” (maisons à cours) the term is in fact arguably perhaps misleading, since it appears that these dwellings arranged around a central courtyard likely housed several nuclear families, as with the elongated blocks, rather than just one primary nuclear family, as we will see with the Roman period.29 Even at the largest “courtyard house,” at Zone 52, there is not the kind of specialization of space that we see later for the Roman courtyard houses of the first century AD. Indeed, at Zone 52, there is no difference here – or at any other of the “courtyard blocks” – in terms of building techniques and construction, the function of the different rooms, or the kinds of artifacts found.30 Here at Zone 52, the walls were of typical mudbrick covered with layers of clay and built on top of dry-stone foundations, while the rooms all had simple dirt floors. In terms of the function of domestic space, we see a similar bipartite division between cooking/storage and living spaces. For the period ca. 200 BC, for example, one room had a large number of storage pits for holding dolia, and opened out onto the main street, rather onto the courtyard (Fig. 3.6).31 Just to the east, another room also contained a large number of storage pits for holding dolia, as well as a large hearth for cooking or grilling cereal grains, but in this case opened out onto the courtyard. Along the western wing, we see at least one other room with a number of large cooking hearths, suggesting another kitchen space, perhaps associated with a different nuclear family. Opposite this, on the eastern wing we see again another room with a large hearth, likely representing a third kitchen space, while two other rooms, one on either side, likely functioned as more polyvalent spaces for sleeping, eating, or socializing. Here at Zone 52, then, the largest of the “courtyard blocks,” we see the same division of domestic space as with the elongated blocks of houses, with several rooms for cooking and storage, several others for sleeping, and a communal storage room, all likely associated with a number of nuclear families. As we have seen previously, in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, there was a clear pattern of houses consisting of two rooms each – a back room for sleeping and storage and a front room for cooking.32 In the case of both the shallower elongated

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Fig. 3.5: Use of domestic space at Zone 31 at Lattara for the periods 225–200 BC (top) and 200–175 BC (bottom) (map: redrawn by the author, courtesy of Lattes excavations).

blocks that were only one-room deep, and the courtyard blocks, this basic bipartite division of domestic space continues, and there seems to be a general distinction between rooms devoted to cooking – often now with some capacity for storage as

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well – and rooms that served a more polyvalent function of sleeping, socializing, and storage (Fig. 3.6). Furthermore, an analysis of the spatial syntax of the different blocks of two-room units at Lattara during the Iron Age based upon access points reveals strikingly few differences between the earlier blocks of two-room units and either the elongated or courtyard blocks from the third century BC onwards (Fig. 3.7, A).33 In fact, the general pattern up through the end of the first century BC based upon the space syntax is that of a number of rooms opening onto a shared space open to the sky, with rooms extending back by no more than one or two rooms.34 The only major difference by the third century BC seems to be a slight decrease in the number of two-room units that shared an internal doorway, with the shared open space (either a street or a courtyard) thus more and more important as a space for joining together the various rooms of a block.35 This probable increasing importance of common open spaces suggests perhaps an even greater importance of larger social groups physically aggregating individual nuclear families, something that is certainly suggested by the fact that many of the more important storage rooms seems to have been “shared” amongst several households, as discussed above. Interestingly, several changes are evident in the ritual domestic practices for this period that might also further support this idea. In particular, the decorated hearths – which seemed to have served as an important symbolic focus of smaller groups of houses – disappear in the course of the third century BC, although they are present in the earliest courtyard blocks from the late fourth century BC. As before, this too may perhaps reflect a shift in importance from smaller social groups to larger units incorporating a larger number of nuclear families. Generally speaking, however, nothing survives archaeologically that could clearly point to more integrative ritual practices that would have served to integrate larger social units. There is, however, a notable increase at Lattara after ca. 200 BC in imported wine amphorae – now increasingly from the Italian peninsula – and in particular, black gloss bowls and plates – again generally of Italic origin, specifically Campania.36 In both cases, these imported goods seem to be associated with the consumption of wine, likely in the context of some kind of indigenous feasting or other ceremonies. Given the complete absence of larger plazas or spaces in the settlement that could have allowed for the general assembly of large segments of the community as a whole, the shared communal spaces of streets and the somewhat more enclosed courtyards may have thus served as the locus of important feasting and other social events bringing together larger groups of nuclear families than before, who all shared this communal space. The exact nature of these larger social groups is unfortunately somewhat unclear. As mentioned above, one is certainly tempted to see in the physical aggregation of multiple two-room units – whether in the two-room deep or one-room deep elongated blocks or in the courtyard blocks – a physical reflection of some kind of a larger extended household, in which multiple interrelated nuclear families lived together and pooled resources, sharing a communal street or courtyard (Fig. 3.8). If this was the case – and it is certainly possible based upon the archaeological evidence from Lattara and what we know anthropologically about non-industrial societies37 – the

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Fig. 3.6: A comparison of the use of domestic space at Zones 1, 31, and 52, ca. 200 BC. It should be emphasized that in the case of Zone 31, not all of the block has been excavated, in contrast to Zone 52; the number of families attached to Zone 31 was thus probably greater than at Zone 52 (redrawn by the author, courtesy of Lattes excavations; map of Zone 52 courtesy of Michael Dietler).

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Fig. 3.7: An analysis of the space syntax, based upon access points, for domestic space at Lattara for the pre-conquest period up to the late first century BC (A), and a comparison (B) with the space syntax for houses from Roman-period Mediterranean Gaul for the late first century BC to the second century AD (drawing: author).

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Fig. 3.8: The overall use of domestic space throughout the site of Lattara for the period ca. 225–175 BC (map: modified by the author, courtesy of Lattes excavations).

nature of these kinship ties still remains unclear; whether, for example, the families all traced their common descent through the mother’s side (matrilineal descent), the father’s side (patrilineal or agnatic descent), or consisted of a combination of both sides of the family (bilateral or cognatic descent).38 Little to no evidence survives, however, in terms of specific kinship terminology for Iron Age Mediterranean Gaul. When stone funerary inscriptions of Celtic names written in Greek letters appear at the very end of the Iron Age, the only social relationship indicated on these inscriptions is that of son or daughter and father.39 For example, a double inscription from western Provence, to the east of the Rhône River, gives the names of two deceased individuals, apparently a husband and wife: Eccaios Eckingomarius (the son of Eskingomaros), and Ouimpilla Adiatoussia (the daughter of Adiatossos).40 Furthermore, this patronymic naming system, in which an individual has a personal first name and then a second name deriving from the father’s first name, is typical more generally of Indo-European peoples, and seemingly reveals little in regard to specific forms of social organization in Iron Age Mediterranean Gaul.41 At a general level for all of greater Iron Age Gaul as a

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whole, many scholars have certainly argued that extended kinship groups comprising multiple nuclear households would have been a crucial social unit before the Roman conquest, and that, “the societies of pre-Roman Gaul seem to have been largely organized on the basis of kinship.”42 Furthermore, a recent reevaluation of the archaeology of kinship relations has asserted that bilateral arrangements of extended households tend to be fairly informal in spatial organization – with individual doorways opening out in different directions – whereas unilineal descent (i.e. either patrilineal or matrilineal) tends to exhibit a much more regular patterning.43 If true, the evidence from Lattara would seemingly point more toward a unilineal pattern of descent across the settlement, although this, it should be emphasized, is purely speculative, and much more research would be needed to say anything more definitive. Of course, many other contemporary settlements and cities in the Greco-Roman world also exhibit regular planning and patterning of houses, without there being reason to believe that this was due to kinship organization. At the Hellenistic city of Olynthus in Greece, which was completely destroyed in 348 BC, excavations have revealed regular blocks of fairly uniform houses.44 Unlike at Lattara, however, the houses at Olynthus seem to be much more functionally independent one from another, despite their physical grouping; each had a fairly regular division of functional space – sleeping rooms, storage rooms, a kitchen, workshops, and a formal dining room (andron).45 While all domestic space in the ancient Mediterranean world was admittedly far more polyvalent than today – in the sense that any given room could have served a vast array of different social functions – the rooms at Lattara are by far more polyvalent in this regard than at Olynthus, and lack furthermore any clear internal hierarchy or differentiation, in which one room would have been considered more “important” than others.46 Furthermore, the fact that so many of these polyvalent rooms at Lattara opened out onto a common open street or courtyard, unlike at Olynthus, suggests a quite different social integration of individual domestic units into larger social groups at Lattara than at a contemporary Greek city like Olynthus. Finally, it is worth mentioning the striking differences between domestic and urban organization at Lattara and contemporary Hellenistic Greek cities, as well as their Republican-period Roman counterparts.47 Unlike contemporary Greek or Roman cities, such as the Greek colony at nearby Massalia, there is a striking absence of temples or monumental public spaces or buildings within the settlement at Lattara prior to the Roman conquest.48 This is certainly the trend for eastern Languedoc more generally, where the earliest public buildings and monuments appear only after the Roman conquest at the end of the second century BC, although some examples of monumental architecture – most notably the covered portico from Roquepertuse dating to the third century BC, do exist from western Provence for the late Iron Age.49 By contrast, the Roman town of Cosa, founded in 273 BC as a Latin colony in southern Etruria, reveals significant differences with Lattara, both in terms of the domestic organization of individual houses, and in its larger urban plan (Fig. 3.9).50 The colony flourished through the mid-first century BC, and was thus perfectly contemporary

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Fig. 3.9: Comparison of the settlement plan at Lattara (right) with the contemporary Latin colony of Cosa (left) in southern Etruria. Inset: triskele motif from a decorated hearth found at the nearby oppidum of La Roque (maps: redrawn by the author).

with the developments at Lattara occurring by the third century BC. Indeed, many of the Italic amphorae found at Lattara likely originated from the territory associated with Cosa. Like the Greek city of Olynthus, the colony at Cosa was laid out in a typical orthogonal grid, despite the relatively rugged terrain of the Latin colony. Also as at Olynthus – and unlike at Lattara – the rooms within each house at Cosa were organized around a central courtyard or atrium, and again show a greater specialization of space in comparison with the much more polyvalent rooms of Lattara.51 Furthermore, unlike at the somewhat earlier settlement at Olynthus (and also unlike contemporary Lattara), at Cosa there is a hierarchy in terms of the overall size and ostentation of the houses, seemingly a physical manifestation of the social hierarchy of different classes of colonists at Cosa, something that would only clearly appear at Lattara after the Roman conquest.52 At a larger scale, the overall urban pattern at Cosa reveals a centralization and hierarchy of space within the settlement likewise strikingly absent from Iron Age Lattara; at Cosa the main streets of the colony all converge on the forum – both the symbolic and literal heart of the city. By contrast, at Lattara there is no hierarchically centralized core of the settlement; on the contrary, the three main streets at Lattara form a kind of large ellipse spanning the entire settlement, and one could quite literally have walked in a great circle across Lattara without ever finding the real urban center of the settlement. While speculative, at a more symbolic level,

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the three principle streets of Lattara seemingly form a kind of triskele – a common sacred motif throughout the Celtic-speaking regions of Europe, with the three axes forming a kind of never-ending circle (Fig.  3.9, see inset). Certainly, scholars have often noted how both domestic space and the larger physical layout of a settlement tend to recapitulate the basic cosmology of a society, and in any case, Lattara clearly reveals a symbolic conception of society that is notably different from contemporary cities of the Greco-Roman world. Walking through the settlement likely would have been somewhat disorienting for an outsider visiting Lattara for the first time; aside from the three main thoroughfares running the length of the site, most of the settlement, certainly within the fortification walls at least, consisted of a bewildering network of narrow streets with doorways opening out all along the unremarkable and quite homogeneous mudbrick walls (Fig. 3.10). Nothing, aside from the fortification walls and towers, seems to have been notably high or imposing, and there is no evidence for second stories to any of the houses. Entering one of these houses, one would likely have been first greeted

Fig. 3.10: A reconstruction of Zone 31 at Lattara, looking toward the west down the long row of houses, ca. 200 BC (drawing: author).

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by the smoke of the cooking fires, especially in the colder and rainier months when people cooked outside less often. All along the walls of the room there would have been ceramic jars of varying sizes, while other food – such as salted cuts of pork or dried fish – likely hung from the ceiling. Somewhere near the storage jars there likely would have been a portable stone grist mill for grinding flour as well. Walking into the back room beyond this kitchen area, there likely would have been woven reed mats on the floors for sleeping, piled high with animal pelts for warmth and comfort. A wooden loom for weaving clothes and blankets may have stood in one corner of this room as well. Whether one was observing a house from 75 BC, or 200 BC, or 425 BC, or indeed even farther back into the Bronze Age at some nearby site, in many ways the impression of domestic life would have been quite similar. Families lived in close contact with one another, and leaving the small house, it would have been nearly impossible to avoid running into someone one knew, often likely someone to whom one was related by kinship or marriage. In many ways, however, this social organization to the community at Lattara would change following the Roman conquest.

Changes in Domestic Space Under Roman Rule: 50 BC–AD 100 At first, following the initial Roman invasion of 125–121 BC, there is little evidence for any kind of major social disruption in terms of domestic architecture at Lattara. On the contrary, for the period ca. 125–50 BC there is a continuity in the domestic architecture at the settlement with the previous Iron Age (see, for example, the space syntax for Block 30 in Fig. 3.7). In particular, the shallower elongated blocks of just one room in depth seem to be increasingly more common.53 However, after the middle of the first century BC, there are increasing signs hinting at the beginnings of possible social disruption in the community. Archaeologists working at the site in the 1960s and 1970s believed that they had found evidence for a general destruction of the settlement related to the Roman conquest sometime at the end of the second or early first century BC.54 Although today that preliminary interpretation – based, as it was, upon small exploratory trenches dug at the site – has been discredited, there is still evidence for a more sporadic, small-scale abandonment and burning of certain houses throughout the settlement by the middle of the first century BC, possibly indicating some initial disruption by this time period.55 Furthermore, between 50 and 25 BC, the fortification walls of the settlement were torn down and leveled out, creating a large terrace extending beyond the original settlement. Around the same time, ca. 50–25 BC, many – if not all in some places – of the traditional blocks of houses within the settlement appear to have been dismantled. In the place of these traditional aggregated blocks of domestic units a quite different organization of urban space emerged: open “public” spaces with large civic or monumental buildings of a non-domestic nature, new ritual spaces, a network of drains and sewers, larger courtyard houses, and on the outskirts of the settlement, a new concentration of artisan workshops (Fig. 3.11). Especially striking is the overall disappearance of the traditional blocks of

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Fig. 3.11: The urban landscape of the northern part of the settlement at Lattara ca. 25 BC–AD 75 (map: redrawn by author, courtesy of Lattes excavations).

houses, hinting at a certain degree of disruption in social life at Lattara. Based upon the estimates for the household size and density of these Iron Age dwellings, for the northern part of the settlement, for example, at a minimum, the abandonment and demolition of these elongated blocks of houses almost certainly displaced at the very least 20 nuclear families (or very approximately 100 individuals at a minimum).56 Equally significant is the fact that in the area in question, only one major house has been found in the place of these destroyed rows of traditional houses (House 6001 from Zone 60-South). While the archaeological record for the period is somewhat

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incomplete, all the other buildings found to date are apparently of a non-domestic nature (e.g. public/civic functions, ritual, artisan, etc.). Where these displaced families would have gone is unfortunately unclear: in some cases, they may simply have moved into the countryside, thereby having a more direct access to surrounding farmland. Based upon what we know about early Roman rule in the province under governors like Marcus Fonteius (see the previous chapter), others may have met a more sinister fate, either being sold off into slavery or forced to work as dependents in richer and more powerful households, whether in the countryside or in the settlement itself. The demolition of these traditional aggregated blocks of houses was apparently not an isolated phenomenon at Lattara, and it is evident at other indigenous oppida in the region as well. At Nemausus (modern Nîmes), for example, the area that would become the Roman forum, including the famous Maison Carrée (a temple dedicated to the Imperial Cult which is still standing today), was originally occupied by a dense occupation of traditional houses. Around 25 BC, all the houses were leveled in an area of ca. 3000 m2. In their place, a large open square, surrounded by covered porticoes, was built over the ruins of these houses.57 A second, more ostentatious monumental space, which would include the temple today known as the Maison Carrée, was then later built between 10 BC and AD 5. Assuming a more or less similar density throughout this space of 3000 m2 (only part of the area was able to be excavated down to the level of the late first-century BC indigenous houses), the construction of this public space at the end of the first century BC would again likely have involved at a minimum the displacement of at least 20 to 21 nuclear families.58 Given the civic, non-domestic nature of the buildings from the northern section of Lattara mentioned above, it is thus quite possible that for at least part of the settlement, the destruction of the blocks of traditional houses was a deliberate policy – likely by local leaders – to make room for more monumental architecture. Furthermore, the new houses built over the ruins of the earlier traditional blocks often show notable differences in their organization and in the function of domestic space compared with the Iron Age houses. The best evidence from this at Lattara comes from the courtyard house (House 6001) discovered at Zone 60-South (Fig. 3.12).59 Constructed sometime around 25 BC, this house was occupied until ca. AD 75 at the latest.60 The orientation of the different rooms of this house around a very large enclosed courtyard shows some similarities with the earlier “courtyard blocks” from the Iron Age, but all the evidence suggests that with House 6001, only one principle nuclear family was living in the house. Here, the house likely consisted of six rooms arranged around a large open courtyard, which had a basin in the middle and a drain evacuating water from the basin into the street outside the courtyard. Unlike with the pre-conquest courtyard blocks (such as the one from Zone 52), only one hearth appears to have been present in House 6001: a central cooking fire in a large room in the southwest corner of the house that archaeologists interpreted as a kitchen.61 The rooms in the northeastern corner of the house (Rooms 1, 2, 9, and 10) were much smaller, and recall the cubicula, or sleeping rooms, of a typical Roman house (domus).

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In particular, it is notable that rooms 1 and 2 had a concrete floor, clearly inspired by Roman building techniques, perhaps suggesting their use for sleeping, since the concrete floors would have been much less humid than dirt floors. Room 1 along the eastern wing of the house specifically had a concrete floor decorated with lines of black tesserae, suggesting its central importance within the house as a whole.62 Interestingly, this decorated concrete floor only covered approximately two-thirds of the small room, and it is likely that the part of the floor lacking a mosaic was covered by a sleeping or reclining couch (kline). Based upon the central importance of this room and its probable function as a space for sleeping, the excavators concluded that this room would likely have been occupied by the master of the household, with the rooms along the northern wing of the house reserved for other household members.63 Finally, a longer room, interpreted as a storage room, was present in the southeastern corner of the house. What is striking most noticeably about House 6001 is how much space it occupied, especially in comparison to earlier households. Given the specialization of space here – three to four possible sleeping rooms, a kitchen, and a storage room – the house may not have been inhabited by multiple nuclear families, and there is certainly no evidence for the repetition of functions in different rooms (e.g. multiple kitchens)

Fig. 3.12: Remains of houses from the first century AD found at Lattara, compared with an earlier typical block of Iron Age houses from ca. 200 BC. For Trench S26, only the most recent walls are depicted (redrawn by the author, courtesy of Lattes excavations).

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that was seen at earlier domestic spaces, such as the “courtyard block” from Zone 52. House 6001 furthermore was apparently built over an earlier series of elongated blocks of houses, suggesting again a certain depopulation in the center of the settlement, potentially allowing the few remaining families to construct much larger houses by the end of the first century BC.64 No other houses from within the ramparts of the original indigenous settlement at Lattara have been found to date, despite the presence of storage hangars, artisan workshops, and public or civic buildings, reflecting in part the more dispersed nature of the settlement by the first century AD, as well as the damage that later agricultural ploughing has had on the Roman levels within the confines of the ramparts.65 However, other, less complete houses have been found to the north and the south of the confines of the original settlement, although none of them have been fully excavated.66 For example, just to the south of the settlement, close to the port, archaeologists in 1968 found the remains of a quite opulent house dating to the latter part of the first century AD. Although the overall floorplan of the house is impossible to reconstruct due to the limited excavations, in one of the rooms was a large floor mosaic of black, white, and red tesserae depicting geometric motifs, as well as a row of some kind of fish or dolphins.67 To the north of the core of the settlement (especially the trenches S14 and S15), archaeologists found a number of far more modest houses with architectural elements hearkening back to pre-conquest houses, including dry stone foundation walls and simple dirt floors (Fig. 3.12).68 At the same time, in the case of the house from trench S15, the organization of space, while fragmentary, suggests a much larger and more specialized use of domestic space, including the presence of an open courtyard with a well and another large room – possibly also open to the sky – that was paved in flat stones and mortar.69 In addition, there is good evidence that some of the rooms from the collection of artisan workshops found at trench S26 to the north of the settlement also functioned as domestic space, presumably for those working there.70 For example, communal ceramics, culinary refuse (e.g. faunal remains and oyster and mussel shells), and traces of hearths were found concentrated in certain sectors in the excavation zone S26.71 This is especially evident for Sectors 7a, 7b, and 7c, which appear quite similar to earlier Iron Age houses, with the exception of the red ceramic tiles for the roof and the red-painted walls for sector 7c.72 Based upon ongoing excavations, this pattern of small domestic spaces for workers and artisans interspersed amongst workshops also seems to be present at the Roman-period port of Lattara as well.73 The emergence of these larger and seemingly much more independent courtyard houses is evident as well more generally throughout the larger region of eastern Languedoc. At the oppidum of Ambrussum, for example, archaeologists have found four different Roman-style courtyard houses from the first century AD: three from the oppidum, and one from the lower settlement along the Vidourle River that developed after ca. 30 BC (Fig. 3.13).74 All four houses were quite large, around 400 m2 in size, and were characterized by multiple rooms surrounding a central courtyard.75 The

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Fig. 3.13: Map of Ambrussum showing the location of the Roman-period courtyard houses at Sectors 4 and 9 (redrawn by the author, courtesy of Lattes excavations).

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houses employed Roman architectural techniques, including red roof tiles (tegulae), concrete for some of the floors, wall paintings, and lime mortar and cut stone for the walls. Significantly, all these courtyard houses, as with the slightly earlier house from Zone 60-South at Lattara mentioned above, exhibited a specialization and division of domestic space that was significantly different from the Iron Age houses at Lattara. While the houses vary, there are nevertheless a number of important architectural similarities for all four of these houses, as well as for similar courtyard houses from the first century AD at other sites in the region.76 As the name suggests, all of these new, Roman-period “courtyard houses” were organized around a central courtyard, often enclosed either by a covered portico, or by an atrium, a square opening in the roof of the house allowing light to shine into the center of the dwelling (Figs 3.14 and 3.15). Most notably, all of these houses had a room which was conspicuously placed in the center of the house, often directly opposite the main entrance, seemingly designed to spatially orient anyone entering into the house toward this central room.77 Furthermore, unlike the other rooms of the house, this centrally situated room did not have a doorway, but was instead entirely open to the courtyard space. While this open side of the room was likely covered by some kind of a wooden screen or shutters in inclement weather, the fact that this central room could be completely opened would presumably have drawn even further the attention of anyone entering the courtyard. Along similar lines, in two of the houses at Ambrussum this central room was oriented toward the south, allowing the maximum exposure of sunlight, and arguably thereby also highlighting (somewhat literally) the importance of this room. In terms of the architectural design of this central room, it seems to at least somewhat resemble the tablinum of a typical Roman house, where the master of the house could receive clients and conduct business, and which was often designed specifically to highlight for visitors its symbolic importance within the overall house as a center of authority.78 At House A from Ambrussum, the greatest concentration of metallic artifacts associated with decoration came from this central room (Room 5), including a fragment of a small statuette of the Celtic god Sucellus, suggesting perhaps the presence of a small shrine here.79 Flanking the central room in these houses were smaller, narrower rooms that likely often functioned as cubicula – small sleeping rooms – a likelihood reinforced by the fact that these narrow rooms, seemingly designed above all for a sleeping couch, often had concrete floors, protecting the sleeper from the dampness of sleeping on an earthen floor. Finally, especially in the corners of these courtyard houses, there was often a storage room or a kitchen – identifiable by a large central hearth that was now often built with a concrete base. Significantly, these new courtyard houses from the Roman period only possessed one large cooking hearth for the entire house, rather than the multiple cooking hearths present for the earlier Iron Age courtyard blocks at Lattara. In addition, archaeologists have also found evidence to suggest that these Romanperiod courtyard houses possessed specific lodging and communal spaces for domestic dependents or enslaved workers. This possibility is suggested, for example, by the

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Fig. 3.14: A comparison of the use of domestic space at two courtyard houses from the first century AD at Ambrussum, compared with an earlier typical block of Iron Age houses from Lattara ca. 200 BC (redrawn by the author; Sector 4 after Fiches 1986; Sector 9 after Fiches 2009).

Fig. 3.15: Reconstruction of House A from Sector 4 at Ambrussum, ca. AD 40–100 (drawing: author).

presence in certain communal rooms with dirt floors of two doorways – one leading into the central courtyard and another leading to the outside – suggesting that whoever passed through this room may not have always been welcome to enter into the house through the main entrance.80 Most notably, in the courtyard house from Sector 9 from the lower settlement at Ambrussum, a dirt-floor room (Room 12/13)

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was strikingly similar to the traditional domestic unit of the earlier Iron Age and formed one wing of the courtyard house, with its own exit to the outside (Fig. 3.14). In particular, this room notably exhibited the same kind of bipartite division of space evident in the earlier Iron Age houses. In the back (northern part) of this room was a large elevated platform – likely for sleeping, as with earlier examples from the Iron Age.81 In the southern part of the room closest to the entranceway to the outside, archaeologists found a dense concentration of household debris – faunal remains, mussel shells, communal ceramic sherds – as well as the remains of multiple hearths. Despite the similarity to domestic organization from earlier times, however, the social organization linking this unit with larger society appears fundamentally different. Whereas multiple individuals may have slept all together in the raised platform in the back of the room, in the northern wing of the same house it appears that a few individuals slept in smaller, more individualized cubicula flanking the main central room of the house. Unlike the multiple families clustered around a central courtyard for the Iron Age at Lattara, all living in the same types of rooms, there are clearly a number of new social divisions evident in the way the two groups lived here at Sector 9 from Ambrussum for the first century AD.82 Lastly, here again the space syntax, as based upon access points, reveals important changes in the organization of houses: in particular, Roman-period houses in the region often seem now to be configured around two nodes around which the rooms were oriented, with one node often for work, and the other for living (Fig  3.7, B). This is both evident at more opulent houses, such as the wealthy Villa Loupian from the surrounding countryside to the west of Lattara, which will be further discussed in the next chapter, as well as at far more modest houses, such as the second phase of the courtyard house from Sector 9 at Ambrussum. Furthermore, all these houses have rooms which exhibit evidence to suggest that they were used for cooking, eating, and sleeping, but which have differentiated access, suggesting a desire to potentially physically separate different people of the house.

The Emergence of the Roman Domus All the houses from the late first century BC and first century AD discussed here, then, show significant changes with pre-conquest Lattara, both in terms of the size of the house and in the organization of domestic space. Although groups of people were apparently still living under the same roof in the first century AD, the social relations linking them together seem to have changed rather significantly, compared with the earlier social systems of the Iron Age at Lattara. Now, some individuals slept in small, specialized rooms with decorated walls and concrete floors, while others were still sleeping in a large room also used for cooking and storage. Previously, everyone had slept, ate, and socialized in the exact same living conditions at pre-conquest Lattara, but now it is quite clear that by the first century AD, some individuals were distancing themselves – quite literally as well as in a social sense – from others. By the first

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century AD, then, a new social unit in society seems to have emerged, consisting of a single nuclear family living in a large courtyard house, likely with a number of individuals attached to the household in a subservient manner as dependent or enslaved workers. The focus on an enclosed courtyard, rather than a shared open space for extended families as before, also seems to be significant, and perhaps reflects a certain turning inwards of the basic social units at the site. Furthermore, beyond the level of specific households, we no longer see the patterned grouping together of houses into larger social units that may have represented larger extended families all living together during the Iron Age. While more traditional forms of domestic organization persisted, these individual domestic units do not seem to have been integrated with the larger community in the same way. By the late first century BC and first century AD at both Lattara and Ambrussum, houses seem to be often unattached from one another, and instead were surrounded by non-domestic structures, such as public buildings, workshops, and so on. By the second century BC, when Rome conquered Mediterranean Gaul, the dominant social unit in Roman society was the domus, which could refer to at once the social unit which all lived together in the same house, as well as the physical house itself.83 This domus consisted of a nuclear family of parents and children, as well as enslaved members of the household unrelated by kinship to the master of the house, and any other dependent workers and clients serving in the house as well.84 Significantly, in the Middle Ages in Mediterranean France, the word for household in medieval Latin was still domus, which was used along with the Occitan term ostal, which derived from the late Latin word hospitalis, meaning shelter or residence. In both cases, the terms could designate either the physical house, or the social unit residing in it.85 The domus or ostal in the medieval society of Languedoc was strictly bilateral, with several generations of bilateral kin living together in the same house, often with some attached servants, and there was no clear pattern of matrilocal or patrilocal residence.86 This in turn seems to reflect a significant difference between the physical layout of Iron Age oppida in eastern Languedoc and later medieval villages: whereas before, the oppida at a site like Lattara from the Iron Age were so regularly “planned” that archaeologists have assumed that there must have been some kind of a central authority (although kinship rules may have also at least partially structured this organization), in medieval times the villages lack any of this regularity in the arrangement of houses. This is evident at medieval villages that have been recently excavated in eastern Languedoc, such as at the site of Mas Roux at Castriès or Missagnac at Aimargues.87 As will be discussed further in Chapter 7, there is also a notable hierarchy in the size and ostentation of the houses at Lattara and throughout eastern Languedoc by the first century AD, in marked contrast to the striking equality in houses within the community at Lattara prior to Roman colonialism. At the same time, there is also a new differentiation and hierarchy within these houses as well (see Fig.  3.7). Certain rooms were socially more important and prestigious than others; a visitor to

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a Roman-period courtyard house would have likely been drawn to the central room of the house – perhaps akin to a kind of Roman tablinum – adorned with ostentatious metal decorations and illuminated by the warm Mediterranean sun. By contrast, the rooms in the corners of these houses had their own doorways, such that whoever worked in these rooms could enter into the house unseen from the courtyard, and without seeing the central room, where the master of the house was perhaps discussing business affairs (this social arrangement is again evident again in the space syntax of the houses, see Fig. 3.7). There is simply nothing akin to this in the earlier Iron Age houses; before the Roman conquest there does seem to be some functional and symbolic distinctions based upon a series of oppositions – light/dark, cooking/ sleeping, for example, and perhaps also gender distinctions – but there is nothing there that could create a division based upon social class. In contrast, by physically embodying the symbolic language of hierarchy and domination, the Roman-period courtyard houses at settlements like Lattara or Ambrussum – despite being relatively modest compared with the ostentatious houses of larger cities in the province like Narbo Martius or Nemausus – seem to nevertheless repeat the same architectural language of hierarchy and exclusion typical of the well-to-do houses at Roman towns and cities such as Pompeii in the first century AD.88 Indeed, it is notable that the inhabitants of at least House A from Sector 4 at Ambrussum were likely native Celts, based upon the fragmented statuette of the Celtic god Sucellus found there, as well as the traditional offering in the dirt floor of the kitchen of a snake – probably a viper – along with an iron nail in a traditional ceramic cooking pot.89 Despite the apparent retention of a great deal of traditional indigenous identity, including even the seemingly distinct patterns of use of the red gloss Roman terra sigillata ceramics, the occupants of the house at the same time seem to have increasingly participated in a new system of social differentiation and hierarchy, ironically contributing to the demise of the earlier social relationships previously linking together the community.90 Juxtaposed to the new courtyard houses at Lattara and elsewhere, more traditional style houses continued throughout the first century AD as well, as seen, for example at trenches S14 and S26 at Lattara, with mudbrick walls, dirt floors and sometimes also a bipartite division of domestic space that persisted from the Iron Age.91 Perhaps not surprisingly, it is in these types of houses in particular that we see the continuation of the ritual deposits of offerings in the dirt floors of the houses.92 What is notably different, however, is how these traditional houses are no longer always grouped together into larger social units. Instead, they are often either isolated, as seemingly is the case for several examples from Lattara, or attached to a larger courtyard house, as is the case of the courtyard house from Sector 9 at Ambrussum. At the Romanperiod village of Lunel-Viel (near Ambrussum), for example, excavations revealed two different traditional houses from the first century AD, consisting of two rooms each, which were situated near much larger and ostentatious courtyard houses. Unlike at Iron Age Lattara – where the patterned grouping of two-room houses into aggregated social units of multiple families possibly represents some kind of a larger system of

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kinship – here, the houses at Lunel-Viel in the first century AD were all aligned – fittingly enough – along the east-west axis of the Roman centuriation that at once divided up the countryside and organized the village as well. Furthermore, although native domestic rituals did persist into the first century AD, the burial of perinatal children in the houses seems to have become less frequent compared with the first century BC, and does not always seem to have continued into the second century AD. Although it was still common throughout Roman Gaul during the four centuries of Roman rule to avoid burying perinatal children in the cemeteries located outside the town, they were no longer always buried within the house itself, as during the Iron Age at Lattara.93 Although no examples of perinatal burials have been found at Lattara for the first century AD or onward, at the site of Sallèles-d’Aude near the Roman colony of Narbo Martius, archaeologists have found a concentration of 16 perinatal burials from the late first century AD concentrated in the dirt floor of part of a large pottery workshop, rather than in the individual houses surrounding the workshop.94 Here, then, the modest families of potters chose as a symbolic focus not the household, but rather the common place where they worked, perhaps representing a decline in the symbolic and social importance of the household and kinship relations within the larger social relations of the community.95 Certainly, in a context of colonial violence and trauma, in which many larger social groups of kin may have been uprooted and removed one from another – as possibly occurred both at Lattara and at other sites in the region – it very well may have been the case that social identity and belonging began to coalesce more on things like occupation, rather than strict kinship or extended family groups.

Conclusion Numerous archaeological studies across time and space have demonstrated the links between the physical organization of space and specific forms of social organization, and furthermore, that changes in social relations within a community often have an important physical correlate in changing domestic architecture.96 Given the fundamental importance of the house in social life, providing the physical locus for so much of social reproduction and learning, the notable changes in domestic space and function by the first century AD at Lattara and elsewhere in the region suggest that important changes also likely occurred in terms of how people interacted with one another, both within the same house and between houses within the larger community as well. With the overall decline and disappearance of the aggregated blocks of houses that had been densely packed together within a relatively small area, the population at Lattara seems to have gradually dispersed – and the archaeological evidence from the surrounding countryside which we will see in the next chapter seemingly confirms this. Certainly, indigenous-style houses continued at Lattara and elsewhere throughout the first century AD, suggesting the volition of many local people to consciously maintain links with the past. This is evident even in aspects of the courtyard houses from Lattara

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or Ambrussum, which in terms of architecture and domestic rituals recall the earlier houses from the Iron Age. However, the new courtyard houses from the first century AD exhibit a greater specialization of space compared with the pre-conquest houses, and there is also evidence to suggest that now people were living more and more in unequal conditions under the same roof. Although the population of the region prior to the Roman conquest was certainly never static, even when the local population seems to have moved – such as when the occupants of La Cougourlude possibly settled at Lattara ca. 475 BC – the houses during the Iron Age nevertheless often seem to have showed a higher degree of continuity with earlier houses compared with the more obvious break we see by the first century AD. What was the cause of these seemingly rather dramatic changes in domestic organization and space at Lattara by the beginning of the first century AD, and why exactly did it occur at this specific moment in time? As we saw in Chapter  2, the historical evidence suggests that Roman rule in Mediterranean Gaul during the first half of the first century BC could be quite disruptive for the local population, including the enslavement of many Celts defeated in battle, the imposition of burdensome taxes, grain levies, forced conscription into the Roman army, and land seizures and redistributions – all of this culminating in a major rebellion in the region ca. 74 BC. As we will see in the next chapter, the archaeological evidence for the process of Roman centuriation – plotting out the land and then redistributing it – suggests up to four different episodes, continuing until the end of the first century BC, precisely when we see the gradual depopulation of the dense center of Lattara. The material changes in domestic form and function may thus very well be a concretization of this long period of social disruption under Roman rule. In addition to the changes in domestic social relations that this disruption seems to have engendered, more generally, the social relationships structuring the production of food and other material goods were also similarly impacted, and it is to this subject that we now turn in the next chapter.

Notes

1 E.g. Wilk and Netting 1984; Hirth 1993; Blanton 1994; Hendon 1996. 2 E.g. Wilk and Netting 1984, 6–19; Hirth 1993, 22. 3 Even, for example, in Greg Wolf ’s (1998) important work Becoming Roman on changes in lifestyle among the Celtic peoples across Gaul, he never really critically analyzes the changes in house form evident across the four provinces. 4 Although see for example Dietler (2010, 276–291) for a discussion of the changes in Iron Age houses in Mediterranean Gaul during the period of contact with Etruscan and Greek merchants. 5 For a review of the archaeological evidence for the earliest fifth-century BC houses at Lattara, see Py 2009, 66; 2012, 129–130 for Zone 1 and Lebeaupin and Séjalon 2010 for Zone 27. 6 For a general discussion of this experimentation with new architecture and building techniques in Mediterranean Gaul during the Iron Age, see Dietler 2010, 265–291. 7 For a general discussion of houses for this period, see for example, Gascó 2000; Garcia 2004, 27–51; Py 2012, 69–75. For an example of a Neolithic site in the region, see Canet and Roudil 1978 on the site of Cambous. For the Bronze and Iron Ages, see for example Nickels 1976, 99–106; Dedet 1990, 46; Gascó 2000, 56–58; Py 2012, 70.

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8 Gascό 2000, 56–58. 9 Dedet 1990. See Nickels 1976, 99–106 for a discussion of House A from La Monédière. For a discussion of the specific division of space at Gailhan, see Dedet 1990, 46. 10 On nuclear families see Fox 1967, 80. Some scholars refer to a nuclear family as a “conjugal family” (see for example Ensor 2013, 40). Here, however, I have elected to retain the term “nuclear family,” in part because it is arguably clearer to the non-specialist, with the caveat that this does not necessarily imply strict biological relationships. 11 See in particular Bourdieu 2000, especially pp. 68–72. 12 See Lebeaupin 1999; Belarte et al. 2010. 13 Belarte et al. 2010, 100. 14 Belarte et al. 2010, 100. 15 See for example House 104 and 128 at Zone 1 in Belarte et al. 2010. 16 E.g. Ensor 2013; Fox 1967. 17 E.g. Sahlins 1972 and his discussion of the “domestic mode of production.” 18 E.g. Fortes and Evans-Pritchard 1940; Bohannan and Bohannan 1953; Bohannan 1958; Middleton and Tait 1958; Evans-Pritchard 1969. Even among the politically sophisticated Haudenosaunee of upstate New York, political institutions were structured through notions of kinship. 19 The one possible exception to this was a monumental structure that would have been associated with the stone statue of a kneeling warrior – the so-called “Guerrier de Lattes,” although Py (2011, 70–71) convincingly argues that the statue was originally associated with the Etruscan presence at Lattara. 20 For an overview of the data, see De Chazelles 1990; Dedet and Schwaller 1990; Fabre 1990; Fabre and Gardeisen 1999; Dedet 2008. 21 See Roux and Raux 1996 for an overview of decorated hearths at Lattara. 22 Py 2009, 251–252. 23 A point going back to Numa, Denis Fustel de Coulanges’ (1894, 29–41) original work on the centrality of the sacred hearth, both at the domestic and civic level, in Greco-Roman society. 24 Roux and Raux 1996. 25 For an overview of the evidence for specialized storage rooms, as well as the increasing size of storage dolia, see Garcia 1992. 26 See for example the site of Laouret à Floure (Gascó 2000, 56–58). 27 Jannoray 1955. As mentioned in earlier chapters, a fair amount of the area immediately around Lattara has been developed in recent times, and it is impossible to say whether there were similar fields of grain silos outside the settlement here as at Ensérune. 28 E.g. Py 1996, 2009, 112–119; Dietler et al. 2008; Dietler 2010, 283–291. 29 See Dietler et al. 2008, 10 for a preliminary suggestion that the courtyard houses may have housed multiple nuclear families. Indeed, in some cases, the identification of a so-called “courtyard house,” as opposed to two elongated blocks of houses, seems to be somewhat forced, and is certainly not as evident as is sometimes suggested (see for example Py 2009, 115–116 in regard to Zone 54). In the case of Zone 54, the only thing that makes the two elongated blocks of houses with a space in between here any different from any other blocks of houses next to the ramparts is eventual the presence of a drain evacuating water from the common open space; in this case it seems somewhat arbitrary to refer to the two blocks as a “courtyard house.” 30 Dietler et al. 2008, 9. 31 See Py 2009, 112–114; Dietler 2010, 286. 32 For a general overview, see, for example, Py 1996. 33 For various archaeological studies employing an analysis of space syntax, see, for example, Grahame 2000; Dawson 2002; Fladd 2017. For the original work on space syntax, see Hillier and Hanson 1984.

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34 Py 1996, does suggest several units where there may be up to four rooms in a single, shared unit, but I personally must express a certain level of skepticism for some of these examples – most notably at Blocks 1 and 4-south, since the architecture is often incomplete or ambiguous regarding the placement of doorways. 35 See for example the archaeological evidence from Zone 31 for the third and second centuries BC at Zone 31 in Py 2004. 36 See Luley 2016. 37 Nicola Terrenato (2007) has argued that during the Iron Age throughout the Italian peninsula, the typical social unit was that of the clan – incorporating multiple lineages of extended families. However, the importance of the unilineal clan in the history of the ancient Italian peninsula has been significantly critiqued by Smith (2006), and Terrenato’s discussion seems to verge on a kind of primordial, timeless notion of the ever-present clan – seemingly based largely on general anthropological models – with little regionally or temporally specific considerations. 38 See Fox 1967. 39 See Lejeune 1985; Lambert 1994. The only exception to this rule is an inscription mentioning a certain woman as the “aoua” of a man, which some scholars have suggested should be translated as “granddaughter,” citing the Old Irish word aue for a grandchild. See Lejeune 1985, 158–159. 40 Lejeune 1985, 120–122. 41 Lejeune 1985, 158; Lambert 1994, 30. 42 Fernández-Götz 2014, 48–51. See also Roymans 1990, 24–27. Of course, it is arguably also a problem in making broad generalizations about large swaths of territory rather than considering contextual evidence locally and allowing for the possibility of social diversity within the same general region. 43 See Ensor 2013. 44 Nevett 1999. 45 See Nevett 1999. 46 See Wallace-Hadrill 1994 on the internal hierarchy of domestic space in Roman houses. 47 For the spatial organization of the settlement at Anagia, see Py 2015. 48 See Py 2009 for an overview of Lattara and the lack of monumental buildings. 49 See for example Arcelin et al. 1992. For the site of Roquepertuse, see Boissinot and Gantès 2000; Cognard et al. 1994. 50 For an overview of the site, see, for example Brown 1980. 51 See Fentress 2004. 52 See again Fentress 2004. 53 See, for example, the archaeological evidence for this period from Block 4-North (Py and Lopez 1990) and Blocks 30, 31, and 35 (Py 2004). 54 See Arnal et al. 1974, 78, 332–333. See Py 1988, 136 for a rebuttal to this initial interpretation of Lattara being violently destroyed by the Romans late in the second century BC. 55 An abandonment of certain blocks is evident, for example, in Zones 4-south, 4-north, 5, and 75 in the early to mid-first century BC. In the exploratory trenches S1, S2, and S3 (representing three different areas in the southern and eastern parts of the intramuros settlement) the GAP excavations uncovered a number of houses dating to the late second century or early first century BC that had apparently been destroyed by fire, which the excavators took to be evidence for a general conflagration of the settlement (see Arnal et al. 1974, 32, 37, 42, 50). While this overall hypothesis is likely incorrect, it is also worth pointing out that while the early G.A.P excavators were seemingly wrong in postulating a widespread destruction to the site after ca. 125 BC, they did seemingly uncover evidence of more localized burning of houses, which itself could potentially point to disruption at the site early on after 125 BC. 56 This area of the settlement includes the Zones 30, 60-north, 60-south, 75, and 76.

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57 Monteil 1999, 179–184. 58 Calculating 276 m2 (12 × 23 m) for the area of the indigenous houses, with an estimated two nuclear families living in this space. 59 See Monteil et al. 2000. 60 Monteil et al. 2000. 61 Monteil et al. 2000, 265, 273. 62 Monteil et al. 2000, 275–276. 63 Monteil et al. 2000, 276. 64 Monteil et al. 2000, 281. 65 The Roman-period stratigraphy of the extension of the port (zones 206–207) has thankfully been less impacted by later agricultural work. 66 See for example Py 1988, 84–86; 2009, 158–159. 67 Py 1988, 76. 68 See Py 1988, 78–82. 69 Py 1988, 79–80. This also seems to be the case for the house from trench S17, see Py 1988, 84–86. 70 See Py 1988, 94–108. For the evidence for artisanal activities in this zone of the settlement, see Py 2009, 158–160. Of note as well, the house from trench S14 was directly across the street from a space showing evidence of metallurgy activities (see Py 1988, 79). 71 See Py 1988, 96–98. 72 Py 1988, 97–98. 73 Based upon the ongoing excavations at Lattara by Gaël Piquès and the author. 74 See Fiches 1996 for an affirmation of the date of 30 BC. 75 See Fiches 1986, 2009 for an overview of these courtyard houses. 76 See, for example, the courtyard houses at Nîmes in Garmy and Monteil 2000. 77 Specifically, Room 6 from Sector 9 and Room 5 from House A of Sector 4. 78 See Wallace-Hadrill 1994. 79 Fiches 1986, 114. 80 See for example Fiches 1986, 114, 2009, 244. 81 Fiches 2009, 226. 82 Jean Luc Fiches (2009, 244), the chief excavator of Sector 9, certainly interpreted the inhabitants of Room 12/13 as “dependents,” living under the authority of the master of the household. 83 Garnsey and Saller 2015, 152–153. In this we see a classic example of the “house society” famously described by Claude Lévi-Strauss. 84 Garnsey and Saller 2015, 153. 85 Le Roy Ladurie 1969; 1975, 52; Fabre and Lacroix 1973, 178. 86 Fabre and Lacroix 1973; Le Roy Ladurie 1975. The pattern of residence is what Fox 1967, 85 would refer to as ambilocal. 87 Dusseaux et al. 2017, 66–69. When medieval villages in the area do show evidence for a clear regular grid of streets and houses, as at Aigues Mortes or the ville neuve at Carcassonne, they were planned by a central authority. In both of these two cases, for example, they were built by King Louis IX of France (Saint-Louis), as part of his campaign to control Mediterranean France in the thirteenth century. 88 See again Wallace-Hadrill 1994. See also Revell 2016, 75–80. For more ostentatious houses in Roman Mediterranean Gaul at the larger cities, see for example the Maison à Portiques at Narbo Martius (Narbonne) (Sabrié et al. 1987) or the Maison au Grand Triclinium (Sabrié and Sabrié 2011) also from Narbonne. 89 Fiches 1986, 122–123. 90 On the terra sigillata assemblages from the house, see Luley 2018a. 91 For Lattara, see for example Py 1988, 78–82.

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92 In each of the two first-century AD houses from trench S14 and S15, to the north of the core of the settlement at Lattara AD at Lattara, for example, archaeologists found a votive offering of a ceramic cooking pot buried in the floor of the house (Py 1988, 78–79). Votive deposits, consisting of a ceramic pot buried in the dirt floor, were also found in Sectors 7b and 21 from trench S26 at Lattara as well (Py 1988, 97, 105). A similar offering was found in a traditional, two-roomed house from the Roman-period village of Lunel-Viel (Raynaud 2002). 93 See for example Duday et al. 1995. 94 Duday et al. 1995. One possible example of this comes from a workshop in the port at Lattara at Zone 206, but unfortunately what appears to be a child’s tomb was disturbed by later modifications to the site, see Luley 2019, 95 Henri Duday et al. (1995, 112) suggest that the practice of perinatal infant burials within houses continued well past the first century AD at the indigenous oppidum of Cayla de Mailhac in western Languedoc, based upon unpublished data. In any case, the site of Cayla was far more isolated than the port town of Lattara, and may very well have maintained a greater degree of traditional practices than at Lattara. 96 For a very uncomprehensive list, see, for example, Hillier and Hanson 1984; Ferguson 1996; Meskell 1998; Dawson 2002; Fisher 2009; Fladd 2015.

Chapter 4 From the Home to the Villa A New Mode of Production

Looking at the material culture at Lattara from the late first century BC and onward, the increased diversity and overall quantity of material objects found at the site is striking. By this time, amphorae were no longer exclusively arriving from the Italian peninsula, as had been the case immediately preceding the Roman conquest, but were now also arriving from Baetica (in today’s southern Spain) and Tarraconesis (modern-day Catalonia), carrying new products such as fish sauce and olive oil.1 In addition, by the first century AD, there is a clear increase in the sheer number of quotidian objects that archaeologists find at Lattara – including everything from writing instruments to metal scales for measuring weight.2 Perhaps most significantly, by the early first century AD, Roman Mediterranean Gaul as a whole was now mass-producing certain important consumer goods for widespread trade across the western empire, including red gloss terra sigillata tableware and Gallic amphorae for shipping wine. At one level, then, the archaeological evidence from Lattara and the surrounding region clearly demonstrates not just an increase in access to a diverse range of material goods but also seemingly an important increase in local economic production as well – especially in terms of viniculture. Furthermore, a large corpus of archaeological and anthropological literature on local peoples forcibly incorporated into expansive colonial powers has shown how the introduction of new consumer goods into these societies need not signal any kind of clear break or rupture in local identities or cultural practices.3 Thus, there is no good reason to believe that the arrival of these new products to Lattara meant an end to local identity, and certainly no less so than in the Iron Age when local peoples eagerly sought out certain Etruscan and Greek products, most notably wine. However, while local identity and belief can exhibit important continuity even within the most exploitive systems of colonialism, the increase in economic production – including, for example, the growth of a cash-crop economy and the production

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of local commodities for export that is often noted in many colonial situations – can at the same time also significantly disrupt and alter the ways in which local peoples organize themselves for the production of material goods.4 This contrast of continuity versus social disruption reflects in many ways a difference in analytical focus in scholarship, between more individual-centered, agency-based analyses – often rooted in some way in a more “formalist” economic perspective – and more structural analyses drawing upon Marxist approaches to the economy.5 Arguably, within the past several decades, the former perspective has tended to dominate over the latter, both regarding the Roman Empire and more generally across the social sciences, and this chapter thus seeks to find a more nuanced balance between the two. As we shall see, whereas before, during the Iron Age, the families living clustered together within the aggregated blocks of houses at Lattara apparently focused on farming cereal grains for domestic consumption and perhaps also for some surplus exchange, by the end of the first century AD, the majority of large-scale economic production was more and more in the hands of large estates, referred to as villae. These villae produced large quantities of wine shipped in new Gallic amphorae at an unprecedented scale intended for consumption across the western Roman Empire. At one level, a few select number of individuals – some of whom at least were likely of Celtic origin – certainly profited from Roman rule in the province. However, this economic growth – ultimately benefiting the new ruling elite of the region – was arguably related to the process of Roman land redistribution following the defeat of the local Volcae people, which – combined with Roman taxation – likely gradually eroded away the economic autonomy of many people. Roman colonialism thus contributed to the emergence of a true class society (in the strict Marxist sense of the term), in which a ruling class of privileged land-owners increasingly controlled the basis of economic wealth in the countryside, expropriating the surplus produced by many local peoples, who increasingly toiled away as enslaved workers, tenant farmers, or wage laborers.

Mode of Production, Class, and Class Society As noted earlier, the rise in popularity of “post-structural” analyses in the past several decades has certainly allowed archaeologists to better appreciate local meaning and the actions and motivations of individuals as not simply predetermined by a larger structure. At the same time, however, this has also arguably resulted in the demise of studies critically analyzing the larger web of social relationships within which individuals live out their daily lives.6 This is noticeably striking in respect to economic production, since – as noted especially by Karl Marx and generations of later scholars – producing material goods is inherently a social act embedded in larger social relations and imbued with historically specific cultural logic. Furthermore, although individual human beings do have the capacity to pursue their own decision making, they never act in the vacuum of pure, unmediated economic self-interest.7 Instead, this decision-making process is itself a product of a culturally and historically constructed

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set of cultural symbols, values, assumptions, logics, and wider human relationships. While individuals may continue to construct local identities through the appropriation of new material objects made available through colonial contact, colonialism at the same time can substantially reorganize the relationships of production, entangling the consumer in new social webs of relations, and thereby potentially reworking the social production of local society as a long-term unintended consequence.8 In colonial situations, then, it is crucial to understand at once the local actions of people, as well as their relations to larger structures of power, including economic production. Perhaps unsurprisingly, however, the language and terms developed by Marxist scholars to critically analyze the changing social relations of production in a given society seem to have largely dissipated in much of scholarship on the ancient economies of the Mediterranean world, to be replaced by a vocabulary increasingly borrowed directly from the discipline of economics.9 Here, then, I want to draw attention to the importance of two terms for understanding the economic changes occurring at Lattara after the Roman conquest: mode of production and class society. As we shall see by the end of the chapter, I suggest that the Roman conquest ultimately led to the emergence of a new kind of mode of production at Lattara, as well as creating the conditions for the appearance of class relations at Lattara and in the surrounding region. To be clear, however, in attempting to revitalize certain Marxist terms in order to better understand the larger social network of production at Lattara and how it changed over time, I am in no way advocating for a return to the debate between the so-called “primitivists” and “modernists” (mirroring the larger debate in anthropology between “substantivists” and “formalists”). Likewise, nor do I mean to imply any kind of materially deterministic or predictive model for society in which all social change can be putatively analyzed through changes in the economic or material “base” of society. First, it is useful to briefly highlight the anthropologist David Graeber’s relatively recent re-evaluation of the concept of mode of production.10 Although Karl Marx never really used the term in a formal way, in the context of the “Structural Marxism” of the 1960s and ’70s, the term acquired a fairly precise meaning, with scholars utilizing the term in order to categorize different societies based upon the way they organize themselves for the production of material goods.11 The concept is thus traditionally an economic or material one, and is generally considered to involve at once the “forces of production” – technological and physical circumstances of economic activity (e.g. environment, geography, etc.) – and the actual social relations organizing economic activities (the “social relations of production”). More recently, Graeber has argued against the purely material aspect of the concept and how it has traditionally focused solely on the production of material goods, suggesting instead that what is at stake is as much the creation of specific kinds of social actors – of human subjects themselves.12 Thus, society organizes itself in specific ways not just to create material objects, but also values, symbols, social roles, and identities – all according to a specific cultural logic. He writes, “The production of objects is always simultaneously the production

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of people and social relations.”13 Leaving aside – as Graeber advocates – the somewhat pedantic obsession with the exact typology of different modes of production, the key idea here seems to be that the ways in which Roman colonialism violently impacted local communities – displacing them, enslaving them, and redistributing land – may have had a tremendous impact on the ways in which both specific types of social actors and material goods were produced in the emerging colonial society. Here in this chapter, I focus specifically on the production of goods, but only in emphasizing that the changes in material production brought about by Roman rule may have been part of larger transformations in social production within the community at Lattara that potentially produced new roles and identities, values and symbols, and relationships – at times probably of a much more exploitive nature. Specifically, the new production of goods at Lattara and in the surrounding countryside seemingly produced above all dispossessed workers and enslaved laborers, where relatively few had existed previously. Secondly, it is also worth highlighting the important insight implicit in a good deal of Marxist literature about social class, and in particular a class society. Specifically, scholars have pointed out that the notion of social class does not imply so much clearly demarcated groups of people – a point that was the heart of the debate between Moses Finley and G.E.M. de Ste. Croix – but is more than anything a peculiar – and here I would also add a historically and cultural specific – form of social relationship.14 Specifically, this exploitive relationship implies a relatively small group of people who control the means of production (agricultural land, plantations, factories, etc.), and a much larger group of exploited workers who conversely do not own the means for producing material goods.15 The workers create a material surplus, but this surplus goes not to them, but to the privileged few who actually own this productive property. A “class society” is thus a society that is characterized by the exploitation of a working class by a dominant class. The Marxist classical historian G.E.M. de Ste. Croix, for example, writes: It is the essence of class society that one or more of the smaller classes, in virtue of their control over the conditions of production (most commonly exercised through ownership of the means of production), will be able to exploit – that is, to appropriate a surplus at the expense of – the larger classes, and thus constitute an economically and socially (and therefore, probably politically) superior class or classes.16

What I want to thus suggest here in this chapter is that Roman colonialism significantly altered the sets of relationships in daily life at Lattara that produced at once material goods and people themselves – thus constituting a new social mode of production – and in doing so created the conditions for class relations.

Iron Age Agricultural Landscapes Situated along the shores of a very large lagoon emptying into the Mediterranean, as well as at the mouth of the Lez River leading into the interior of the country, the

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inhabitants of Lattara were ideally situated to obtain food from a variety of resources. The alluvial plain drained by the Lez River, as well as the smaller Lironde River just to the east, produced at once rich, fertile soil for farming, as well as vast prairies of humid meadows for raising cattle, sheep, and goats. Just to the east on the other side of the Lironde, the higher ground of the Butte de Pérols, which in ancient times was wooded with stands of oak, also provided important land for farming and later for very productive viticulture.17 Finally, the vast lagoon provided a diverse array of marine resources, including fish, shellfish, and mussels. In ancient times, the lagoon was considerably deeper and larger than it is today, extending as far east as the mouths of the Rhône and as far west as the Gardiole region near the modern city of Sête, creating one large protected body of water.18 Indeed, Pliny the Elder referred to this vast lagoon as the stagnum Latera (the lagoon of Lattara), emphasizing the importance of the settlement at Lattara in the local geography.19 In addition to all this, the surrounding territory associated specifically with that settlement seems to have been quite large as well; the closest fortified settlement was 8 km to the north at the important oppidum of Sextantio (today’s Castelnau-le-Lez), which occupied a strategic position where the Roman Via Domitia crossed the Lez River. During the Iron Age, the oppidum of La Roque (Fabrègues) was also about 8 km away to the west, although this site was abandoned by the end of the third century BC. As mentioned in Chapter  2, since the beginning of the sixth century BC, local populations began to concentrate more and more into fortified settlements that archaeologists often refer to as oppida.20 Although archaeologists in Mediterranean France have traditionally tended to focus on excavating these oppida, which are often still prominent features of the landscape today, the expansion of preventive archaeology in the past two decades, combined with an increasingly large number of field walking surveys, has significantly improved our understanding of the fluctuating relationship between these oppida and the surrounding territory.21 Up to the first century BC, these oppida seem to have served as the focal point of indigenous social organization, with smaller, unprotected settlements and farms in the surrounding countryside waxing and waning in importance throughout the Iron Age. The general trend throughout Mediterranean Gaul seems to be that during the sixth and fifth centuries BC, there were a large number of isolated farms and other buildings in the countryside, corresponding with a period in which the oppida were less densely settled and were generally more numerous. During the fourth through the third centuries BC, however, rural farms and establishments became exceedingly rare. At the same time, many of the oppida exhibited signs of a growing population and an increasing density of settlement within their ramparts. During the second century BC, and especially at the end of this century, there was apparently a new population growth, with oppida expanding in size (such as Anagia in eastern Languedoc or Entremont in western Provence) as well as farms now becoming more numerous in the countryside. Archaeologists have noted these same patterns of occupation in the territory specifically around Lattara. All told, the archaeological work exploring this territory

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has been considerable, covering an area from the Étang du Méjean in the south to the medieval core of Montpellier in the north, and between La Gardiole in the west and the town of Pérols in the east. By 2008, a total of 74  hectares had been systematically surveyed and studied archaeologically in this area.22 Thirteen out of these 74 hectares have been excavated through large-scale excavations. Since 2008, the number of hectares investigated archaeologically has continued to increase, with a number of important recent preventive archaeological projects, including extensive work in 2012–2014 in advance of major construction work on the A-9 autoroute.23 From all this work, it is evident that there was a noticeable overall lack of settlements or isolated farmsteads around Lattara for the Iron Age.24 When Lattara was first founded around 500 BC, there was another settlement just to the northeast, at the site of La Cougourlude, which was occupied as early as the beginning of the sixth century BC. As the settlement of Lattara grew in population density during the fifth century BC, however, this settlement appears to have been gradually abandoned, with its population likely shifting to Lattara. Aside from this settlement at La Cougourlude, only two other archaeological sites have produced any substantial evidence for any kind of occupation between the fifth century and the Roman conquest (La Gallière and Port Arianne), and even then archaeologists have not uncovered any signs of actual structures or buildings (Fig.  4.1).25 Based upon the archaeological evidence from these sites, one imagines, for example, small huts for those staying overnight in the fields to watch over the herds of cattle or flocks of sheep and goats belonging to the settlement at Lattara, rather than large farmsteads. Especially when compared with the later first century BC and first century AD, then, the evidence for intensive occupation of the countryside around Lattara in the Iron Age is quite sparse. During the course of the second century BC there appears to be an intensification of agricultural production and a greater presence of people in the countryside, based upon the increasing numbers of ceramics dating to this century found in the territory around Lattara, although no structures for this period have been discovered.26 As mentioned, the absence of large-scale Iron Age farmsteads around Lattara is not due to a lack of archaeological work; on the contrary, a number of sites have been found for the earlier Neolithic and Bronze Ages, including the remains of houses, as well as for the later Roman period.27 Furthermore, archaeologists have found numerous roads and burials for the Iron Age around Lattara, but no farmsteads, and certainly not the supposed “elite estates” about which archaeologists have occasionally speculated.28 Overall, the archaeological evidence suggests that during the Iron Age, the population in the territory of Lattara was largely living concentrated in the settlement itself, which was considerably expanding, especially by the third century BC, all the while farming, herding, and fishing on a daily basis in the surrounding territory. Beyond the settlement in the countryside, there were likely some small huts and cabins scattered across the landscape for those watching the fields and herds of animals, but there does not seem to be any evidence for major

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Fig. 4.1: Map showing the occupation of the countryside around Lattara. Top: ca. 400–125 BC. Bottom: ca. 125 BC–AD 100 (map: author, data from Dusseaux et al. 2017; Vial 2003).

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independent farms or villages, and certainly no centers of major economic production such as villas or “elite estates.”

Iron Age Production Within the Settlement As we have seen in the previous chapter, within the settlement of Lattara itself, there is good evidence for the storage of agricultural produce and activities related to processing cereal grains. Significantly, the storage and processing of this agricultural produce seems to have been relatively small-scale, being dispersed throughout the settlement in individual households, rather than concentrated in one central area of the site. Beginning in the third century BC and continuing into the second, independent storage rooms appeared, in which one whole room contained rows of dolia for storing grain and other goods (Fig. 4.2). By the second century BC, dolia had also become larger and much more numerous at the site.29 These independent storage rooms were unconnected by doorways to other adjacent rooms but, instead, as we have seen in the previous chapter, the doorway opened onto a street, usually one of the three main streets running throughout the settlement. Given the likelihood that the local population was exchanging their agricultural surplus with Greek merchants for goods

Fig. 4.2: Photo of an independent storage room with storage pits for dolia, from Zone 16, ca. 200–150 BC. Inset: example of a dolia found at Lattara (photos: courtesy of Lattes excavations, UFRAL).

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like wine, it is quite possible that these rooms were at least partially connected to this wine trade, especially given how the rooms opened out onto the main thoroughfares of the settlement.30 Furthermore, the fact that they do not seem to be linked with any other rooms seems to suggest that they were not directly associated with a specific household, and were perhaps “owned” collectively in some sense by larger groups of families, conceivably extended households or lineages. Overall, there seems to have been an intensification in agricultural production throughout the course of the third and second centuries related to an increase in trade with Greek and Italic merchants. Perhaps not coincidentally then, it is precisely in the second century BC that we see for the first time the widespread appearance in the archaeological record of iron tools related to agriculture, which previously had been quite scarce.31 At the same time, it seems evident based upon the archaeological record that agricultural production was still relatively decentralized and largely in the hands of the aggregate blocks of houses, rather than being controlled by a dominant class of individuals.32 There is no evidence at all for the centralized storage of agricultural produce as would be the case in a “palace economy,” where rulers hoard away grain and other agricultural produce in strategically fortified centers.33 Furthermore, within the settlement, there is no kind of a ranked order to the size of storage rooms; for example, there are no instances of inordinately large storage rooms in a select number of houses and a large number of much smaller storage rooms in other houses.34 Instead, the entire community at Lattara seems likely to have been engaged in growing cereal grains and other crops, and then storing them in small rooms belonging to small groups of people living together, perhaps some form of extended family. The independent storage rooms, furthermore, seem to be the exact opposite of what one would expect if there was a hierarchical society present in which a ruling group controlled production; the storage rooms are in fact no bigger than any other room at Lattara and are easily accessible from the main streets of the settlement, rather than being heavily guarded or protected. Likewise, the evidence for bread production at Lattara also seems to corroborate the relatively non-hierarchical nature of agricultural production at the settlement during the Iron Age. Beginning in the fifth century BC at the site, cereal grains were increasingly ground into flour using portable grist mills, consisting generally of a circular base (meta) and a rotating top (catillus) that could be turned by hand.35 Like the storage rooms, these portable stone grist mills were found distributed throughout the site, and appear to have been associated with individual households and, at any rate, certainly do not seem to be concentrated in any one centralized location (Fig. 4.3). In contrast to after the Roman conquest, all the bread ovens found at Lattara from the Iron Age were small, with generally only one oven per domestic unit.36 Lastly, it is also worth noting that the evidence for other economic activities for the period 500–125 BC similarly suggests a decentralized and small-scale production. Before the first century BC, the only pottery that the occupants were apparently making was a type known as “non-wheel thrown ware” (céramique non-tournée) which typically

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Fig. 4.3: Map showing the distribution of storage rooms and millstones at Lattara, ca. 300–100 BC (redrawn by the author).

appeared in the form of pots and bowls for cooking (Fig. 4.4, A). These ceramics were likely hand-coiled or molded, rather than being thrown on a potter’s wheel. In addition, they were fired either in an open bonfire or in a non-specialized oven, and in marked contrast to the first century AD, archaeologists have not found any evidence for specialized pottery kilns from the Iron Age at Lattara.37 Finally, the other major economic activity at Lattara for which there is good archaeological evidence is metallurgy.38 As with bread making, metallurgy seems to have been more decentralized and spread across the site during the Iron Age. To date, archaeologists have identified four different metallurgy workshops at Lattara dating to before the Roman conquest.39 In all four cases, these workshops were found in rooms that had been reconverted from a purely domestic space into a metallurgy workshop. While these metallurgy workshops thus represent seemingly one of the most specialized economic tasks at Lattara, it is striking that these workshops were still quite small, consisting of only a single room, and were still attached to larger domestic structures. Based upon what we know of the specialized role of metalsmiths

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Fig. 4.4. Examples of non-wheel thrown ceramics from Lattara dating to prior to the Roman conquest (A), and examples of wheel-thrown ceramics from the site dating to the first century BC and first century AD (B) (photos: courtesy of Michel Py, UFRAL).

in many traditional societies, especially in Africa, it is quite possible that if metalsmiths existed as a distinct social category at Lattara, they quite likely represented the most specialized profession at the settlement and were perhaps even considered to have magical powers, as is the case in many traditional African societies.40

Iron Age Economies at Lattara In summary, the archaeological evidence from within the settlement at Lattara, as well as from the surrounding countryside, suggests that economic production in the community prior to the Roman conquest was relatively non-specialized, with seemingly

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most families or social groups directly engaged in agriculture for their own subsistence and likely mostly controlling their own agricultural surpluses. Marshall Sahlins has famously described this kind of economic organization as the “domestic mode of production,” and Eric Wolf similarly as a “kinship mode of production,” emphasizing the fact that in relatively non-specialized economies the household or kinship group is often the major social unit of economic production.41 Utilitarian pottery used for everyday activities – as opposed to the black gloss tableware for dining that was imported from abroad – does not seem to have been produced at the site by full-time specialists, in contrast to the later first century BC and onwards. As we will see in the next chapter, there is also little evidence for the use of coins in everyday economic transactions before the first century BC. At the same time, it is clear that people at Lattara were increasingly focusing on producing larger yields of agricultural produce by the second century BC, presumably for trade with Greek and Italic merchants, representing perhaps, as we shall see in Chapter 7, an increasingly competitive arena of feasting between groups of households. Given how relatively decentralized and small-scale economic production at Lattara seems to have been before the Roman conquest, it is interesting to consider how exactly social relationships may have structured various economic activities, from selecting farmland, to harvesting, to other activities like making pots. Furthermore, given that notions of “property” express as much relationships between people as they do relationships between people and things, it is important to consider who exactly “owned” what was produced, as well as the land and tools that went into producing food and other necessary goods. Certainly, the distribution of storage rooms and other evidence suggests that the aggregated blocks of houses may have each controlled their own food production and stored their own surpluses. Here, then, it is important to note that in societies practicing some form of decentralized agriculture, there is generally no conception of private, individual ownership of land in which individuals hold a geographically defined and bounded property in perpetuity.42 The famous American ethnographers Laura and Paul Bohannan, writing in regard to the Tiv of central Nigeria, to whom we will return in the next chapter, summarize this when they write, “Tiv are primarily interested in land as the spatial dimension of social relationships; its part in any ‘property’ system is secondary.”43 More generally in the United States, this form of communal land tenure continued on many Native American reservations until relatively recently, ending only with the infamous Dawes Act of 1887, which sought to allocate specific plots of land to individual Native American families, who then possessed the land as a form of private property, with the federal government then selling the remaining land to arriving Euro-American settlers.44 Within systems such as this, the right of an individual to farm a certain area for a fixed period of time is often something that is determined by the larger social group, such as a lineage or clan, with sometimes a chief or other leader taking charge of the always temporary allocation of land to individual households.45 At the same time, ethnographically, there is much more variety in terms of who controls and

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stores the harvest from these allocated fields, since while the community generally allocates land on a temporary basis, the control over production of a specific plot of land is often in the hands of individual extended families. Unfortunately, the already limited corpus of Greco-Roman texts describing the Iron Age peoples of Europe is generally frustratingly silent regarding land ownership and the social organization of production in ancient Gaul. Several Greco-Roman texts record collective ownership of land in Germania and among the Vaccaei of the Iberian Peninsula, but whether this can be related in any way to Mediterranean Gaul is quite unclear.46 One vague reference in regard to gender roles likely made in regard to Mediterranean Gaul does, however, merit some notice. The reference in question comes from the writings of Poseidonios mentioned earlier. Although his work is now lost, several later Greco-Roman authors used his work, and as quoted by the later Greek writer Strabo, Poseidonios records: “but that which concerns men and women – that their work tasks differ in a way that is opposite to ours – is common among many other barbarians.”47 What tasks Strabo is referring to exactly is unfortunately never specified, but it appears that, according to the observations of Poseidonios, men and women in the region of Gaul divided labor among themselves in a way that was the opposite of what Greco-Roman society considered normal. As vague as this remark by Poseidonios is, it could perhaps refer to women in Celtic society taking charge of agriculture, working in the fields and harvesting the crops, something that certainly would have been the opposite of the social expectations in Roman society (if so perhaps the men were involved in animal husbandry?).48 If true, this would certainly not be surprising, since numerous ethnographies around the world in places like North America and Africa have noted that women are often in charge of tending the fields and harvesting and by extension, control the yield from the harvests.49 Overall, the idea of permanent land ownership by individuals who can bequeath their land as property in an inheritance seems to be relatively rare across space and time and, in the case of Europe, may have likely emerged first in the context of the dominating Roman state, with Roman law then providing the basis for most subsequent property laws in European societies.50 Nicola Terrenato, for example, has recently suggested that in the case of Iron Age central Italy, “there is every indication that individual private property of cultivated fields was virtually unknown in the Early Iron Age. Instead, large tracts belonged collectively to the clan as a whole.”51 Something similar may have certainly existed for Iron Age Mediterranean Gaul, although this ultimately remains difficult to fully prove archaeologically. In this regard, the noted specialist of ancient Mediterranean France Jean-Luc Fiches, for example, has argued based upon an analysis of the countryside of the Volcae Arecomici that, “It is thus probable that the transition from communal property to private appropriation occurred – at least partially – at the beginning of the first century BC [i.e. after the Roman conquest].”52 In any case, what the archaeological record does quite clearly reveal is a strikingly different pattern of land use and occupation around Lattara following the Roman conquest, which certainly supports the suggestion of Fiches.

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The Countryside After the Roman Conquest The extension into the countryside around Lattara that appears to have begun in the second century BC, before or around the time of the Roman conquest of 125–121 BC, accelerated during the first century BC, with more and more rural sites appearing. As part of this trend, it appears that the indigenous population, formerly concentrated in oppida such as Lattara, began to gradually abandon these fortified settlements in the second half of the first century BC in favor of more dispersed dwellings in the lowlands, with certain oppida becoming deserted altogether by the first century AD. This was the case, for example, with the settlement of Anagia (the Castels at Nageset-Solorgues), where initially the settlement expanded significantly during the period 125–70 BC, with a new system of ramparts now enclosing an area of 10 hectares, but was then apparently completely abandoned by around AD 10.53 At the same time, in the second century BC and continuing at an accelerated rate in the first century BC, rural settlements also appeared in the valley below the oppidum at Anagia.54 As we have seen at Lattara, although people continued to dwell within the confines of the Iron Age oppidum well into the second century AD, the ramparts of the settlement were demolished in the second half of the first century BC, and the settlement became much less densely occupied by the first century AD.55 At the same time, at Lattara as elsewhere in the region, we see a marked growth in rural sites around the original settlement in the first century BC, and especially in the first century AD (Fig. 4.1). Although many of the sites have only been documented through archaeological surveys, some have been systematically excavated in the course of recent preventive archaeological work. In some cases, these excavations have revealed simply a system of roads, often bordered on either side by ditches for draining fields and delimiting boundaries.56 In other cases, archaeologists have found evidence for built structures dating to the Roman period – in contrast to the paucity of Iron Age rural sites and the lack of tangible structures – along with a notable increase in viniculture. For example, at the site of Fromigue, archaeologists found the remains of a modest-sized farm in use between the first and third centuries AD.57 This farm was equipped with a wine press and a large trough for the wine must, along with two rows of five dolia each for fermenting wine, representing an estimated production of about 200 hectoliters of wine per year (or about 26,000 modern bottles of wine).58 Similarly, at the neighboring site of La Vineuse, work in the nineteenth century revealed traces of a large farm, including a large stone and mortar basin used for holding the wine must.59 One of the most striking aspects of this new expansion into the countryside beginning in the first century BC, is the eventual appearance in the first century AD of very large and wealthy farms, often for producing large amounts of wine for export throughout western Europe – although it should be emphasized that this did not result in the end of smaller farms.60 Archaeologists have often referred to these large productive farms as villae (singular villa), adopting a Latin word, albeit with a certain amount of controversy attached to the term.61 In most cases, these villae only fully

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emerged in the first century AD, especially between AD 50 and 100, with much more modest farms preceding them in the first century BC. The most famous example of a villa in this region comes from the well-documented site of the Villa Loupian (technically known as the site of Près-Bas in the commune of Loupian), approximately 28 km southwest of Lattara along the north shore of the lagoon today known as the Étang de Thau. Archaeological excavations since the 1960s have revealed the remains of a modest farm from the first century BC that transformed into a very large and productive villa for producing wine in the course of the first century AD. Later, during the fifth century AD, this villa in turn transformed into an even more impressive palatial estate with opulent mosaic floors that are preserved at the site today.62 The earliest traces of occupation date to around 50 BC, although little survives from this original farm due to later construction. At the end of the first century BC a relatively modest farm was built, with dry stone foundations, mudbrick elevations, and dirt floors.63 Around AD 50, however, the farm transformed significantly in terms of both size and architecture (Fig. 4.5).64 Now, this vast complex was oriented around two main courtyards. The luxurious living quarters for the master of the estate and his family and guests were organized around a peristyle courtyard, with mosaic floors for the rooms and a bath complex comprising hot and cold baths. On one side of these living quarters, organized around a second more modest courtyard, archaeologists found a series of storage rooms and living quarters, likely for dependent or enslaved workers.

Fig. 4.5: Villa Loupian during Phase 2, ca. AD 50–200 (redrawn by the author, after Lugand and Bermond 2001, 143).

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Here, the architecture was quite sparse compared with the luxurious living quarters of the owners, with simple stone and earthen walls and dirt floors. Several hearths and storage pits were present in the floors, recalling the traditional indigenous houses of the Iron Age.65 Judging by the size of these different rooms, at least several families likely lived here. Interestingly, two traditional burials of perinatal infants (see the previous chapter) were found in the dirt floors of these rooms,66 and along with the other traditional elements of architecture in this part of the villa, suggest that the laborers living here were almost certainly native Celts. On the other side of the master’s living quarters was a very large storage room, with rows of dolia for fermenting wine, on the order of ca. 1500 hectoliters (or about 195,000 modern bottles of wine).67 This far exceeds the 200 hl from the site of Fromigue, closer to Lattara, or even the 500 hl of wine estimated for the site of the Aubettes at Mudaison to the west of Lattara.68 The remains of a wine press were also found just nearby this vast storage room.69 In general, archaeologists estimate that during the second century AD, at the height of its production, the amount of land under cultivation by the owner of the villa would likely have been quite vast: approximately 65 hectares of cereal grains and another 26 hectares of grape vines.70 To the south of the villa, along the shores of the lagoon, archaeologists also discovered a very large pottery workshop and related storage rooms for producing ceramic amphorae for transporting wine, as well as roof tiles and communal ceramics.71 The main type of pottery produced was the Gallic amphora type G4 (see Fig. 4.10), with the letters MAF often stamped on it. Unfortunately, we do not know what “MAF” stands for, although the three letters seem to likely represent the three names (trinomina) of a Roman citizen. Based upon its proximity to the villa and its location on the shores of the lagoon, it is apparent that the owner of the Villa Loupian, presumably the otherwise anonymous MAF, was shipping the wine from the estate in ceramic amphorae made at the workshop to some other port along the lagoon, where it could then be loaded onto larger boats and shipped all throughout the western Roman Empire. Archaeologists have found the Gallic amphora type G4, first produced in Mediterranean Gaul at the end of the first century AD, throughout the western Mediterranean, and as far north as the Rhine frontier and Britain,72 signaling a momentous economic transformation as the region went from largely being just a wine consumer to now a major wine producer. A number of villa sites that were likely similar to the Villa Loupian in terms of at least luxury, if not also in the size of production, have been identified in the area immediately around Lattara, although unfortunately none of these presumed villae has been systematically excavated to date. These probable villae include the sites of La Cougourlude, Soreich, Rignac, and Mas Rouge (at Pérols rather than the site of the same name in the commune of Lattes) (see Fig. 4.1).73 All have produced evidence of luxurious marble architecture and the remains of hypocausts, likely associated with private baths. In the case of all but Soreich, these villae were located along or near the shores of the lagoon, similar to the Villa Loupian. Indeed, a number of villae

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have been identified all along the northern shores of what once was one large lagoon stretching beyond Lattara on either side. With the exception of the Mas Rouge, which shows at least some occupation from the first century BC, it is likely that all of these villae developed in the first century AD, and we can postulate that they would have followed a similar development to what is known in regard to the Villa Loupian. Overall, then, it appears quite evident that major changes in economic production had occurred in the countryside around Lattara beginning in the first century BC under Roman rule, with the emergence of a wine-producing economy by the first century AD that was exporting large quantities of wine to other parts of the empire. Indeed, a comparison of the size of the storerooms from the Iron Age at Lattara to the vast storage rooms from sites like the Villa Loupian or the Roman-period port at Lattara (see below) clearly indicates the heightened economic production by the first century AD (Fig. 4.6). Correspondingly, within the settlement of Lattara itself, there is also good archaeological evidence for important changes in economic production at the end of the first century BC and onwards.

Fig. 4.6: Comparison in size of storage rooms from Lattara for the Iron Age and Roman periods and from the Villa Loupian (drawing: author).

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Economic Production at Lattara Under Roman Rule In marked contrast to the less specialized economy prevalent at Lattara during the Iron Age, in the first century BC, there is a notable growth in a number of specialized artisanal workshops at Lattara, including a bakery, a possible “tavern,” a large smithy for metalworking, and a number of large, specialized pottery workshops (Fig.  4.7). The bakery was found in Block 5 of the settlement and appears to have been in use ca. 50–1 BC (Fig. 4.8).74 Here, archaeologists found the remains of a very large square oven, unique in size and shape compared with other hearths and fireplaces from Lattara, built with stone and brick walls and a base of dolia sherds. In another room, were found traces of pits for several dolia, suggesting its function as a storage room for grain. Related to this, archaeologists also found a large base made out of stones for supporting a large grist mill, and nearby, they also uncovered the fragment of a large

Fig. 4.7: Roman Lattara, ca. 25 BC–AD 100, showing areas of important economic activity (modified by author; photos: courtesy of Lattes excavations, UFRAL).

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stone grist mill known as the Pompeian type, after the famous examples of this type found at numerous bakeries in Pompeii. Although this specific example was somewhat smaller than the mule-turned counterparts from Pompeii, it was nevertheless much larger than the smaller portable stone mills from Iron Age domestic contexts at the site. Overall, the size and nature of both the oven and the stone mill from this apparent bakery at Zone 5 attest to the production of flour and the baking of bread well beyond the level of the individual household. The excavations of Zone 75 also revealed evidence for the production of bread beyond the needs of a single family, based upon the presence of three grist mills along one wall and three large bell-shaped bread ovens along another wall (Fig. 4.9). Excavators suggested tentatively that this room was part of an early tavern at Lattara, dating to ca. 125–75 BC, seemingly representing important changes in production and consumption immediately after the Roman conquest.75 Later on, the metallurgy workshop found at Zone 30, dating to the first half of the first century AD, also appears to have been somewhat larger than its earlier counterparts from the Iron Age.76 Around the same time as the bakery, in the mid to second half of the first century BC, several new types of communal ceramics for cooking appeared at Lattara, as was also the case elsewhere in the region. All these new types of ceramics show evidence of finishing on a potter’s wheel and firing at a higher and more controlled temperature in a specialized kiln (Fig. 4.4, B) compared with the earlier non-wheel thrown wares, although to date archaeologists have not uncovered any evidence of pottery kilns for the first century BC at the site. Somewhat later, an important pottery industry developed at Lattara by the end of the first century AD. Archaeologists have identified probable pottery workshops in two different areas, both outside the original Iron Age fortified settlement and relatively close to the port: Trench 19, excavated under Henri Prades during the GAP excavations of the site in the 1960s, and Zone 36, built partially over the dismantled fortification walls on the southern side of the settlement.77 In both cases were found evidence for specialized pottery kilns, in contrast to their absence from the site for the Iron Age. In addition, archaeologists also uncovered large refuse pits full of broken pottery that had been misfired during the firing process and then subsequently discarded. The most striking of these is a very large refuse pit from Zone 36 that covered an area of ca. 100 m2 and was filled during the last decades of the first century AD.78 Over 55,000 sherds from at least 1500 vessels were recovered from this pit (Fig. 4.10), including Gallic amphorae, roof tiles, and communal ceramic pottery in a number of standardized forms, such as traditional cooking pots, pitchers, goblets, and bowls.79 Based on the sherds from this pit, it appears that in addition to a smaller amount of communal ceramic vessels, the pottery workshops at Lattara were producing roof tiles and Gallic amphorae for transporting wine. These amphorae were, above all, of the type G1, along with a lesser number of amphorae of type G4, similar to those from the Villa Loupian.80 All the ceramics produced were fired at a high temperature and were highly standardized, suggesting a centralized production for export and sale to a market of consumers rather than, as with the Iron Age, domestic

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groups each largely producing pottery for their own use. In this, Lattara is certainly not unique, and throughout Mediterranean Gaul for the first and second centuries AD at sites like Sallèles-d’Aude, Aspiran, and farther to the north at La Graufesenque, archaeologists have found large centralized pottery workshops for producing ceramics like Gallic amphorae, various types of communal vessels, and (especially in the case of La Graufesenque) the bright red Gallic terra sigillata found throughout the western Roman Empire.81 Finally, beginning in the second half of the first century BC, as other areas of Lattara were becoming much less densely occupied, the port area of the settlement expanded significantly, apparently to accommodate growing commerce with the western Mediterranean. Specifically, archaeologists have identified a number of very large storage warehouses dating to the end of the first century BC, some containing dolia for holding wine, larger in size than any of the smaller storage rooms at Lattara from the earlier Iron Age (Fig. 4.6). Other buildings unearthed in ongoing excavations have also revealed spaces for shops and artisan workshops for producing goods.82 These long, rectangular warehouses from the port bear similarities to other warehouses at major ports like Narbo Martius (Narbonne), Massalia, or even Ostia in Italy, demonstrating the importance of Lattara in the expanding trade in locally-produced

Fig. 4.8: The bakery from Zone 5, ca. 50–1 BC (photo courtesy of Lattes excavations, UFRAL).

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Fig. 4.9: Photo of one of the rooms, which likely functioned as a large kitchen, from the “tavern” at Lattara, dating to 125–75 BC. The inset shows a cross-section of one of the bell-shaped ovens (photo courtesy of Lattes excavations, UFRAL).

wine from Gallia Narbonensis during the early Roman Empire period in the western Mediterranean.

Social Upheaval After the Roman Conquest The economic growth evident at Lattara by the first century AD was likely predicated on significant social upheaval in the first century BC in the context of Roman colonialism. In particular, the expansion of sites in the countryside throughout Mediterranean Gaul in the first century BC and first century AD may very well have been closely related to the Roman redistribution of land as a punishment for the rebellion that swept across the province in the 70s BC that is first attested to in the speech of Cicero from 69 BC. Archaeologically, there is good evidence for this land redistribution in the surviving traces of the Roman practice known as centuriation, which involved surveying and dividing the land according to a vast grid. Centuriation first emerged among the Romans in Italy as a way of surveying and dividing the countryside into equal plots of land around Roman colonies, with a large grid oriented more or less east-west and north-south.

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Fig. 4.10: Photo showing the fill of broken amphorae and communal ceramics from the pottery workshop at Zone 36 at Lattara, end of the first century AD. Inset: Gallic amphora types G1 and G4 (photo: courtesy of Lattes excavations, UFRAL).

This systematic division of the land can still be seen in parts of the countryside of the Mediterranean today in the surviving orientation of roads, boundaries, buildings, and other markers on the landscape that have preserved the original Roman survey. Because the exact north–south orientation was never identical between different centuriations, but was generally consistent within any given centuriation, archaeologists can identify different periods of centuriation over time, with each centuriation deviating at a specific angle from true magnetic north. It has thus been possible to reconstruct approximately 33 different centuriations throughout the province of Gallia Narbonensis.83 The most famous example in Mediterranean Gaul comes from the Roman colony of Arausio, modern Orange in Provence, where the centuriation of the land around the colony was recorded on a series of large stone tablets that have survived in fragmented form.84 Interestingly, these stone tablets record three categories of land: that assigned to Roman colonists (marked as EX TR on the tablets); that which was rented (usually by people with Italic names) – presumably to tenants who were forced to pay rent – (REL COL); and that which was assigned to the local conquered people, the Tricastini (TRIC REDD). Unsurprisingly, this last category seems to have consisted of the least desirable land.

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At Lattara, archaeologists have identified the traces of four different centuriations parceling the land around the settlement, designated as Sextantio-Ambrussum, Nîmes A, Montpellier A, and Montpellier B.85 The most important of these seems to be SextantioAmbrussum, which stretched from around the Lez River in the west as far east as the Vidourle River (or between the oppida of Sextantio and Ambrussum, hence the name). This specific centuriation used the existing Via Domitia as the decumanus maximus, or the main east–west axis of the grid. There is still a debate, however, about the dates for each of these four centuriations and the larger historical circumstances within which they occurred.86 In general, scholars are in agreement that the Sextantio-Ambrussum centuriation occurred before the Nîmes A centuriation, with Nîmes A in turn preceding Montpellier A and Montpellier B.87 The creation of a lower residential quarter at Ambrussum along the banks of the river sometime around 30 BC, which followed the seemingly already established axis of the Sextantio-Ambrussum grid, provides at least a terminus ante quem for this centuriation.88 Citing the increase in the number of recorded archaeological sites after 50 BC in the countryside between the Lez and the Vidourle Rivers, François Favory has argued that both the Sextantio-Ambrussum centuriation and that of Nîmes A would have occurred sometime between ca. 50 and 30 BC, in the context of the creation of Roman colonies in the region by Caesar and his successors and the concomitant granting of the Latin Right to certain indigenous oppida.89 More generally, Stephane Mauné has suggested that there was no significant Roman settlement of eastern Languedoc before ca. 50 BC, with Rome showing little interest in the region until this time, in contrast to other areas of Mediterranean Gaul.90 For his part, Michel Py argues that the Nîmes A centuriation dates to “at least as early as the middle of the first century BC,” while Martine Assénat has speculated that the Sextantio-Ambrussum centuriation may date to as early as the end of the second century BC, immediately following the initial Roman conquest, with Nîmes A dating to sometime before ca. 50 BC.91 The testimony of Cicero in 69 BC clearly states that both Marcus Fonteius, as governor of the province, and Pompey the Great, who as a commander also wielded imperium in the region, confiscated land from the defeated Celts, including the Volcae Arecomici of the region of Lattara (see Chapter 2 for a longer discussion of this). Given this, it is certainly tempting to associate at least the Sextantio-Ambrussum centuriation with the punishment of the Volcae for their revolt in the 70s BC. The centuriation Nîmes A could then perhaps correspond with Julius Caesar’s bestowal of the Latin Right on the oppidum of Nemausus (modern Nîmes), following his victory over Pompey at Massalia in 49 BC. In any case, the Sextantio-Ambrussum and Nîmes A centuriations seem to have both precisely targeted fertile lowland soil.92 Regardless of dates, it certainly seems that the practice of centuriation represented an intrusive physical manifestation of Roman control over the indigenous population, quite literally dividing the conquered landscape into individual plots and rewarding them to loyal natives, as well as arriving Roman and Italic settlers and colonists, while punishing other natives by forcing them off their lands (see the testimony of Cicero as discussed in Chapter  2). With regard to how natives would

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have been actually coerced off their lands, it is important to remember that until 21 BC, when Caesar Augustus created Gallia Narbonensis as a senatorial province, the Roman army was still very much present in the region, providing the physical force needed to enforce the edicts of the Roman authorities. Recently, Michel Py has argued forcibly that the growth of settlements after ca. 50 BC in the previously unoccupied uplands about 13 km to the north of the Vaunage Valley (around Bois des Lens) was a result of local populations from indigenous oppida such as Anagia in the Vaunage being forced to surrender their lands and scratch a living in the less than ideal soil of the rocky hills.93 As he points out, the new inhabitants of these hills certainly must have come from somewhere else. There is also good textual evidence for Italic settlers arriving in Roman Mediterranean Gaul as a whole at a fairly early date. As discussed in Chapter 2, in his defense of Publius Quinctius in 83 BC, Cicero makes it clear that Roman citizens from Italy were seeking to make a profit by buying land and setting up large farms with enslaved laborers, although in this case this specifically involved property at the colony of Narbo Martius and a farm that was likely in the Durance Valley in Provence.94 More generally, in his defense of Marcus Fonteius in 69 BC, Cicero refers to Roman merchants (negotiatores), colonists (coloni), tax-collectors (publicani), farmers (aratores/agricolae), and cattle-raisers (pecuarii) as all being present in Roman Mediterranean Gaul by the 70s BC.95 Although the archaeological evidence suggests that the Roman settlement of eastern Languedoc was not especially intense until after the middle of the first century BC, there is good evidence at Lattara suggesting a certain population displacement at least by ca. 50 BC. The destruction of blocks of houses at Lattara in order to construct large public buildings in the second half of the first century BC (see Chapter 3) certainly suggests that people from the settlement were moving elsewhere and gives a hint at the potentially coercive nature by which this may have occurred. Furthermore, as mentioned in Chapter 2, some of the Latin names recorded on the tombs from the Roman-period necropolis at Lattara, including likely some of those with Roman citizenship, may represent the descendants of settlers arriving from the Italian peninsula.96 In other cases, Roman leaders likely awarded land to Celts who had proved their loyalty to the colonial regime, often by distinguishing themselves while serving in the Roman armies. Julius Caesar, in his account of the Roman civil wars, mentions, for example, two brothers among the Allobroges of northern Mediterranean Gaul whom he rewarded for their bravery fighting in his army. In addition to insuring that these two brothers rose to prominent positions in the local leadership of the Allobroges, Caesar also records how he had “awarded (tribuerat) them land in Gaul that had been seized from enemies [i.e. from local Celts who had resisted Caesar] (agros in Galliā ex hostibus captos), as well as significant monetary rewards (praemiaque rei pecuniariae magna).”97 In doing so, Caesar says that he elevated the two brothers, “from a state of deprivation (ex egentibus) to wealth (locupletes).”98 This last detail reveals in particular how the land redistribution on the part of the Roman generals rewarded those loyal to Rome – most likely especially young men with nothing else to lose otherwise – and

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did not necessarily benefit pre-existing elders or leaders in Gaul; on the contrary, centuriation may have even subverted traditional Celtic leadership, as Caesar here implies. An inscription found at the site of the presumed villa from Soreich, around 2 km northeast of Lattara, may hint at a similar situation here. The inscription, while fragmentary, appears to be from an ostentatious funerary monument dedicated to a certain Quintus Pompeius, erected by his wife Domitia.99 Although the inscription was found out of context, it is likely that this funerary monument was associated with the traces of the villa that archaeologists have detected from the site. Given his name, it is probable that the Quintus Pompeius mentioned here had a forefather who had served in the Roman army under Pompey in the first century BC, and in addition to receiving Roman citizenship, may have also received land from one of the centuriations around Lattara. This would certainly explain the basis for his family’s wealth and prestige as evident in the funerary monument and the villa.100 Lastly, the establishment of a system of fixed boundaries of land around Lattara may very well have had a significant effect on local notions of ownership and property. Although the exact system of land tenure at Lattara prior to the Roman conquest is unclear, there is good reason to suspect that the imposition of Roman notions of property may have been disruptive to traditional property systems. It is perhaps not a coincidence that precisely at the end of the first century BC, Romans throughout the empire began to increasingly refer to their rights over material things like land, as well as their putative rights over enslaved people, as dominium, generally translated as “property,” “ownership,” or “control.”101 The term is related to the Latin verb domino, dominare (to control or rule over), and expresses a certain hierarchical and dominating relationship between people and things and among people that may not necessarily have been present in indigenous cosmologies of Mediterranean Gaul before the Roman conquest.102 According to Roman notions of property, individuals could exercise their “control” or “mastery” over material things by permanently owning, buying, selling, and inheriting land. This may very well have had a disruptive effect on local social relationships at Lattara; those who had served in the Roman armies (possibly seen as a major betrayal by other Celts), suddenly had access to the best land in the countryside, which according to Roman laws they could now hold in perpetuity. The control and distribution of the land was thus now determined by Roman authorities, rather than through traditional institutions and practices within the local community, likely eroding away traditional sources of authority. This of course would only have been exacerbated by the additional presence of Roman and Italic colonists who also no doubt had access to the best farmland throughout the province as well.

A New Mode of Production at Lattara Related to all this, the larger farms and villae of the countryside and the larger workshops at Lattara likely increasingly relied on enslaved and wage labor, rather than being organized along more traditional lines, such as perhaps kinship. Similarly, the

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impressive building projects during the Roman period, from the laying out of the Via Domitia to the eventual monumental buildings of the urban centers in the Augustan period, likely also relied on a combination of enslaved labor, forced temporary conscriptions of the local population, and daily wage laborers.103 Although studying slavery from an archaeological perspective is often quite challenging, as we have seen in the previous chapter, many houses from the first century AD in the area had rooms that were likely for dependents or enslaved individuals.104 This is especially evident at the Villa Loupian, as we saw in an earlier section, where at least several families of dependent or enslaved workers likely lived. Furthermore, these families appear to have been natives of Mediterranean Gaul, based upon the practice of burying perinatal infants in the floors of their dwellings. Additionally, it is interesting to note that among the inscriptions from the Roman-period necropolis at Lattara, there are the names of three formerly enslaved women who had been manumitted by their female masters: Rustica, freed by Donna; another Rustica freed by Pompeia; and Illanua, freed by Tertullia.105 While Rustica is a common Italian cognomen, making it somewhat difficult to determine the exact ethnic origin for these two women, Illanua is quite clearly a Celtic name (there is another inscription from the necropolis at Lattara mentioning a different, apparently freeborn Illanua), suggesting that this woman was probably native to the area. Scholars who have studied the inscriptions have furthermore also concluded that of the three female masters mentioned in the inscriptions, two were likely originally of local Celtic origin (Donna and Pompeia), while the third was Italian (Tertullia).106 In regard to wage labor, returning to the lost work of Poseidonios, he provides a rather revealing anecdote describing the apparently desperate plight of many native peoples in the region toward the beginning of the first century BC. The later author Strabo writes: Poseidonios says that in Ligystike [the area around the Greek colony of Massalia] his host, Charmoleon, a man from Massalia, told him how he hired (μισθώσαιτο) both men and women together to dig ditches, and that one of the women, who was going into labor, left what she was doing and went to a nearby place, and after she gave birth, she returned to her work right away in order that she would not lose her wages (μισθός).107

Strabo was writing at the end of the first century BC, and perhaps the most striking aspect of this anecdote is the nonchalance with which he relates the story; he seems to accept this kind of thing as a normal practice in the ancient world, and it is only interesting to him because it was illustrative of what he saw as the unnatural strength of “barbarian” women, who were able to survive hardships with remarkable ease. Indeed, the anecdote is part of a larger discussion in Strabo concerning women among “barbarian” societies, not in any kind of description of working conditions for those living in poverty in the Roman world. Interestingly, there may in fact be archaeological evidence for the kind of physical toll exacted on women’s bodies at Lattara as described here in the passage from Strabo. As we have seen from the previous chapter, perinatal children were commonly interred within the dirt floors of housing, likely

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a visible reminder of the risks of newborn infants throughout the world until very recently. Based upon the sample of skeletons from Lattara analyzed by Bernard Dedet, only 15% of the perinatal burials from the fourth century BC to the end of the second century BC were premature births.108 By contrast, of the perinatal burials from the first century BC at Lattara, a startling 55% are premature; in two instances, the age of the deceased child was only around 4.5 months of gestation.109 Between increased labor and malnutrition inflicted upon the native Celtic populations in the first century BC, it is quite possible that local women may have been far more susceptible to premature births, severely endangering not just the life of the child, but presumably also of the mother. If nothing else, the evidence certainly attests to the difficulty of living conditions for women living and working in the first century BC at Lattara. More generally, several recent bioarchaeological studies of Roman-period skeletons from cemeteries in Roman Britain have suggested a general decline in certain aspects of health among some local populations following the Roman conquest, including stature and dental health, especially for women.110 Unfortunately, few skeletons have been found at Lattara, in part owing to the widespread practice of cremation that was the norm in funerary customs throughout the Late Iron Age and early Roman period. However, archaeologists excavating out the fill of several Roman-period wells from the settlement did make a grim and rather unexpected discovery. In addition to the normal debris found in Roman wells when the occupants of the town stopped using them for water – domestic trash, the carcasses of butchered animals, and so on – the archaeologists also found the skeletons of three adult men, two from one well and one from another. The bodies of these three men had apparently been unceremoniously thrown into the wells sometime between AD 75 and 100.111 Forensic examination by physical anthropologists relates an equally grim story; numerous fractures and pathologies all along the skeletons reveal a life of poor nutrition, the toll of unending physical labor, degrading health, and violent injuries, both during the course of their lives and at the time of their deaths. Furthermore, the violent injuries that two of them suffered – and apparently only marginally recovered from before their deaths – suggests that they were likely involved in moving heavy loads on a daily basis, perhaps unloading and loading heavy cargo from the docks and barges of the port. Based upon their overall appalling health and injuries, investigators concluded that the three men had likely been enslaved workers or wage laborers, perhaps working the docks in the port of Lattara under Roman rule.112 In addition to the horrific conditions of their lives, in death the men were treated by their fellow humans at Lattara as little more than animals, to be disposed of in a similar fashion to the way butchered animal remains or other trash would be thrown away.113 Furthermore, the fact that the wells were in completely different parts of the settlement suggests at least two, and possibly three, separate incidents. Other evidence for the presence of wage labor at Lattara comes from an inscription dating to the second century AD found at the site that attests to the presence of fabri and utricularii as full-time professions at the settlement.114 The term fabri refers to

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artisans or craftsmen, while the term utricularii is somewhat more difficult to translate with any surety. The term ultimately comes from the Latin utriculus, meaning a skin bag or bladder, as for example, a leather wine flask. In turn, utricularius can refer to either someone who makes these types of skin bags, or someone who works on rafts, which often had inflated skin bags attached to them for buoyancy.115 Either translation would certainly be possible – skin bags for transporting wine and olive oil would have been important at any port, while needless to say, rafts would have no doubt been important at Lattara – and the two might not be exclusive of one another. In both cases, these two groups likely did not produce their own food and other subsistence goods, but instead likely relied on their wages for things like bread or pottery, which they could purchase at specialized workshops present in the first century BC at Lattara and elsewhere, such as the possible tavern from Zone 75 or the bakery at Zone 5. Additionally, the surrounding vineyards, especially the larger estates, likely required seasonal laborers who would have been paid in daily wages. A parable from early Christian literature in first-century AD Roman Judaea – admittedly from the other side of the Mediterranean – may perhaps give an interesting perspective in this regard. The parable tells the story of a landowner (οἰκοδεσπότης, literally the “master of the household”), Who went out early in the morning to hire (μισθώσασθαι) workers (ἐργάται) for his vineyard (ἀμπελών), and after he agreed to pay them one denarius (δηνάριον) for the day, he sent them to his vineyard. And going out later at the third hour he saw others standing around idle (ἀργοί) in the gathering place (ἀγορά). And he said to them, ‘Go also to my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is correct.’ And they went out. Going out again at the sixth hour and ninth hours he did likewise. Finally, around the eleventh hour [around 5 p.m.], going out he found still others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why have you stood here idle for the whole day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired (ἐμισθώσατο) us.’ He then says to them, ‘Go also into my vineyard.’116

What is notable about this anecdote is how it implies the presence of large numbers of landless people seemingly dispossessed of all livelihood and who were living concentrated in urban areas and reliant on daily wages for subsistence.117 Even at the end of the day, there were still people milling about in the market place hoping to be employed for the day. Although the parable describes first-century AD Judaea, it is certainly possible that a similar social situation existed for the vineyards around Lattara in Gallia Narbonensis. In the case of Lattara, it is certainly reasonable to speculate that the likely presence of wage laborers at the settlement was ultimately a direct result of the loss of their traditional farmlands and livelihood following the Roman centuriations. Furthermore, burdened by the demands of the Roman authorities to pay taxes in coinage and in cereal grains, increasing numbers of people may have likely fallen into debt and were forced into wage labor, as we shall see in the next chapter. In many cases, workers may have been local farmers who found it increasingly necessary to supplement their earnings – especially given the Roman demands of taxes in coins – by working part time, and in general throughout the ancient Roman world,

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there was likely never really a clear distinction between lower class farmers and wage laborers.118 Overall, then, the rise of large and productive villae in the countryside and the apparently concomitant likely rise in the number of enslaved workers and other locals working at least part time as wage laborers suggests the emergence of a class society, in the sense as it was defined at the beginning of the chapter; increasingly, a small group of landowners now controlled the largest agricultural surpluses in the region, which were produced through the exploited labor of others. Furthermore, this reorganization of social relations for producing larger surpluses also signals a new mode of production, suggesting quite different forms of social interaction within the community at Lattara by the close of the first century AD. However, it is worthwhile to also qualify this by pointing out that more traditional relations of economic production may very well have continued alongside these new economic relations, above all at the smaller farms scattered throughout the farmland surrounding Lattara.

Conclusion The archaeological evidence around Lattara attests to important changes in the patterns of land use occurring outside the settlement following the Roman conquest. This is most noticeably evident with the emergence of large villae producing large quantities of wine for export across the wider Roman world. Beyond these opulent villae, smaller-scale farms also seem to have become more specialized as well, especially in terms of viniculture, in contrast to the largely non-specialized economy during the Iron Age within and around the settlement. Mirroring this, within Lattara itself there is also a notable increase in economic specialization by the first century AD, including most notably at least two pottery workshops and the overall intensification of activity at the port, which likely implicated both the fabri and utricularii mentioned on the inscription. People thus seem to have been acting in quite different ways and performing different tasks within the transformed economy of the first century AD. However, the creation of these new kinds of economic activities was an historically specific development, tied to the imposition of Roman rule in the province, which seems to have acted as a catalyst for transforming the relationships structuring economic life. As has been rather pointedly noted, no one ever actually chooses to live from day to day dependent on meagre wages in exchange for physical labor that often takes a debilitating toll on the body. Rather, people are forced into these conditions through historical processes, especially when they are alienated from the means of production – an alienation that seems to be present in many forms of colonialism across space and time.119 Furthermore, anthropologists have made it abundantly clear that most societies throughout the world until very recently were not in fact characterized by class relationships (although this does not mean that there is no inequality).120 While it can appear somewhat idealistic to suggest that a given society lacks class relations, generations of scholarship, particularly in the Marxist tradition, have demonstrated that the emergence of class relations is a specific, historic process and is neither a

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timeless, primordial facet of human society nor an evolutionary inevitability.121 In the case of ancient Lattara, the archaeological evidence suggests that the emergence of class relations here was directly linked to the historical processes of Roman rule. Furthermore, the rise of individual ownership of land, of tenant farming and wage labor, and the emergence of chattel slavery all seem to have been likewise based upon fundamentally different notions of value and exchange. Moving, then, from the social relationships of economic production to that of exchange, we now turn to the subject of money at Lattara.

Notes

   1  For a general discussion of these trends, see, for example, Py 2009, 298–299.    2 No definitive work exists to date on the non-ceramic objects found from Lattara but see Py 2009, 320–321. The ongoing excavations of the Roman port at Lattara have continued to prove this trend.   3 E.g. Appadurai 1986; Rogers 1990; Comaroff and Comaroff 1991; 1997; Thomas 1991; Comaroff 1996; Dietler 2010. For broader studies of consumption, see, for example, Miller 1987: 1995.   4 E.g. Bohannan 1959; Bohannan and Bohannan 1968; Rodney 1972; Etienne and Leacock 1980; Wolf 1982.    5  See the discussion in Graeber 2001, especially 23–33.   6 E.g. Graeber 2001, 26–30.    7 See especially Parry and Bloch (1989) who suggest that all societies do allow, to varying degrees, for short-term economizing behavior which is nonetheless part of a larger morality of economic exchanges.    8  See Dietler 2010, 60.    9 In recent notable works on the Roman economy, for example, such as Manning and Morris 2005; Manning 2019; Scheidel 2012; Temin 2013, an extended discussion of terms such as “class” or “exploitation” is largely absent. For a discussion of the notion of “class” in the ancient world, see Garnsey and Saller 2015, 131–136.   10  Graeber 2006.  11 E.g. Anderson 1974; Meillassoux 1981; Terray 1969.   12  See especially Graeber 2006, 62, 70.   13  Graeber 2006, 70.   14 For the important works by Moses Finley, see, for example, Finley 1985; 1999. On the debate between Finley and de Ste Croix, see Garnsey and Saller 2015, 132–147.  15 E.g. de Ste Croix 1981, 32, 43 See also Etienne and Leacock 1980, 15; Terray 1984, 86–88.   16  de Ste Croix 1981, 44.   17  Bel and Daveau 2008, 38; Jorda et al. 2008.   18  Py 2009, 12, 210.   19  Pliny the Elder, Natural History 9.29.   20  Garcia 2004; Py 2012.  21 E.g. Favory and Fiches 1994; Sauvage 1996; Mauné 1998; Garcia and Verdin 2002; Garcia et al. 2007; Scrinzi 2017; Raynaud 2019.   22  Bel and Daveau 2008, 24.   23  Dusseaux et al. 2017.   24  Bel and Daveau 2008.   25  Bel and Daveau 2008, 29.   26 Bel and Daveau 2008, 29. See for example, the site of La Gallière, where archaeologists found a drainage ditch.

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  27  Bel and Daveau 2008; Dusseaux et al. 2017.   28 See for example Arcelin 1999; Arcelin and Gruat 2003. See Dietler 2010, 88–89; Py 2003, 315; 2011, 53; 2012, 348; Vial 2011, 23 for a repudiation of the supposed presence of “elite estates” in the countryside.   29  Garcia 1992.   30  This has certainly always been the hypothesis of Michel Py. See Py 2009, 214–215.   31  Py 2009, 229–231.   32 It should be noted, of course, that the storage of agricultural produce in individual domestic units does not necessarily correlate with a strictly domestic control over agricultural production and distribution; produce, could, for example, be distributed by a central leader and then stored in individual homes (e.g. Halperin 1994). However, in this case, the absence of any kind of centralized storage area, either within the settlement or beyond its walls, seems to be significant.   33  See, for example, the discussion in Smyth 1989.   34  In contrast to the example outlined in Christakis 1999 for Minoan Crete.   35  Py 1992a.   36  Py 1992a, 224; 1992b, 261, 264–65, 273–74.   37 Py 2009. Archaeologists have found evidence for a potter’s wheel at Lattara from the fifth century BC, although curiously, no pottery presumably made at the site shows evidence of wheel-throwing.   38 For an overview of the evidence for metallurgy activities at Lattara, see Lebeaupin 1998; Py 2009, 263–273.   39 Room 9 from Zone 27 dating to ca. 450 BC, Zone 1 from ca. 350–325 BC, Sector 3 from Zone 4-South for ca. 350 BC, and Room 1 from Zone 2 for the period 200–175 BC. See Lebeaupin 1998.  40 E.g. Richards 1939, 382.   41  Sahlins 1972; Wolf 1982.   42  Bohannan 1963.   43  Bohannan and Bohannan 1968, 7.   44  Otis 1973.   45 At a general level, see Bohannan 1963; Lee 1990, especially 231–235; Sahlins 1972. For Africa, see for example Bascom 1969, 24 on the Yoruba; Bohannan and Bohannan 1968 on the Tiv; Gluckman 1968 on the Lozi; Richards 1939, 244–251 on the Bemba; Turner 1968 on the Ndembu; For Melanesia see Malinowski 1935, 341–381 on the Trobriand Islanders; For North America see Mann 2000 on the Haudenosaunee.   46  See Julius Caesar, Gallic Wars 6.22 and Diodorus Siculus 5.34.3–4.   47  Strabo, Geography 4.4.3.   48 In regard to the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula, Strabo (Geography 3.4.17) does specifically mention women tilling the fields.  49 E.g. the case studies in Etienne and Leacock 1980.   50  Garnsey 2007.   51  Terrenato 2007, 14.   52  Fiches 1989, 228.   53  Py 2015.   54  Py 2015, 303.   55  Py and Lopez 1990, 244   56  Dusseaux et al. 2017, 52–53.   57  Dusseaux et al. 2017, 54.   58  Dusseaux et al. 2017, 57.   59  Vial 2003, 227.   60  See Buffat 2011 for a recent important survey of these villae in eastern Languedoc.

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  61 For a discussion in regard to specifically Roman Mediterranean Gaul, see for example Leveau 2002.   62  Lugand and Bermond 2001, 244–256; Lugand and Pellecuer 2016.   63  Lugand and Bermond 2001, 246–247; Lugand and Pellecuer 2016, 20.   64  Lugand and Bermond 2001, 246–247; Lugand and Pellecuer 2016, 21–26.   65  Lugand and Bermond 2001, 250.   66  Lugand and Bermond 2001, 250.   67  Lugand and Pellecuer 2016, 25.   68  Dusseaux et al. 2017, 57.   69  Lugand and Bermond 2001, 250.   70  Lugand and Pellecuer 2016, 16.   71  Lugand and Pellecuer 2016.   72  Laubenheimer 1990; 1992.   73  Vial 2003, 227–230, 327.   74  Sternberg 1994, 85–89; Py 1992a, 228–229; 1992b, 277–278. See also Luley 2014a.   75  Luley and Piquès 2016.   76  Piquès and Martinez 2008.   77  For Trench 19 see Py 1988; for Zone 36 see Piquès and Martinez 2008.   78  Piquès and Martinez 2008.   79  Piquès and Martinez 2008.   80  Piquès and Martinez 2008.   81  See, for example, Van Oyen 2016.   82  For preliminary reports on these results, see Luley 2018b; 2019.   83  For an overview of the evidence for centuriation in Mediterranean Gaul see Chouquer 1993.   84  Piganiol 1962.   85  Favory 1988; Jung 2007; Bel and Daveau 2008, 43.  86 E.g. Raynaud 1990; Assénat 1991; Chouquer 1993; Fiches 1993; Favory 1997.  87 E.g. Fiches 1993, 103.   88  Raynaud 1990; Fiches 1993, 102.   89  Favory 1997, 111.   90  Mauné 2000.   91  Assénat 1991; Py 2015, 229.   92  See Bel and Daveau 2008.   93  Py 2015, 229.   94 See Barruol 1969a, 291–293 for a discussion of the likely location of the farm in question in the case of Publius Quinctius and Naevius.   95  Cicero, Pro Fonteio 12, 46.   96  See Demougeot 1972.   97  Caesar, Civil Wars 6.59.   98  Caesar, Civil Wars 6.59.   99  Vial 2003, 228. 100 This would thus be a case similar to that of the indigenous man who received citizenship for service under Julius Caesar, for whom his children later erected the famous Mausoleum of the Julii still standing today at Glanum in Provence. 101  Birks 1985. See also Graeber 2014, 198–203 for an interesting discussion of the term. 102 Compare this, for example, with the fact that in modern Insular Celtic languages there is no literal way of saying “I have.” The sentence in modern Irish tá leabhar agam, translated into English as “I have a book,” literally means “there is a book to me,” with the subject of the sentence (that which is in some sense doing the acting) being the material object, rather than the actual person.

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103 For a discussion of wage labor in the city of Rome, see Brunt 1980, and more generally for the Roman Empire, see Kehoe 2012. 104  For an important general discussion of the archaeology of Roman slavery, see Webster 2005. 105  Christol 1999; Demougeot 1972. 106  Demougeot 1972, 86–87, 89–91. 107 Strabo, Geography 3.4.17. For his part, Charmoleon apparently did send the women home with her child and her pay when he learned what had transpired. 108  Dedet 2008, 70. 109  Dedet 2008, 70. 110  See, for example, Redfern 2008; Roberts and Cox 2007. 111 For an overview of the forensic examination of the three skeletons, see Duchesne and Treil 2005. See Piqués and Buxó 2005 for an archaeological discussion of the wells in which they were found. 112  See Duchesne and Treil 2005, 343. 113 In this regard these wells at Lattara seem to be smaller versions of the puticuli, pits for human corpses and animal remains all jumbled together, at ancient Rome. See Hopkins 1983, 207–211. 114  Demougeot 1966. 115  See Arnal et al. 1974, 253–254. 116  Matthew 20, 1–7. 117 Interestingly, some people (redemptores) did amass considerable wealth by contracting out day laborers for agricultural or public works; Suetonius (Vespasian 1.4) records that the great-grandfather of Emperor Vespasian made his fortune this way. See also Polybius 6.17; Frontinus, Aqueducts 2.119, 124. 118  See Zuiderhoeck 2017, 122–130. 119  See, for example, Marx 1935, 22–23; Polanyi 1949, especially pp. 164–170. 120 Even Friedrich Engels retreated from Karl Marx’s original assertion that class relations were present in “all of human history.” 121  See, for example Etienne and Leacock 1980; Fried 1967; Lee 1990.

Chapter 5 Turning People into Things The Rise of Coinage and a Money Economy at Lattara

Perhaps one of the most visible and earliest reminders today of the impact that Roman colonialism had on daily social life at Lattara consists of the large numbers of bronze coins found at the site dating to the first century BC.1 Although much smaller quantities of coins have been found dating to the period before the Roman conquest, by the first century BC, these bronze coins had become a tangible part of important social transformations impacting the settlement in Roman times. The archaeological evidence suggests that by end of the first century BC, the inhabitants of the settlement were using coins in a widening array of commercial exchanges involving some of the most basic goods of daily life, such as bread. At first glance, the coins thus seem to represent an increase in economic interactions and production, corresponding with what we have seen in the earlier chapter. However, an interesting paradox arises when we examine more closely the widespread appearance of coinage at Lattara. Specifically, the appearance of large quantities of small-change, bronze coins in the archaeological record – suggesting a quotidian usage to these coins such that they were lost in relatively large amounts over time – marks one of the earliest important changes to material culture at Lattara following the Roman conquest. Furthermore, this rise in coinage actually precedes by several decades the increase in economic production evident at the site by the end of the first century BC. Thus, the known historical context of Roman rule in Mediterranean Gaul forces us to consider – in looking also at other instances in which the monetization of the economy coincided with colonial rule in modern times – the potential links between Roman rule, taxation, and debt in the eventual creation of a monetized economy at Lattara. Specifically, then, I will suggest in this chapter that coinage became widespread at Lattara after the Roman conquest above all due to policies of Roman taxation, which quite possibly drove many native peoples into debt and may have forced them to work at least part time as wage laborers. The coins thus represent at once economic growth and prosperity (for some),

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and exploitation and debilitating conditions (for many others), and this chapter seeks to examine this dual nature of coinage at Lattara that contributed to the emergence of a new mode of production that we saw in the earlier chapter. Traditional economic theorists, going back to Adam Smith in the eighteenth century and even farther back to Aristotle in the fourth century BC, have postulated that money such as coins arose as a replacement for earlier systems of barter.2 Money, so the thinking goes, was created to facilitate the exchange of the basic goods humans need in daily life; rather than swapping pots for bread and then baskets for fish, a common medium of exchange, such as coins, would allow these various commodities to circulate freely. Commodities could be exchanged for money, and the money, then, could be used to purchase other commodities. This theory concerning the origin of money has been the predominant theory in traditional economic histories. At the same time, a great number of anthropological and archaeological studies have demonstrated that, in fact, the earliest forms of money did not generally play a role in the smallscale exchange of daily goods. Instead, early money often functioned as a standard of value for calculating social payments, such as fines, payments for injury, and arranging marriages.3 Although the use of coins as a medium of exchange for buying and selling a wide array of goods and services was an important part of the ancient Greco-Roman world, this appears to be a late and unusual development in human history.4 Money such as what we are used to in our own society, or the kind of money used by the Greeks and the Romans, is an exception, rather than a rule, in human history. Furthermore, numerous anthropological studies have documented the disruptive and potentially traumatic effects that the introduction of this kind of monetized economy – often linked with land seizures and the growth of debt – can have on local peoples.5 As we shall see in this chapter, Lattara after the Roman conquest is a clear example of both of these points. Although coinage existed at Lattara before the Roman conquest, the archaeological evidence suggests that it likely played little important role in daily exchanges of a purely subsistence or economic nature, and was instead mainly used for social payments, or in exchanges with Greek merchants. However, as we have seen in the previous chapter, Roman colonialism appears to have created new systems of land ownership and settlement patterns in the first century BC. As part of these transformations, Roman policies of taxation and the removal of many native Celts from their lands likely created an increasingly significant number of people who relied on wage labor at least partially for their subsistence. Furthermore, as we shall see later in Chapter 7, these new dominating social relationships emerging out of the disruption of Roman colonialism, whose physical manifestation was often the exchange of coins, allowed for more pronounced and rigid levels of socio-economic inequality at Lattara and elsewhere in Roman Mediterranean Gaul by the first century AD.

Money in the Ancient World Scholars have long debated how we should define money and what its essential characteristics are; a task particularly challenging given the fundamentally different ways the

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objects we often label as “money” function in other societies compared with in our own capitalist economy. That said, the three most commonly cited characteristics of money in anthropological and comparative economic work are: 1) a means of exchange, 2) a mode of payment, and 3) a standard of value.6 Although in modern capitalist society the most important characteristic is the first – as a means of facilitating the indirect exchange of commodities – as mentioned, in many other societies “money” may function as a standard of value without ever playing a role in commercial transactions. George Dalton, an influential economic anthropologist, for example, has referred to our own system of money as “all-purpose money,” (or “general-purpose money”) in which the dominant function of money is as a means of exchange for buying and selling goods.7 Again drawing upon the terminology of Dalton, “limited-purpose money” refers to money that functions as either a mode of payment or a standard of value, but which does not serve any commercial function as a common means of exchanging commodities.8 Value, for example, can be quantified in any kind of physical object – such as cattle, bars of iron, pigs, shells, or whatever – in order to standardize the payment of social debts of a generally non-commercial nature, including payments for injury and wergeld, fines, sacrifices, marriage payments, payments at a funeral, establishing social alliances, and so.9 In all these cases, money involves the giving away of material objects for the creation of specific types of social relationships. Furthermore, although payments may be calculated in a certain thing (such as five cattle for a fine), the actual payment might be in some other good. In many, if not most of these societies lacking any kind of general-purpose money, many daily goods that people need, including food, tools, and so on, are not necessarily exchanged in an impersonal way for other commodities.10 Rather, in these “human economies” (as opposed to “commercial” economies) it is often the network of social relations and obligations that structure the sharing of these subsistence goods between people.11 In the Greek-speaking world of the eastern Mediterranean it appears that a monetized economy arose fairly quickly in the sixth century BC, with coinage increasingly becoming a means of exchange for commodities in daily market transactions.12 The Greek colony of Massalia in Mediterranean Gaul first began minting coins around 530 BC, exactly around the time when – perhaps not coincidentally – the colony also began producing its own amphorae to transport wine.13 After a period of experimentation with different silver denominations, by around 475 BC, the only coin Massalia was minting were silver obols (Fig. 5.1). The obol was a typical smaller denomination in Greek coinage, with six silver obols equal to one silver drachma.14 Unlike with the larger drachmae, the lesser value of obols meant that in the Greek world they facilitated some forms of commodity exchange, and Greek texts mention the prices of various foodstuffs, including bread, wine, fish, and olive oil, in terms of obols.15 Around the middle of the third century BC, in addition to its silver obols, Massalia also began to mint a larger silver drachma with a lion on the reverse, worth six obols, as well as a large bronze coin with a bull on the reverse.16 Somewhat later, at the end of the third century BC, Massalia began issuing a lighter silver drachma, now only worth four obols, as well as a series of medium and small-sized bronze coins.17

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Fig. 5.1: Examples of coins found at Lattara. 1: Massaliote silver drachma; 2: Massaliote silver obol; 3: Massaliote large bronze coin with tripod on the reverse; 4: Massaliote medium-sized bronze coin with bull on reverse; 5: Massaliote small-sized bronze coin with bull on reverse; 6: silver monnaie à la croix; 7: Early small bronze from Nemausus with a boar; 8: Small bronze coin from Nemausus with an individual holding a patera and NEM COL (Nemausus colonia) (photo: courtesy of Lattes excavations, UFRAL).

The indigenous peoples of the region of western Languedoc, especially in the area around Toulouse, began minting their own silver coins in the second half of the third century BC.18 Some settlements in eastern Languedoc, most notably Nemausus (modern Nîmes) also followed suit at the end of the second century BC, seemingly after the Roman conquest, generally minting smaller bronze coins.19 In the case of Lattara, however, there is no evidence to suggest that at any point in its history the settlement minted its own coins.20 Thus, throughout the occupation of Lattara, even early on under Roman rule, by far the most common types of coins were those minted at Massalia, although Roman coins became much more frequent in the first century AD.21

Coinage at Lattara: 350–225 BC Although Lattara was founded around 500 BC, the earliest coin found dates to between 350 and 325 BC, consisting of a silver obol from the mints at Massalia.22 For 150 years or so at Lattara, then, there is no archaeological evidence for coinage playing an important role in the social lives of the settlement’s inhabitants, despite the extensive use of coins already by this time at the Greek colony of Massalia. Even after 350 BC,

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coinage only appears in limited quantities in the archaeological record until around the time of the Roman conquest. Furthermore, before ca. 225 BC, the very small amount of coinage present at Lattara appears to have been exclusively in the form of silver obols from Massalia (Fig. 5.2). These silver obols are found only very sporadically across the site for the period 350–225 BC. Specifically, archaeologists have found these coins either amassed in a number of very large hoards, or as single stray finds in domestic contexts. To date only seven silver Massaliote obols dating to the period ca. 350–225 BC have been recorded as stray finds. These isolated finds were all found in domestic contexts, and in general, the obols appear to have been simply lost in fine layers of sediment and domestic debris that accumulated in the dirt floors of the houses, or in rubble layers of mudbrick from when the house was torn down or modified. In addition to these, the excavations of Lattara have also uncovered three hoards, each consisting of hundreds of obols. All three appear to have been buried in the ground, possibly in the dirt floors of houses, and at least in one case were held in a ceramic jar.23 Given the relative value of the obol in the Greek world in the fourth–third centuries BC, the three hoards almost certainly represent a significant concentration of wealth.

Fig. 5.2: Graph indicating the patterns of coin loss at Lattara over time (excluding hoards).

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Fig. 5.3: Photo of the third hoard of Massaliote obols discovered at Lattara (trésor #4) (photo: courtesy of Lattes excavations, UFRAL).

There is thus a sharp contrast between the sparse distribution of a few isolated obols across the site during the third and second centuries BC, and the presence of hundreds of obols hoarded together. Certain individuals were thus clearly amassing large quantities of silver obols, representing very sizable sums of money, while at the same time some obols appear to have been circulating among the inhabitants of the town, based upon the fact that a very small number were somehow lost within the dirt floors of the houses.24 The relatively small numbers of obols lost, however, may not be entirely representative of the true numbers actually circulating within Lattara during this time period. A number of important studies have analyzed the types of coins uncovered as stray finds on Roman archaeological sites compared with the types of coins that were apparently in use at Pompeii at the time of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.25 These studies have clearly demonstrated that silver coins, which made up approximately 42% of all coinage in circulation at Pompeii, were lost far less often than less valuable bronze denominations.26 Thus, at sites where the coins discovered by archaeologists consist of stray finds, bronze coins tend to be over-represented compared with silver coins, because bronze coins were lost far more frequently due to their lesser value. The overall impression from both the hoards and the stray

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finds at Lattara, then, is that coins by the late fourth century BC were present at the site in relatively large quantities, but were simply not being lost on a quotidian basis, in contrast to what we will see later after the Roman conquest. Indeed, the fact that the three hoards of Massaliote obols were found at all is seemingly due to the sheer bad luck of whoever owned the hoards; presumably quite a number of other hoards were in existence at the site at any one time, but were never lost, making them archaeologically invisible. That being said, as we shall see shortly, in part precisely because they seem to have been rarely lost, silver obols – and coinage more generally – appear to have played a much different role in social life at Lattara before the Roman conquest than after.

Coinage at Lattara: 225–125 BC At the end of the third century BC, there appears to have been a slight increase in the amount of coinage present at Lattara, as well as in the types of coins (Fig. 5.2). Whereas, before, the only coins in use were Massaliote silver obols, now a number of new types appeared as well, including several different denominations of less valuable bronze coins from Massalia. These new bronze coins, which can be grouped into three general denominations (small, medium, and large), were first minted in Massalia in the third century BC and appear to have been made to facilitate more ordinary economic exchanges, being much less valuable than the silver denominations. Since the bronze coins were made for daily transactions, being of a relatively low value, they tended to be lost far more often than silver coinage, explaining in a large part why even for this period bronze coins appear more frequently in the archaeological record than silver coins. Nevertheless, the sheer number of bronze coins found in contexts dating to after 125 BC suggest that although some bronze coins were in circulation for the period 225–125 BC, they were not nearly as important as they would become after the Roman conquest. Before ca. 225 BC, all the coins at Lattara, consisting of exclusively silver Massaliote obols, were found in domestic contexts. This begins to change between 225 and 125 BC, when coinage begins to appear in different archaeological contexts (Fig.  5.4). In particular, there seems to be an increasing relation between coinage and the storage of grain. In addition, the other important new type of coin to appear was a silver coin minted in western Languedoc, referred to today by archaeologists as monnaie à la croix, recalling the cross motif that quarters the reverse side of the coin (Fig. 5.1). This type of coinage appears to have been first minted in western Languedoc toward the end of the third century BC, with the earliest denominations imitating the silver drachmae from the Greek settlement of Rhode, across the bay from the larger city of Emporion (modern Empúries in Catalonia).27 Unfortunately, the general lack of legends makes it rather difficult to determine where exactly these coins were minted. Similar to the case with the Massaliote silver obols, archaeologists have also discovered a hoard of 842 silver monnaies à la croix dating to sometime around 150 BC.28 As with the three

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Fig. 5.4: Graph indicating the archaeological context of coins found at Lattara. Note: only coins found in identifiable floor or occupation layers have been included, with all coins from rubble layers excluded.

hoards of Massaliote obols, in this case the hoard was found in a level of soil that had been heavily disturbed by modern ploughing, rendering any contextual reading of the find difficult. Based upon the types of coins, however, it appears that they all came from western Languedoc and were likely brought all together to Lattara at one time.29 Overall, the increase in coinage and the appearance of monnaie à la croix may in part reflect the arrival, first, of Carthaginian armies in western Languedoc, followed by an increasing Roman presence later in western Languedoc after the creation of the province of Hispania Citerior (encompassing roughly the modern nation of Catalonia today) in 197 BC.

Value and Exchange at Lattara before the Roman Conquest For the period before the Roman conquest, the archaeological evidence from Lattara suggests that some individuals were evidently stockpiling large numbers of silver obols, and somewhat later larger quantities of silver monnaies à la croix as well. At the same time that some people were hoarding away large numbers of these coins, some Massaliote obols, along with a few other bronze and silver denominations, were also occasionally circulating among the inhabitants of the settlement, although these coins do not seem to have been frequently lost. How exactly, then, did coinage function at

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Lattara before the Roman conquest, and what value did it have to the inhabitants of the settlement? The fact that very few silver obols, as well as the later silver monnaies à la croix, appear to have been lost at the site, especially compared with the later bronze coins of the first century BC, suggests that these silver coins were of a relatively high importance, and probably did not change hands very often, certainly not on a regular, daily basis. Above all, there is little evidence to suggest that coins or any other form of money was functioning as a general-purpose currency at Lattara for the exchange of subsistence goods among the indigenous population. As explored more fully in the previous chapter, the production of food and other material goods at Lattara appears to have been quite decentralized and small-scale before the Roman conquest. One of the few examples of spaces devoted solely to craft production from before the conquest are several metallurgy workshops. Of the workshops found at Lattara dating to prior to ca. 125 BC, none had any coins found associated with them, in marked contrast to the later workshops found for the period 125–25 BC (see below). Furthermore, there is little evidence for the importance of coins in religious practices for the period 350–125 BC, compared with after the Roman conquest. In all, there is only one example of coins being used in domestic rituals or offerings for this period: within a house dating to 225–200 BC, archaeologists uncovered a silver Massaliote obol along with a number of broken ceramic sherds and a pig jawbone underneath a mudbrick bench. The deposit of these objects appears to be a ritual offering associated with the construction or modification of the house.30 Aside from this example, however, there are no other examples of coins playing a role in domestic religious offerings or rituals, despite the numerous ritual deposits found in the floors of houses for this period.31 Drawing upon anthropological literature from across the world where money does not enter into the realm of subsistence or daily commercial transactions, it is quite possible that at Lattara before the Roman conquest, coinage was circulating – at least in part – for social payments and obligations for things like fines for injuries, marriage payments, creating social alliances, and so on. In early medieval Irish society, based upon the surviving literature dating to the seventh through the ninth centuries AD, for example, the value of various social payments, such as fines for injury, calculating “honor price” of different individuals, creating relationships of clientage, and payment for marriages, were generally calculated in either séioth (singular sét), which was an abstract notion of wealth connected to wealth in cattle, or in cumala (singular cumal) a term generally translated as “bondmaid” or “female servant.”32 Both these units of value, however, were purely notional, and actual payment was instead made in goods like cattle, silver, or grain.33 Furthermore, subsistence goods, such as food, could never be assigned a price in these standards of value, and were neither bought nor sold.34 For example, in the Irish epic The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel, Éochaid (a man) gives to the father of Étain (a woman) a payment of bridewealth worth seven cumala, without specifying what the actual goods given as payment were.35 Elsewhere in the story, when food is given to strangers, it is never in the context of buying or

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selling, but rather according to the very strict laws of hospitality which governed early medieval Irish society.36 Related to this, throughout the world in societies lacking a general-purpose money and a market economy for the impersonal exchange of commodities, ethnographers have noted what are often referred to as “spheres of exchange” that structure the interchangeability (or lack thereof) of goods and payments.37 In these societies, different kinds of material goods and more immaterial social relations are grouped together and ranked into different spheres, with different rules for each group in terms of how they can be exchanged. At the fundamental level, there is often above all a separation of material goods into two categories: subsistence goods, including agricultural produce and most tools and household items, and prestige goods, such as cattle, pigs, metal objects, and imported goods.38 A common observation made by ethnographers is that in regard to the category of subsistence goods, food is never considered a form of wealth, and excess food that a family does not need was above all to be given away through sharing, but certainly should never be bought or sold.39 One of the most famous examples of a society with these kinds of spheres of exchange is the Tiv, a people living in central Nigeria, as documented by the ethnographers Laura and Paul Bohannan.40 While all the details of this notable study need not be reviewed, several interesting points are worth raising. Foremost for the Tiv was the conceptual separation between the exchange of gifts, which implied a personal and long term-relationship, and a kind of impersonal “market” exchange, in which there was no need for close connections and where certain types of goods could be exchanged for certain other goods.41 In contrast, among kin, the only correct form of exchange was gift exchange.42 Following from this, the Tiv made a further distinction between subsistence goods and prestige goods. Subsistence goods included agricultural produce, less prestigious livestock, such as chickens and goats, household items, and some tools.43 Within this sphere of exchange, among non-kin any good could be exchanged for another object as need dictated, such as yams for a pot, okra for guinea corn, and so on, although this was always done without any kind of general-purpose money.44 The actual percentage of agricultural goods produced by any one household that ever entered into any kind of impersonal exchange was quite low, with all households being self-sufficient at a certain basic level.45 Certainly, this appears to be the case at Lattara, and seems to be a more general condition of many non-industrial societies with “human economies.”46 Interestingly, the Tiv associated this impersonal, market kind of exchange of foodstuffs with a shortage of food, and in areas where food was plentiful – and by extension, families were self-sufficient – markets for directly exchanging foodstuffs were rare.47 The category of prestige goods included slaves (theoretically at least, since by the time the Bohannans were working in Nigeria slavery had been banned), cattle, a certain kind of cloth, brass rods, and certain non-material things like traditional medicine, magic, and ritual titles.48 Within this category of prestige goods, brass rods and cloth functioned as a kind of special-purpose money for calculating the value of other

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prestige goods (a standard of value), with brass rods also functioning as a means of payment within the same sphere of exchange.49 The exchange of these prestige goods was strictly separated from the sphere of exchange involving subsistence goods, and as such, prestige goods were never exchanged in a market setting, but rather through ceremonies and other ritual events.50 Finally, a third sphere of exchange consisted of rights over other humans, most notably marriage rights.51 For the Tiv, land and labor were apart from all categories of exchange.52 Because the different categories of goods were conceptually distinct, and because there was no common standard of value allowing for the conversion between categories (as with money in modern, capitalist society), exchanging goods between categories – i.e. food for brass rods or brass rods for marriage rights – was never straightforward, and always involved certain moral judgements.53 For the Tiv, the things in one category were by their very nature never equivalent to the things in another category.54 One could never, for example, “buy” a wife with brass rods; the two were simply not equivalent.55 Drawing upon this, the anthropological literature suggests that the silver obols and other coins at Lattara prior to the Roman conquest served above all as a kind of prestige good likely used in a distinct sphere of exchanging involving social payments, and probably rarely entered into the realm of daily, commercial transactions of a more subsistence nature. This could certainly explain the fact that silver obols tended to be hoarded away and were rarely lost in the archaeological record. In addition, it is also worth mentioning the possible link between Massaliote coinage and Greek trade. Given the fact that the vast majority of coins were from Massalia, archaeologists have speculated that the flow of coins at Lattara was somehow linked to trade with the Greek colony. The large quantities of broken wine amphorae from Massalia found throughout the site, as well as Greek tableware ceramics, clearly indicates the level of trade between locals and Massaliote merchants, with local peoples at Lattara likely exchanging agricultural produce for wine in amphorae and imported ceramics.56 Related to this, a Greek inscription on a small sheet of lead found near the southern gates of the town leading to the port may give us some idea of how exactly the exchange of imported goods may have worked at Lattara.57 The inscription is written in a form of Ionian Greek, and was found in an archaeological context dating to 450–425 BC. Although the inscription is fragmentary and difficult to translate, it seems to relate to a purchase of olive oil, with payment for the purchase requested in staters (a large Greek denomination of coinage). Specifically, the inscription refers to two Greeks, Kleosthenes and Kleanax, who owed an unnamed person – presumably someone from Massalia given the Ionian dialect – the sum of staters for the earlier purchase of olive oil. On the other side, the inscription refers to a similar order for a kind of fish sauce with olives in it.58 Archaeologists have often interpreted the inscription from Lattara to suggest the presence of Greek merchants who lived at least periodically at the settlement and served as intermediaries with other merchants and sailors coming from the colony at Massalia.59 These resident Greek merchants at Lattara would have facilitated the

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flow of agricultural goods from the settlement and the surrounding region to Massalia in exchange for imported wares like wine and Greek ceramics.60 When ships from Massalia arrived at Lattara, the Greeks intermediaries living in the town likely would have purchased the imported goods from Massalia with coins, possibly also explaining the storage of large sums of silver obols needed to buy the imported commodities in bulk. At the same time, these intermediaries would have sold the agricultural produce they acquired from the native inhabitants of Lattara to the arriving merchants in exchange for coinage as well, although the lead sheet indicates that sometimes these payments in coins were not immediate, with the inscription functioning as a reminder of the debt to be paid. The local intermediaries would have then in turn distributed these imported goods to their indigenous contacts throughout the settlement. The fact that the lead plaque predates the presence of coinage at Lattara could suggest that originally Greek merchants used a system of credit, with values written down in terms of coinage but with coins never actually changing hands. By the fourth century BC, the system of credit may then in turn have been replaced largely by one in which coins did physically change hands as a medium of exchange between merchants. It is also quite possible then, that silver obols may have also been circulating – in relatively small quantities – between the indigenous inhabitants of Lattara and the resident Greek merchants. In this case, the silver obols may have functioned as a kind of token of credit marking the exchange of goods; at times perhaps, locals would advance payments of grain and other agricultural products to the resident Greek intermediaries in exchange for coins while waiting for whatever desired goods from Massalia to arrive by ship. When the goods arrived, the silver obols would then be exchanged again with the intermediaries in exchange for the imported goods. Certainly, it is quite possible and even likely that merchants and local peoples would not have always been able to directly exchange local agricultural produce with imported goods, especially given the fixed seasons throughout the year in which certain types of agricultural products would have been available for exchange. Thus, some kind of system of marking commercial exchanges may very well have been needed between the resident Greek merchants and local inhabitants. This would also further explain the growing association in the second century BC between coins and local granaries in the settlement for storing agricultural produce. These two scenarios – indigenous systems of social payments and exchanges with Greek merchants – are not necessarily exclusive of one another, and both point to a specific use of coinage that was set apart from the life of subsistence and quotidian commercial transactions. Furthermore, in both cases coinage seems to have functioned as a means ultimately of creating human relationships through marriage, alliance building, feasting, and so on, and coinage certainly does not seem to have been invested in “productive property,” such as land, in order to increase profits. Coinage, at least by the fourth through the third centuries BC, had likely simply become another means to this end, representing much more a continuity, rather than any kind of rupture, in indigenous social logic.

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Coinage at Lattara after the Roman Conquest: 125 BC–AD 100 Likely related to the initial Roman conquest, there is a very noticeable increase in the number of coins found in archaeological contexts at Lattara for the period after 125 BC.61 The number of coins found for every 25-year occupational period increases in particular after around 100 BC, and then seems to reach its peak around 50 BC (Fig. 5.5). Interestingly, archaeologists have not unearthed any hoards from after the Roman conquest (with one possible exception, see below), again suggesting quite different patterns of use for coinage during this period. Instead, coins appear to be much more widely dispersed across the settlement and were apparently changing hands so often that they became lost far more frequently during the course of the first century BC than in earlier centuries. This increase in coinage is evident above all in the marked rise in the number of small bronze coins lost at the site during the first century BC (Fig. 5.2). The most common type of coinage throughout the first century BC consisted of small bronze coins from Massalia, depicting on one side the head of Apollo, and a bull on the reverse. In addition, a number of peoples in eastern Languedoc began to mint their own coinage – usually in the form of small bronze coins – beginning at the end of the second century BC, with these coins also appearing in the first century BC at Lattara.62 The most common type of these locally minted coins was a series of small bronze coins from the oppidum of Nemausus (modern Nîmes). Comparing the number of coins found in contexts from before and after the Roman conquest, it is quite evident that coins, especially bronze ones, were being lost far more frequently in the first century BC than in prior centuries, suggesting a significant change in use for this period. As mentioned, the noticeable increase in small bronze coins does not necessarily mean that they had become the most common denomination in actual circulation at the settlement; it is quite likely that silver coins were also present across the site in larger quantities than what is actually represented in the archaeological record. What is clear, however, is that bronze coins were apparently being used on a more daily basis and were changing hands so frequently now that they were lost at a much higher rate than with silver coins, or with any type of coin for earlier periods before the conquest. In addition to appearing in domestic contexts, for the period 125–25 BC, coinage now began appearing in the context of artisan workshops as well, suggesting that coins were increasingly associated with the exchange of daily commodities (Fig. 5.4). Specifically, significant numbers appeared in the floor or occupation layers associated with four different artisan workshops of a non-domestic nature: two metallurgy workshops, one from 125–100 BC and another from 75–50 BC, a bakery from the period 50–25 BC, and finally a space that seems to have been intended for artisanal or commercial activities dating to 100–75 BC, without archaeologists being able to determine its exact function (Fig. 5.6 and 5.7).63 In addition, the ongoing excavations of the first-century AD port at Lattara, which have revealed both storage facilities

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Fig. 5.5: Graph indicating the ratio of coins found for every 100 ceramic sherds at Lattara and Block 9 at Ambrussum (excluding hoards).

for cargo and artisan workshops, have also produced a large number of coins, now often of Roman origin, rather than Massaliote.64 In all of these cases, the coins were generally of bronze, were low denominations, and appear to have been stray finds that were lost in daily usage and became trampled into the dirt floors of the workshops. For example, in the case of the bakery, archaeologists found a total of eight bronze coins buried in the dirt floor of the two rooms, seven in the room with the oven (one in fact had apparently accidently been swept into the oven itself, possibly when the oven was abandoned), and one other in the back room for storing grain.65 Although it is difficult to quantify due to the lack of clear documentation, the GAP excavations from the 1960s–70s at trench S26 north of the settlement – where there is good evidence for artisan activities in the first century BC through the first century AD – revealed large numbers of small bronze coins.66 In one context from the first century BC (Sector 7b), for example, archaeologists found over 80 coins (most of which were small bronze Massaliote coins) buried within one floor layer – perhaps representing some kind of disturbed hoard.67 In addition to the increasing association in the first century BC with artisanal activities, coinage also appears to have played a more important role after the Roman conquest in ritual and religious activities as well. For example, archaeologists found a ritual enclosure at Lattara at Block 60-north in use from about 25 BC to AD 50 (Fig.  5.8).68 Within the enclosure, archaeologists found the base of a stela or some

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Fig. 5.6: Room 4 from Block 30, taken from the east, for the period 100–75 BC, showing the floor of river pebbles. The inset shows the urn containing two small bronze coins that was found half-buried in the floor of the room (photo: courtesy of Lattes excavations, UFRAL).

kind of a statue in a shallow rectangular pit. Scattered around this monument they found 14 offerings of coins, suggesting that locals were leaving coins as small votive deposits, a practice for which there is no evidence at the site from before the Roman conquest.69 Archaeologists have also discovered two other very similar open sanctuaries in the surrounding area dating to the first century AD that also produced coin offerings: one near the courtyard house of Block 9 at Ambrussum, and another at the site of Balaruc-les-Bains to the west of Lattara.70 What is striking in all of this is the sheer number of coins that must have been circulating by this time at Lattara in the first century BC to account for the dramatic increase in the number lost at the site in the century or so following the Roman conquest. These lost coins only represent a very small fraction of the actual number circulating, leaving us with the distinct impression that economic life at Lattara had changed significantly by the first century BC. Most noticeably, there is a marked association now between artisanal spaces and coins, suggesting that the local inhabitants were now using coins as a means of exchange on a more daily basis for buying and selling goods and services. What had happened, then, between the end of the second century BC and the beginning of the first century BC that can account for

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Fig. 5.7: Distribution of finds of five or more coins at Lattara for the first century BC (map: author).

this transformation? The most obvious answer seems to lie in the events associated with the Roman conquest between 125–121 BC and the ensuing “pacification” of the province that occurred throughout the first half of the first century BC.

Taxation and Debt at Lattara Under Roman Rule Despite the Greek world being significantly monetized by the Classical Period, contact with Greek colonists seemingly did not result in the creation of any kind of a monetized economy at Lattara in pre-Roman times.71 The mere presence or introduction of coinage, then, cannot in and of itself explain the changes occurring in economic life at Lattara during the first century BC.72 Indeed, coinage seems to have circulated in a very different sphere before the Roman conquest, without ever apparently entering the sphere of daily exchange in subsistence goods such as bread. All of this appears to have changed significantly, however, by the first century BC in the context of the social disruptions and violence associated with the Roman conquest. Furthermore, as pointed out earlier, the increase in economic production – and specifically the

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Fig. 5.8: The base of the stela from the ritual enclosure found at Block 60 dating to 50–25 BC. The white dots indicate the placement of coins found clustered around it (photo: courtesy of Lattes excavations, UFRAL).

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creation of an export industry in wine – only occurs at Lattara by the end of the first century BC or early first century AD, many decades after the rise in the use of bronze coins at the site. The noticeable spike in coins at the site ca. 125–50 BC cannot therefore be strictly tied to an expanding local economy. As we have seen in previous chapters, as early as the beginning of the first century BC, the Roman governors of Gallia Transalpina (i.e. Mediterranean Gaul) were levying harsh demands for both grain (fructus) and money (pecuniae) from the population, to the point that many communities were apparently starving by 74 BC.73 It is striking, then, that bronze coins become frequently lost in the archaeological record – and thus apparently exchanged hands far more often – precisely after ca. 125 BC but before we see the dramatic transformations in houses after ca. 50 BC. While we cannot uncritically employ ethnographic evidence as an exact analogy for what went on in Roman Mediterranean Gaul, the extensive anthropological literature on monetization in modern examples of colonialism helps us to imagine possible explanations for the Roman Empire, explanations that would not necessarily be obvious within the logic of modern bourgeois thought.74 In this regard, the anthropological literature on the impact of the colonial state on local African societies in modern times makes clear the relation between the creation of a colonial taxation system, the emergence of commoditized exchange of subsistence goods, and the emergence of debt and wage labor. Returning to the example of the Tiv in central Nigeria, after originally demanding agricultural produce as taxes, the British authorities after several years began to levy taxes in coins, which meant that the Tiv had to somehow produce a surplus of crops large enough to sell for British money. Because of this, many Tiv quickly fell into debt. Previously within the sphere of subsistence goods, there was no real debt among the Tiv in the sense that goods were either directly exchanged immediately within native markets, or were distributed among kin and friends. Indeed, whenever hunger struck before, the Tiv would normally share food between kin. Under the British authorities, however, Bohannan recorded that, ironically, the “Tiv say that food is less plentiful today that it was in the past, though more land is being farmed,” and here one thinks of Pompey’s remark on the plight of starving local communities in Mediterranean Gaul (see Chapter 2).75 In regard to modern colonialism more generally, Karl Polanyi has pointed out that, “Ironically, the white man’s initial contribution to the black man’s world mainly consisted in introducing him to the uses of the scourge of hunger.”76 At the same time, with the arrival of British authorities and Ibo and Hausa merchants eager to buy agricultural surpluses, new possibilities for market exchange with general-purpose money emerged as well. In this new monetized economy, suddenly there was an equivalence of goods, and agricultural produce, for example, could be directly exchanged through general-purpose money with things like prestige goods, making items that were once not equivalent suddenly all for sale. This in turn, threatened traditional Tiv social relations, and as a result of all of this, many Tiv showed considerable distrust and anger toward money, especially on the part of elders. Indeed, they resisted the

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encroaches of money on traditional forms of exchange seemingly at every turn, even seeking to relegate British money to a fourth sphere of exchange below all the other ones. Clearly, fundamental changes and disruptions had occurred in daily life for the Tiv, all seemingly precipitated largely by the introduction of colonial taxes. The increasingly oppressive demands for coinage and grain by the Roman authorities in Gallia Transalpina likely meant that many local Celts may have fallen into debt, forced to sell their lands and resort to wage labor – at least part time – to obtain the money needed to pay taxes. It is informative, for example, that in his defense of Fonteius, Cicero vaguely mentions that “[Mediterranean] Gaul was oppressed with debt (aes alienum – literally, “someone else’s money”) under this governor [i.e. Fonteius],” although unfortunately the text here is fragmentary, and further details are lacking.77 Elsewhere, Cicero praises the efforts of a later governor of the province, Lucius Murena, who ruled over the province in 64–63 BC, in helping Romans (literally nostri homines or “our men,” in contrast to the native Celts) to recover debts owed to them in the province.78 The testimony of Cicero thus suggests a situation in which a not insubstantial part of the province may have been somehow in debt and not necessarily able to pay off their debtors or the tax collectors in the first half of the first century BC. Along similar lines, according to the Roman historian Sallust, when Roman conspirators sought to gain the help of the Allobroges in the northern part of Gallia Transalpina during the Catiline Conspiracy of 63 BC, these conspirators sought to empathize with the Allobroges by pointing out that under Roman rule they were, “oppressed by both public and private debt” (publice privatimque aere alieno oppressos).79 As we saw in Chapter 2, there was apparently later also a general unrest in Gaul in 13–12 BC when Roman authorities sought to conduct a census, something that also occurred elsewhere in the Roman world, seemingly due to the inhabitants’ fear of the crippling taxes that might ensue.80 In addition, it is worth noting that the widespread revolt in Gaul in AD 21 was also apparently in part due to the deep level of debt into which the Gallic communities had fallen (Galliarum civitates ob magnitudinem aeris alieni).81 Such was the historical context in the late second century and early first century BC when large numbers of bronze coins began to be lost into the archaeological record at Lattara. The increasing monetization of economic transactions appears to be linked at once to taxation by the colonial authorities as well as the emergence of wage labor, which itself was a product of the creation of large numbers of local Celts who had been dispossessed from their lands. In addition, the increasing need to use coins for taxes, rents, and to repay debts led to an increasing entanglement with fundamentally different notions of value that could have also likewise transformed the local community.

Land, Labor, Bodies, and Bread: The Growth of a Monetized Economy at Lattara Specifically, the eventual emergence of a monetized (or at least partially monetized) economy at Lattara by the end of the first century BC and the arrival of Roman

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colonists likely meant a confrontation between local notions of wealth, value, and exchange, and quite different transactional cosmologies that had developed in the urban centers of the Greco-Roman world based upon general-purpose money. Ancient historians and archaeologists have long debated both the nature and complexity of the Roman economy.82 In general though, most scholars have come to an overall agreement that within the Roman world, especially in cities, economic life was quite monetized by the time of the Roman conquest, with coinage functioning as a kind of general-purpose money facilitating a great daily of daily commercial transactions.83 Furthermore, the diverse array of goods and services that one could buy or sell with coins was quite extensive, arguably even disturbingly so; commodities that could be bought and sold included the basic foodstuffs and other daily goods necessary in daily life, as well as land, labor, and even human bodies in the form of prostitution and slavery that was so rampant across the Roman world.84 Given that agriculture was the basis of much of Roman wealth, it is interesting to note, for example, that the Roman politician Cato the Elder in his famous treatise, On Agriculture, written around 160 BC, makes numerous references to buying and selling land and agricultural produce, as well as obtaining the necessary tools, clothes, ceramic vessels, and baskets from various cities, presumably by buying them with coins.85 In addition, while it is clear that most of the agricultural work was to be done by slaves, whom he refers to as the familia – using the standard Latin term for the enslaved inhabitants of a household – he also mentions hiring labor, especially at harvest time.86 Indeed, although Cato the Elder is careful to contrast the pursuit of farming with merchant activity and money lending, he nevertheless leaves the reader with the distinct impression that farms are meant to generate considerable wealth through the impersonal buying and selling of agricultural land and produce.87 Later agricultural treatises, including those by Varro, written around 37 BC, and by Columella, written in the middle of the first century AD, also echo the importance of money and profit in farming.88 Columella, for example, when discussing how viticulture can enrich (locuplerere) the owner (literally the pater familias) of a vineyard, calculates the total projected profits from the whole enterprise in terms of value in coinage (in this case sesterces). At the same time, he also calculates the value of enslaved labor (in this case the cost of purchasing a vinitor, an enslaved expert in vine growing) the cost of land, and the cost of supplies needed for planting the vines in sesterces as well.89 Columella furthermore envisions an annual profit of 6% from the initial investment (1,950 sesterces per year on an initial investment of 32,480 sesterces in the vineyard).90 In the Roman world then, it is clear that money was a way at once of reducing to a common standard of value a great deal of people and things which wealthy Romans viewed as commodities, and by extension, of calculating the creation of new wealth. Cicero, in a letter to a Marcus Iunius Brutus in Gallia Cisalpina (Italy north of the Apennines) alludes to wealthy landowners – apparently absentee landlords – who used money generated by rents from their property to pay for public buildings within the towns, and he also speaks of the need to collect rents from the tenants on these lands.91

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Although the actual prices of goods are not always specified in ancient texts, a number of examples of graffiti from Pompeii give us an interesting look into the world of daily economic exchanges at a typical city of the first century AD. In the atrium of a house, for example, archaeologists found inscribed on a column a list of weekly expenditures, all of which are valued in terms of bronze asses, or in two cases, denarii.92 The list includes things like bread, olive oil, wine, olives, onions, cooking pots, porridge, cheese, dates, and sausages. Elsewhere, another inscription mentions a drink of cheap wine for one as, a better-quality wine for two asses, and high-quality wine for four asses.93 For Romans living in a city and not directly engaged in the production of their daily subsistence, markets and shops in the city could provide them with what they needed, with bronze coins used to buy food and other necessities. All of this implies a very distinct way of viewing the world and one’s relationship with it that seems to be fundamentally different from the way, for example, in which the Tiv refused to see certain categories of goods as being equivalent, and therefore not able to be directly exchanged. In particular, the idea that somehow one could at once give money equally for things as disparate as human beings, land, and food implies a kind of hierarchical relationship of control with these “commodities.” Certainly, for humans to be bought and sold – to be made in some perverse logic equivalent to bread – these unfortunate people must first be stripped of all vestiges of prior social life and become “socially dead.”94 By contrast, in many indigenous systems of belief throughout the world, there is no fundamental separation or hierarchy between humans and non-humans; all are equally alive and humans are part of a wider web of social relationships with all the beings of the cosmos, including the land itself. For land to be bought and sold (impossible in most indigenous cosmologies), it also must in some sense be “dead,” and all prior relationships with it must be severed. It is perhaps no surprise then, that the emergence in the ancient world of an interest in the “natural” world (that is the inanimate or non-living universe) emerges at the same time as general-purpose money.95 There seems thus to be a very close connection between systems of control, the separation of the natural world from the world of humans, and the commodification of beings through general-purpose money. Although there is no evidence unfortunately from literature or inscriptions relating to monetized commercial exchanges at Lattara, as discussed, the ubiquitous distribution of small bronze coins from the first century BC gives the distinct impression that coins were changing hands on a daily basis in the settlement, and that certain material goods were seen as commodities.96 The best evidence at Lattara for the increasing role of money in the daily exchange of material goods is at the various workshops and artisan spaces within the settlement and at the port where bronze coins seem to have been lost in daily transactions. The fact that none of the small bronze coins found at these workshops appears to have been intentionally discarded emphasizes how often coinage likely changed hands, such that over time a number of coins were lost.

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Beyond the clear evidence for the commodification of subsistence goods, there is also more indirect evidence at Lattara for the kind of commodification of land, labor, and human bodies that we see more generally throughout the Roman world. In regard to wage labor, there was probably a close reciprocal relationship between the commodification of goods and services such as bread and metalworking, and the emergence of people working for wages. As the economy increasingly specialized in the course of the first century BC, more and more people were no longer directly involved in producing their own food and other basic household goods. At the same time that those managing the new pottery centers, metallurgy workshops, or bakeries at Lattara were receiving coins in exchange for their products, those working at these production centers and workshops grinding grain at the mill or stoking the fires of kilns, were also likely being paid in the same coins. As mentioned in the previous chapter, an inscription from the second century AD at Lattara attests to the presence of utricularii (dock workers) and fabri (artisans) as full time professions at the settlement.97 Neither of these two groups would have produced their own food and subsistence goods, but likely instead purchased them at the bakeries and other artisanal production centers at Lattara and elsewhere, using part of their daily wages to pay for things like bread. While the evidence for the commodification of land and human beings is less direct, as we have seen in Chapter  2, the historical record for the first century BC indicates that ambitious (and unscrupulous?) Romans such as the Quinctius brothers and Naevius were purchasing land in Mediterranean Gaul in the hopes of making a profit, much in the same way as described in the agricultural treatises of Cato, Columella, and Varro.98 At the same time, Romans like Naevius were also profiting from the sale of enslaved Celts. While local Celts may have resisted attempts to commoditize land, as Roman governors forcibly removed more and more native peoples from their lands – turning the land over to Roman settlers or loyal Celts – the possibilities for resistance likely gradually eroded away.

Conclusion Overall, then, the creation of an increasingly monetized economy appears to be directly related to the disruption brought about by Roman rule. Specifically, I have suggested that the introduction of a taxation system, the dispossession of people from their lands, and the rise of debt likely directly helped lead to the creation of this monetized economy. Having likely lost a great deal of self-sufficiency and economic autonomy that had been present in the Iron Age, and unable to produce their own food, these local Celts were forced to sell their labor for coins, depending on these wages for their daily bread.99 Did elders at Lattara curse coins in the same way that Tiv elders later did under the British? Unfortunately, nothing survives that directly records the feelings of the local inhabitants at Lattara in regard to money, but it is certainly not unimaginable, and if nothing else, ethnographic comparisons help to illuminate the ways in which local peoples outside capitalist cosmology can view general-purpose money.

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One interesting possibility for resistance to monetization at Lattara – or at least an insistence on more traditional economic exchange – may possibly come from the metallurgy workshops from the first century BC, where numerous coins were found. Although the association between artisan workshops and concentrations of stray finds of bronze coins seemingly often indicates the likelihood of monetized exchange in daily transactions, in at least one workshop this seems to be somewhat more complicated. In the workshop from Block 4-north for the period 75–50 BC, the lost number of coins seems almost absurdly high: here, archaeologists found a total of 52 coins in a layer of debris from the workshop. The coins were found in an ashy layer full of bits of bronze and iron slag, with the coins seemingly lost in the debris along the southern wall of the room.100 Based upon discarded metal objects found in the workshop, including a half-finished bronze fibula and a bronze pin, it appears that the workshop was producing a large array of small objects, often for clothing or personal adornment.101 One wonders if at least some of the coins here were perhaps being melted down and used for creating jewelry and other small objects of personal adornment, thereby perhaps converting money into goods that aligned better with more traditional notions of value and economic exchange. It is also interesting to look at what the Roman historian Valerius Maximus wrote in ca. AD 35. While unfortunately the passage is purely anecdotal and without any real context, he writes, “An old custom of the Gauls comes to mind: it has been related that they lend money which would then be repaid to them in the Otherworld, because they are convinced that the souls of people are immortal. I would say that they are stupid, if these trouser-wearers did not think the same as what the pallium-clad Pythagoras believed.”102 While not directly relatable to Lattara, the practice of not enforcing the collection of debts in this life – by contrast we have already seen that Roman governors were famed for forcing the repayment of debts – seems not only to speak to Celtic beliefs in reincarnation, but also potentially shows the ways in which a foreign concept such as money could nevertheless function within an indigenous cosmology without fully disrupting indigenous systems of belief and value.103 In any case, it is certainly possible that the local inhabitants at Lattara sought to, at least at times, subvert and resist the exploitive system into which they were increasingly and inextricably entangled while attempting to maintain more traditional systems of socio-economic exchanges. At the same time, as Roman rule became more and more pronounced by the first century AD with the crystallization of clear social classes and class relations, the concrete possibilities for outright resistance likely became increasingly difficult. Turning again one last time to ethnographic comparison, one thinks of Jean Comaroff’s observation concerning the Tswana of South Africa, who had creatively transformed European culture to fit their own tastes and cultural logic, but nevertheless became increasingly entangled in capitalist production by the nineteenth century. She writes, “Few Tswana would escape the constraints of the colonial economy, and their room for creative maneuver was severely reduced. Forced to be more dependent on the market, the majority would adopt a dress that – more than any other medium – made visible their marginal place in the new imperium.”104

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   1 This chapter is based partly on an earlier article (Luley 2008) but which has been significantly modified and amended since.    2 On “barter” theories for the origin of money, see Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations 1.4; Aristotle Politics 1.9.1257.    3 Bohannan 1955; Polanyi 1955; Dalton 1961; 1965; Grierson 1977; Gerriets 1985; Humphrey and Hugh-Jones 1992; Hudson 2004. For a recent important critique of the “barter theory” for the origin of money, see Graeber 2014.    4 For works on the use of coins as general-purpose money in the ancient Greek world see Davidson 1998; Kurke 2002; Seaford 2004. For the Roman world, see Crawford 1970; Millar 1981; Duncan-Jones 1990; Howgego 1992; 1994; Temmin 2013.    5 Bohannan 1959; Taussig 1980. At the same time, these same peoples can also show considerable resistance to the monetization brought about by colonialism. See for example Althabe 1968. See the collection of case studies in Parry and Bloch 1989 on the different ways local societies have thought of and used general-purpose money.    6 Polanyi 1955, 264; Bohannan 1959; 491–492; Dalton 1965, 45; Gerriets 1985, 325; Ingham 2004, 3; Seaford 2004, 2; Graeber 2014, 22.    7  Dalton 1961, 12–13, 1965, 46. See also Polanyi 1955, 264.    8 Dalton 1961, 13; 1965, 48; See also Polanyi 1955, 266, although here Polanyi refers to it as “special-purpose money.”    9 Dalton 1961, 13; 1965, 50; Grierson 1977; Gerriets 1985. On “human economies,” see Graeber 2014, 130.   10  Polanyi 1955; Dalton 1965, 49.   11  Polanyi 1955; Gerriets 1985, 324–325; Graeber 2014, 130.   12  Kurke 2002; Seaford 2004.   13  Py 2006, 11; Feugère and Py 2011, 9.   14 The word “obol” seems to come from the word for an iron spits used as an early form of money. A drachma was literally a “handful,” i.e. the amount of iron spits one could reasonably hold in a hand, thus explaining the value of 6 obols to 1 drachma. See Plutarch, The Life of Lysander 17.   15  See for example the list compiled in Amemiya 2007, 68–71.   16 Py 2006, 63; Feugère and Py 2011, 48. See Py 2006, 83; Feugère and Py 2011, 95–96 for a discussion of the debate concerning the chronology for the creation of the various bronze denominations.   17  Py 2006, 66; Feugère and Py 2011, 110, 116.   18  Feugère and Py 2011, 235, 297.   19  Feugère and Py 2011, 185–234.   20  See Py 2006 2009, 305–315 for an overview of coinage at Lattara.   21  See Py 2006.   22 See Py 2006 for a catalogue of all coins found at Lattara before 2006. This chapter uses all of the data found in Py 2006, as well as updated data from the excavations after 2006. For an earlier interpretation of the data, see Luley 2008, which presents some of the findings discussed here in the chapter, although the interpretations from this earlier publication have been modified here.   23  See Py 2006, 961–966; 2009, 307.   24 As fairly valuable coins, it was likely rare for silver denominations such as obols to be lost. Nevertheless, a parable from the New Testament, which overall contains numerous references to the role of coins in social life in the Roman world, suggests exactly the kind of situation in which the silver obols found in houses at Lattara became misplaced: “Or, if a certain woman having ten drachmae might lose one drachma, does she not light a lamp and sweep clean the house and zealously search until she might find it?” (Luke 15, 8)

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  25  Harl 1996, 16–18; See also Greene 1986, 53–55.   26  Breglia 1950.   27 Feugère and Py 2011, 235–236. Later, beginning at the very end of the first century BC, it is likely that peoples in eastern Languedoc also began to mint their own versions of monnaie à la croix as well. See Py 2006, 546–547.   28  Py 2006, 1031–1145; 2009, 308.   29  Py 2009, 308.   30  For the context (Room 3 of Block 20), see Py 2006, 35.   31 For information on these kinds of deposits, see De Chazelles 1990; Dedet 1999; Fabre 1990; Py and Lopez 1990. Interestingly, at the site of Le Cailar, an indigenous oppidum that was occupied simultaneously with Lattara, archaeologists recently made a remarkable discovery related to the religious and symbolic uses of Massaliote obols. Near one of the ramparts of the settlement on the inside they uncovered the remains of a large open public space where captured weapons, along with the heads of enemies, were ritually displayed. The evidence suggests that the practice of displaying these trophies continued throughout the third century BC, perhaps beginning as early as the late fourth century BC. Interestingly, along with the deposits of weapons and human skulls, 48 silver Massaliote obols were also recovered, which were apparently placed with the trophies as a form of offering. Here, the presence of obols in association with war trophies perhaps represents a symbolic link between these obols and warfare, reflecting perhaps their association with payment for military service in the armies of Greek states. See Roure 2011.   32  Gerriets 1985, 332–333.   33  Gerriets 1985, 332.   34  Gerriets 1985, 338.   35 Koch 2003, 167. For discussions of the use of the terms “bridewealth” and “brideprice,” see Evans-Pritchard 1931. As an aside, it is interesting to note that in the story of The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel all of this is precipitated by Étaín’s desire to be with Eochaid (not the other way around), and her insistence that he pay the brideprice so that her desire might be fulfilled.   36 As, for example, when Fer Caille offers Conaire a pig so that he might not go hungry, or when Conaire is obliged to welcome Cailb into the “hostel” (bruiden) at night. Indeed, the whole premise of the story is based upon the disaster that arises when Conaire is forced to break the gessa (taboos) assigned to him in order to uphold the laws of hospitality.   37 Bohannan 1955; 1959; Barth 1967; Kopytoff 1986, 70–72; Piot 1991; Dietler 1999, 676; see also the notion of regimes of value in Appadurai 1986, 14–15. See Bloch and Parry 1989, 15 for the idea that all systems of exchange have some kind of spheres of exchange.   38  Bohannan, 1955; 1959; Barth 1967; Piot 1991.   39  See especially the overview in Sahlins 1972, 217–219.   40 Bohannan 1955; 1959; Bohannan and Bohannan 1968. On the Tiv more generally, see Bohannan and Bohannan 1953.   41  Bohannan 1955, 60; Bohannan and Bohannan 1968.   42 Bohannan 1955, 60; Bohannan and Bohannan 1968, 142–143. The Tiv insist that gifts between kin are never reciprocated as such; they are simply, gifts in the strictest sense of the term. See Bohannan and Bohannan 1968, 143.   43  Bohannan 1955, 62   44  Bohannan 1955, 62; 1959, 492–493.   45  Bohannan and Bohannan 1968, 147.   46  See for example Sahlins 1972.   47  Bohannan and Bohannan 1953, 53.   48  Bohannan, 1955, 62; Bohannan 1959, 493.

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  49 Bohannan 1959, 493; Bohannan and Bohannan 1953, 53. Occasionally, brass rods could be a means of payment in situations with the other two spheres of exchange, although this was rare. For this reason, Bohannan (1959, 497–498) refers to brass rods as “general-purpose money” within the prestige goods sphere of exchange, and as a limited-purpose money in the other two spheres of exchange.   50  Bohannan 1959, 493.   51  Bohannan 1955, 62–63.   52  Bohannan 1955, 63.   53  Bohannan 1955, 64–66.   54  Bohannan 1959, 495, 497.   55 Bohannan 1959, 495, 500. An ambitious individual (one “with a strong heart”) could attempt, for example, to convert food for brass rods, but such an exchange necessarily meant there was a winner and a loser in the exchange, since food was simply not equivalent to the more prestigious brass rods. See Bohannan 1959, 497.   56 Py 2009, 286–293; See also Dietler 2010 for a discussion of the interactions between the local peoples of Mediterranean Gaul and Massaliote merchants, and the long-term social changes that these interactions engendered.   57  For information on the lead sheet and its inscription, see Py 2009, 304; Bats 2010.   58 Similar lead tablets from the same period and bearing similar inscriptions have also been found at the Iberian site of Pech Maho in western Languedoc and the Greek colony of Emporion in Catalonia. See Lejeune et al. 1988.   59 On the archaeological evidence for Greeks sojourning in Lattara see Py 2009, 326, 335–338. Archaeologists have interpreted House 301 from Block 3, dating to the end of the third century BC and beginning of the second century BC, as the dwelling of resident Greek merchants. See Py 2009, 120–121.   60  Here, I am drawing upon the interpretation given by Py 2009, 312–313.   61 It is important to note that archaeologists determine the dates for the occupational levels within which the coins are found at Lattara largely based upon certain categories of fineware ceramics, rather than any kind of use of historical texts. As such, the marked increase in coins after ca. 125 BC is not due to any kind of circular reasoning based upon what we know about the Roman conquest.   62  Feugère and Py 2011, 185–234.   63 For metallurgy workshops, see Py and Lopez 1990, 213–217; Lebeaupin 1998, 87–89; Py 2006, 83 for a discussion of the archaeological context of these finds. For the bakery see Sternberg 1994, 85–90 for a discussion of the archaeological context, and Py 2006, 284 for a brief discussion of the context of the coins found there. For the artisanal workshop whose exact function could not be determined, see Py 2004, 137–140 for a discussion of the archaeological context, and Py 2004, 139–140; 2006, 163, 239–240 for the archaeological context of the coins themselves. Coins also seem to have been identified with the metallurgy activities identified during early excavations of the site in the 1960s at Trench 26 to the north of the original settlement, see Py 2009, 315.   64  For preliminary reports, see Luley 2018b, 2019.   65  See Py 2006, 284 for a brief discussion of the context of these coins.   66  See Py 1988, 93–108.   67  Py 1988, 97–98.   68  Piquès and Martinez 2008; Py 2009, 163–165.   69  Py 2006, 324.   70  Fiches 2009, 179–180.   71 For discussions of the role of money in Classical Period Greek society, see for example Davidson 1998; Kurke 2002; Seaford 2004.

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  72 See Bloch and Parry 1989, 3–7, 12–16, 21 for a critique of interpretations that have unintentionally fetishized money itself, seeing money as the primary agent in social changes, rather than larger forces.  73 Cicero, Pro Fonteio 6; Sallust, Letter of Gnaeus Pompeius 5.   74 For the use of ethnographic comparisons to understand Iron Age societies in northern Gaul, see for example Fernández-Götz 2014; Roymans 1990.   75  Bohannan 1959, 202.   76  Polanyi 1949, 172.  77 “…hoc praetor oppressam esse aere alieno Galliam.” Cicero Pro Fonteio 5.  78 Cicero, Pro Murena 240. He writes that Murena, “by fairness and diligence worked so that our men might exact money that had been given up (i.e. that they previously had been unable to recover).”   79  Sallust, Bell. Cat. 40.1, see also 41.2.   80 Cassius Dio 54.32; Livy Epit. 139. For other areas of the world, see for example the Jewish revolt in AD 6, Josephus Antiquities 38.1 and War 2.117.  81 Tacitus, Ann. 3.40.  82 E.g. Finley 1999; Scheidel and von Reden 2002; Scheidel et al. 2007; Scheidel 2012; Temmin 2013.   83  Crawford 1970; Millar 1981; Duncan-Jones 1990; Howgego 1992; 1994; Harl 1996.   84 See Harl 1996 for a general discussion, including the various evidence for prices. On slavery see Joshel 2010.   85 On buying (emo, emere) a farm (praedium), 1.1, 4. On selling (vendo, vendare) agricultural produce, 2.7. On buying (emo, emere) olive harvests, 146.1.   86  On using hired labor for the olive harvest, 145.1.   87 For example, see 4.1: “If you build well on a good farm, if you position it well, if you live in it in a correct manner, you will go there with more pleasure and more often, and you will receive more produce” (fructus, i.e. profit, and the word “fructus” in fact has a double meaning of both literally produce, but more generally wealth or profit). The implication is that the wealthy farmer owns multiple farms as profitable investments, and that he only visits each one occasionally. Interesting, Cato seems to avoid speaking directly of money or prices, no doubt to distance farming from the less reputable means of acquiring wealth that he mentions at the beginning of his treatise (trading and money lending). At one point, however, he does mention directly the use of money (pecunia) in the sale, with one percent of the price of the olive harvest being added, as well as 50 sesterces for the auctioneer (146.1). In addition, he also mentions fines levied against laborers in terms of sesterces.   88 Varro on weighing costs versus profit (fructus), 1.2.8, and on doubling the profit (fructus), 1.69.1. He also mentions the idea that profitable farms are those closest to places where agricultural produce can be sold (1.16.1–2). Finally, Varro describes the value of the profit from a farm several times in terms of sesterces (3.2.14, 17–18). He also mentions selling a farm for as many asses (the monetary unit) as possible. Columella mentions yields on meadows, pastures, and woods valued in sesterces (3.3.3).   89  Columella 3.3.8–9   90  Columella 3.3.8–9. See also the discussion on Columella in Duncan-Jones 1974, 33–59.  91 Cicero, Ad Fam. 13.11   92  Lewis and Reinhold 1990, 276–277.   93  Lewis and Reinhold 1990, 277.   94  See, for example, Patterson 2018.   95 See, for example, a very interesting discussion of these ideas in Graeber 2014, 244–247. See also a similar discussion in Seaford 2004.

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  96 See Roymans 1996, 58–60 for a discussion of a similar process of “commoditization” among the pastoral peoples of northern Gaul which disrupted the traditional role of cattle in the indigenous prestige goods sphere of exchange.   97  Demougeot 1966.  98 Cicero, Pro Quinctio 12, 24, 83.   99 It is thus perhaps not surprising to see, more or less at the same time on the other side of the Mediterranean, religious dissident groups in Roman Judaea at once praying for the provision of one’s “daily bread,” and for a release from “debts” in the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6, 9–13). Although translations have varied, the term opheilema here unequivocally means “debt.” The term is related to the verb opheilo, meaning “I owe or ought to” (Matthew 6, 12), in the same way that our word for “debt” derives from the Latin word debeo, debēre, also meaning “I owe or ought to.” 100 See Lebeaupin 1998, 87–89; Py and Lopez 1990, 213–217; Py 2006, 83 for a discussion of the archaeological context of these finds. 101  Py 2009, 271; Lebeaupin 2010. 102  Valerius Maximus 2.6.10. 103 For an interesting discussion of the contrast between Inka systems of counting and value, compared with foreign Spanish systems that were imposed during the conquest of the Americas, see Urton 1997. 104  Comaroff 1996, 21.

Chapter 6 Community and Cosmology at Lattara Continuity and Entanglement in Religious Practices

As we have seen in the previous chapter with the story of local Celts loaning money repayable in the next life – so confident they were in the reincarnation of the human soul – colonialism can entangle the local lived realities and experiences of individuals within larger, more global systems of power and economic exchanges. While the creation of larger systems of exchange can provide new material possibilities for the articulation of local identity, at the same time, this entanglement with larger structures of power can also have longer-term unintended consequences. As we shall see in this chapter, it is perhaps unsurprising that amongst the surviving traces of ritual practices and beliefs from the community up through the first century AD at Lattara, we see at once both the maintenance of traditional, local identities, as well as the use of many aspects of Roman material culture in local religion, including the use of the Latin language which would ultimately replace the local Celtic dialect. Specifically, at the same time that domestic rituals continued into the first century AD, certain tombs found at the Roman-period necropolis from Lattara also show the persistence of local Celtic identities through the use of Celtic names on the inscriptions and the creative use of standard Latin formulae. This is also evident in the use of local, indigenous motifs on the tombstones themselves and by the selective use of certain types of Roman ceramics in the tombs that recalled earlier Iron Age burials. Ironically, however, the very use of the Latin language and Roman material culture also arguably resulted in the increasing valorization of Roman culture in public life. The new, increasingly hierarchical and centralized expressions of religious belief present by the end of the first century AD at Lattara – focusing on Roman divinities and built temples – seems to have run counter to the very decentralized nature of religion at pre-conquest Lattara, which seemingly had placed an emphasis on relations involving the ancestors, protective spirits of the household, and divinities present in the sacred landscape. In this

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way, the world of religious practices and beliefs as discernible through the surviving archaeological record exhibits elements of both continuity and rupture in the lived experiences of the local inhabitants.

Iron Age Ritual Practices at Lattara As already mentioned in Chapter 3, a notable characteristic of Lattara prior to the Roman conquest is the complete absence of temples, public buildings, or monumental spaces, or indeed, anything that might speak to a kind of centralized or hierarchical set of religious practices within the community during the Iron Age. Instead, the tangible evidence from the archaeological record that we do see for ritual practices comes above all from the homes themselves. Indeed, more generally, there seems to be little evidence in eastern Languedoc as a whole for temples or large religious structures prior to the Roman conquest at the end of the second century BC, in contrast to Iberia farther to the west (modern-day Catalonia) or to the east in western Provence. At the site of Ullastret in Catalonia, for example, archaeologists have found two square buildings located at the highest point of the settlement that they have interpreted as a kind of temple.1 Likewise, stone monumental porticoes are present at the sites of Roquepertuse (from the third century BC), Glanum, and Entremont (from the second century BC) in western Provence. However, in eastern Languedoc the earliest known examples of stone monumental buildings do not appear until the first century BC, after the Roman conquest (see below). As mentioned in Chapter 3, the best archaeological evidence for religious beliefs or practices come from individual households, rather than any centralized space, and comprise three general categories: the prominence of decorated hearths in many houses; the burying of apparent offerings – often birds or snakes – in the dirt floors of houses; and lastly, the interment of perinatal children in the these floors as well. Sometimes, the votive offerings consisted simply of a ceramic vase seemingly empty, but which perhaps originally contained some kind of perishable offering.2 Some of these ceramic vessels appear to have been purposefully punctured, and in one instance, archaeologists found a ceramic urn from ca. 25–1 BC apparently placed upside-down in the floor of a house with an intentional hole in the bottom of the vase (Fig. 6.1).3 In other cases, the offerings in the floors of houses consisted of the remains of animals, including cattle, pig, sheep, dogs (often juvenile ones), fish, snakes, and birds.4 The remains of domesticated animals such as cattle, pig, and sheep likely reflect their ritual sacrifice in the context of some kind of feast – especially given that usually the remains that were buried were bones lacking meat, such as the skull – perhaps related to some kind of foundation rite or celebration in the social life of the household. In the case of dog skeletons, there is often little evidence to suggest human consumption, although in some cases it appears that the dogs may have been sacrificed, perhaps as some kind of a foundation rite for the house.5

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Fig. 6.1: Photo of a votive offering from ca. 25 BC from Zone 35 of Lattara (photo: courtesy of Lattes excavations, UFRAL).

In regard to the burial of perinatal children, this practice was certainly not unique to Lattara, and archaeologists have uncovered over 112 different examples from houses throughout Mediterranean France dating as far back as the Bronze Age, and possibly even the Neolithic.6 Here, the term “perinatal” (literally “around the time of birth”) refers to the fact that the infants interred ranged in age from 4.5 months of gestation to approximately several months after birth.7 At Lattara, archaeologists have identified over 30 examples of perinatal interments, almost all inside a house, with a few in the central courtyard of a complex of households.8 The perinatal children were either buried directly in a pit dug into the dirt floor of the room, or – especially in the first century BC – were interred in a ceramic urn.9 Early on, archaeologists working at Lattes often assumed that the burials must represent some form of child sacrifice akin to what appears to have possibly occurred at times at Punic sites in the central Mediterranean.10 The physical evidence from the remains, however, seems to contradict this earlier hypothesis; in about a third of these cases, the children were born premature, presumably stillborn or who died shortly afterwards.11 Furthermore, none of the skeletons show any signs of physical trauma, and in no case was the perinatal child interred below the wall of a house, as would often be the case for foundation rites.12 Given what we know about the high rates of infant mortality in societies throughout the world before developments in medicine during the twentieth

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century, it appears likely that these burials simply reflect the tragically high infant mortality rate at Lattara typical of the ancient world. As we saw in Chapter 4, this may well have been further exacerbated by the increasing degradation of working conditions for women at Lattara under Roman rule, seemingly leading to a noticeable rise in premature births at the site in the first century BC. The exact religious significance for these three sets of practices – decorated hearths, votive offerings, and perinatal burials – is unclear, and is certainly compounded by the lack of surviving accounts of religious beliefs at Lattara. This lack of specific references to local religious beliefs is something that is true also for Mediterranean Gaul overall, and indeed, for the larger Celtic-speaking world more generally.13 The earliest surviving written texts recording Celtic myths and beliefs come from Ireland and Wales and date to the seventh century AD and beyond. Indeed, Julius Caesar implied that the Celtic peoples purposefully avoided writing down their sacred lore, preferring instead oral tradition.14 Furthermore, the explicit representation of divinities throughout Iron Age Europe was relatively rare. Some depictions of animals in Iron Age art throughout Celtic-speaking Europe may in some cases represent divine beings, and in the later Irish and Welsh mythologies of the early medieval period, humans in fact frequently transform into animals and vice versa.15 At Lattara, figurative art depicting humans or animals of any kind is noticeably absent as a whole from the site from before the first century AD.16 In regard to the offerings of a snake or small bird in the dirt floors of the houses, often contained in a ceramic vase, this custom appears to be a ritual found throughout Mediterranean Gaul in the later Iron Age, especially in eastern Languedoc.17 These two animals both likely had an important symbolic significance. Snakes, for example, are often an important symbol of the earth in many early Mediterranean religions, and by extension, as chthonic deities thus also function as symbols of the Underworld, while a bird’s obvious association with the sky may likewise reflect some kind of similar cosmological significance with the Otherworld above. Furthermore, their specific association with the floor of the house also seems important, with the snake or bird perhaps functioning as an apotropaic offering meant to ward off evil from the home. The exact set of beliefs behind the burial of perinatal infants is unclear, but the choice to bury the deceased child within the walls of the house – rather than outside the settlement as was apparently the case for all other age groups – seems, however, to be quite significant. Bernard Dedet, in his notable study of perinatal burials throughout Iron Age Mediterranean Gaul, convincingly argues that the decision to not burial these infants in the communal necropolis must reflect a different social status for the perinatal child.18 Dedet points out that in many traditional societies, it is typical to wait at least a week before naming the child, since the first week of an infant’s life is the most critical for the likelihood of survival.19 One wonders, then, whether these perinatal children had not yet been given a name, without which they would not have been considered members of the community, and thus could not be buried within the

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regular cemetery at Lattara. Even in rural Languedoc of the eighteenth and ninetieth centuries, baptism – which was celebrated among Roman Catholic communities three days after the birth of the child – was the moment at which a child officially entered into the social world of the living. Prior to this, the child lacked any real social status as a human being, and if they died before the three days they could not be buried in the normal church cemetery.20 None of this, however, explains the specific choice to inter these infants within the household, rather than anywhere else, and why the practice seems to decline in importance by the second century AD. Here, it is perhaps useful to relate one of the concrete things we do know about Celtic belief systems, at least at a very general level: their apparently consistent belief in the reincarnation of human souls. This belief is certainly evident in both the writings of Greco-Roman authors on Celtic beliefs and in the much later Irish and Welsh literature, although there is an obvious danger in projecting some kind of a pan-Celtic religion back on a specific site or time period.21 As recorded in Diodorus Siculus, the Greek traveler and philosopher Poseidonios wrote that, “The principle of Pythagoras prevails among them; that the souls of people are immortal, and that after a set number of years they live again, entering into a new body.”22 Julius Caesar would later echo this, stating that for the Druids, “Above all, they [the Druids] want to assure that souls do not die, but after death pass over from one body to another.”23 As we saw in the previous chapter, the Roman historian Valerius Maximus also makes reference to the Celtic belief in reincarnation. To the inhabitants of Lattara, possibly living in a world in which the soul never died, but rather re-entered a new body after a fixed period of time, perhaps keeping the deceased child within the confines of the house may thus have been a way to ensure the soul in question would be reborn into the same family. As mentioned in Chapter 3, this may also reflect the importance of the domestic unit in the society of Lattara prior to the conquest. Somewhat related, there is also some archaeological evidence at Lattara for the ritual use of human bones, perhaps again linked in some way to a belief in reincarnation. Occasionally, the isolated remains of bones from children and adults of various ages have also been found in the houses, possibly reflecting some kind of a veneration or ancestor worship of select human remains taken from an original burial.24 At Block 3, for example, archaeologists found within the occupation of a house from ca. 225–200 BC the skull and the first four cervical vertebrae of a young child of 1–1½ years (Fig. 6.2).25 The skull was apparently placed underneath a large fragment of a dolium, along with the mandible of a pig. A careful examination of the skull and vertebrae by physical anthropologists revealed a rather macabre story: the head and vertebrae had been evidently removed from the body when the remains were already well in a state of decomposition, but before the soft tissue had fully decomposed.26 This particular find is noteworthy in terms of how exceptional it is – no other examples of this specific kind of practice have been found from the site or more generally in the region – but at a general level may be related to the seemingly widespread spiritual importance of the head among the Celtic-speaking peoples of Europe. Within

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the greater Celtic-speaking world, the human head was believed to be the physical resting place of the soul, and disembodied heads figure prominently in Celtic-style art.27 Furthermore, early medieval texts from Ireland and Wales recount tales of disembodied heads miraculously talking, drinking, laughing, and singing.28 Elsewhere, archaeologists recovered the back of a human skull at Lattara that had been sawed off, found lost in a drain from the late first century BC, perhaps also representing some

Fig. 6.2: Disarticulated skull of a young child, found in a ritual context from Block 3 (photo: courtesy of Lattes excavations, UFRAL).

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kind of an ancestor relic that was eventually discarded in the late first century BC.29 Additionally, a decorated fireplace from ca. 350–325 BC bears a repeated motif that appears to be a stylized human head, a motif occurring throughout Iron Age Europe in art that scholars often refer to as the “Cheshire Cat Head” for the fact that it often “hides” in the artwork until viewed in the right way.30 Interestingly, however, to date no evidence has come to light indicating the importance of trophy heads, taken from enemies slain in battle, within the settlement at Lattara – in contrast to other oppida, such as Le Cailar, Roquepertuse, or Entremont.31 Lastly, while no centralized spaces in the settlement have been found for large-scale religious activities, there is evidence in the surrounding countryside to suggest that sacred aspects of the landscape may have been the focus of veneration by members of the community at Lattara and other neighboring settlements. Specifically, four sites around Lattara have revealed possible evidence for religious activities linked to the veneration of the sacred landscape: the prominent mountain known as the Pic Saint-Loup; a deep cave known as the Cave of the Madeleine that leads down to an underground lake; the hot springs at the site of Les Pins; and a possible open-air sanctuary just beyond the settlement at Lattara at the site of Mas de Causse. The inhabitants of Lattara and the surrounding region thus seem to have venerated sacred features such as high places, caves, and springs, all of which is unsurprising given what we know about religious beliefs and practices in the Celtic-speaking world.32 In none of these four cases have archaeologists found any evidence for built structures, but in the first two they have instead identified ceramic vessels, especially wine amphorae from the Iron Age, that may have been part of ritual libations offered at the site.33 This is evident, for instance, at the craggy Pic Saint-Loup, which is by far the most visibly prominent aspect of the landscape, measuring 658 m above sea level and visible even 25 km away at Lattara (Fig. 6.3). On the crest of the mountain archaeologists found fragments of Etruscan and Massaliote amphorae dating to the Iron Age, as well as a later as, or bronze coin, from Nemausus (modern Nîmes) dating to the early first century AD.34 The site is far too high in elevation for any practical large-scale habitation, and the effort it would have taken to lug wine amphorae up the rocky paths to the summit seemingly suggests that the sherds may represent ritual libations offered by the inhabitants of the region to whatever sacred beings they associated with the heights. This also seems to have perhaps been the case at the Cave of the Madeleine; excavated in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the cave was apparently occupied at times during the Neolithic and Bronze Age.35 The site has also produced artifacts from throughout the Iron Age, including amphorae, suggesting that even if humans were no longer living in the cave, they were certainly still frequenting it. The latest artifacts consist of two asses, again from Nemausus, dating to the late first century BC. Certainly, the dramatic nature of the cave, sloping down to a lake – as well as the toxic gas that can be released from the cave – could have instilled a belief that it was some kind of a doorway to the Otherworld.

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Fig. 6.3: The Pic Saint Loup viewed across the lagoon in the direction of Lattara (photo: author).

In the case of the hot springs at Les Pins, it should be noted that although there is no direct evidence for any acts of veneration at the springs from the pre-conquest period, archaeologists uncovered a small stone votive altar dating to the first century BC or first century AD immediately near these springs.36 Although there was no inscription on the altar, an image of a hammer was hewn into the stone – almost certainly a reference to the Celtic deity Sucellus, who, when he is represented in Roman times, was always shown holding a hammer.37 Given what we know about the veneration of natural springs throughout Iron Age Europe, it is certainly possible that the hot springs at Les Pins were considered a sacred site in the Iron Age as well. Especially in the rocky and relatively dry climate of Mediterranean Gaul, natural springs were a crucial source of life.38 Indeed, some oppida – most notably Nemausus in eastern Languedoc and Glanum in western Provence – had important springs within the settlement itself which, by the late second and early first centuries BC, had become the site of monumental buildings.39 Lastly, another site likely related to votive offerings of some kind was also found only several kilometers to the north of the settlement of Lattara at the Mas de Causse. Here, archaeologists uncovered what was likely some form of an open sanctuary or sacred space, where a large number of metallic objects were found buried in the ground, including rings, bracelets, fibulae, and 313 small bronze disks of Etruscan manufacture.40 Most of these disks show some kind of intentional mutilation or breaking, suggesting their votive nature. It is unclear if all the objects were deposited at

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one time, but the space only seems to have been used for a relatively short period, sometime between 500 and 450 BC, although it is unclear why exactly this space specifically held some kind of religious significance.

The Question of the Druids and Other Religious Authorities In conclusion, there is a striking absence at Lattara for centralized or hierarchical religious practices. Instead, religious beliefs and practices seem to have focused on interacting with and supplicating the protective spirits of the household and of the larger sacred landscape, as well as perhaps maintaining spiritual connections with the ancestors – continually reborn in the circle of reincarnation. In addition, there is no apparent surviving archaeological evidence for rituals joining together the entire community under a select number of privileged individuals mediating between the gods and mortals. In a community such as this, then, were there any specialized religious or spiritual roles at all in the settlement? In particular, as with any investigation of ritual and religion in the ancient Celtic-speaking world, the question of the Druids – the body of priests, judges, prophets, and sages mentioned in both Greco-Roman writing and much later in early Irish mythologies of the early medieval period – inevitably arises. First, however, it is worth noting that no Greco-Roman texts written prior to the Roman conquest of Mediterranean Gaul in 125–121 BC survive today that specifically mention the Druids in any detailed fashion.41 In fact, the earliest extensive account comes from the writings of Poseidonios, who, as noted earlier, traveled in Mediterranean Gaul toward the beginning of the first century BC, probably a little more than 25 years or so after the initial Roman conquest. As preserved in the later author Strabo, Poseidonios apparently recorded that among the Celts, There are generally three groups of people who are especially held in honor: the Bards, the Vates, and the Druids. The Bards are singers and poets, the Vates perform sacrifices and are natural philosophers (φυσιολόγοι), while the Druids, in addition to natural philosophy (φυσιολογία), also practice moral philosophy. They are considered to be the most just, and they are thus entrusted with mediating both private and public disputes.42

In a similar passage also drawing upon Poseidonios, Diodorus Siculus adds that the seers (Vates) performed sacrifices and auguries to predict the future, while suggesting that the Druids were also involved in performing sacrifices.43 The Druids seem to have served the role not just of priests, but as judges and arbitrators in social disputes as well. However, given the lack of archaeological evidence for any kind of centralized or hierarchical religious practices at Lattara before the Roman conquest, one is certainly tempted to see the institutionalization of these three groups described by Poseidonios perhaps as something that may have only fully emerged after the initial Roman conquest, rather than necessarily being present in pre-conquest society. This is not to imply that the Druids (or the Bards or Vates for that matter) did not necessarily exist at all at Lattara in any form prior to the Roman conquest. Although no archaeological evidence has been found that can be directly tied to a priestly group

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like the Druids at Lattara or in Mediterranean Gaul, this is also true for all of Iron Age Europe in general.44 If the Druids did exist in some social form at Lattara during the Iron Age, however, the archaeological evidence clearly suggests that they likely did not hold the kind of quasi-autocratic power described in much later texts such as Julius Caesar’s account of the Gauls in the middle of the first century BC, some 75 years after the initial conquest of Mediterranean Gaul.45

The Development of Centralized Religious Spaces at Lattara: 125–25 BC Following the initial Roman conquest of Mediterranean Gaul between 125 and 121 BC, for the first time at Lattara we see archaeological evidence for public buildings and monuments within and around the settlement. Specifically, archaeologists have found stone elements from monumental architecture (stone column bases, a fragment of a stone capital, and a fragment of an acroterion) that were re-used in secondary contexts during the late first century BC and first century AD, suggesting at least one monumental building had been present in or near the settlement sometime in the mid-first century BC, based upon the stylistic characteristics of the architectural elements (Fig. 6.4).46 Unfortunately, however, nothing survives in situ of this building. More generally, the earliest examples of public or religious buildings in eastern Languedoc come

Fig. 6.4: Part of a column from an earlier monumental building re-used later in the second half of the first century BC (photo: courtesy of Lattes excavations, UFRAL).

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from Nemausus, where a monumental stone portico was built near the sacred springs at the beginning of the first century BC, and then at Anagia (Nages-et-Solorgues), where a small, stone fanum was built in the middle of the settlement around 70 BC.47 In addition, this period also sees the significant rise in dedicatory inscriptions on tombstones and votive inscriptions written in the Celtic language using Greek letters.48 All these trends are most evident at the site of Glanum in western Provence, where there is a notable monumental building project – focusing in part on the natural springs of the site, but also involving the construction of large civic buildings modeled on Hellenistic models.49 While the stone ornamentation adorning these monuments at Glanum is clearly inspired by Hellenistic monumental architecture, it also makes clear references to elements of Celtic cosmology – from the depiction of a Celtic goddess wearing a torque on an otherwise thoroughly Hellenistic acroterion, to the use of large, Hellenistic-style stone lintels for displaying human heads.50 Throughout Mediterranean Gaul – especially at Glanum but also elsewhere in the region – it seems that in response to the arrival of the Roman legions beginning in 125 BC, local peoples began to organize themselves politically in a more centralized fashion, in part perhaps to better confront the Roman invaders. This may explain, furthermore, why the monumental buildings at Glanum were apparently so thoroughly destroyed by the Romans when they put down the Salluvian revolt in 90 BC.51 It would have been in this context of a growing political centralization after ca. 125 BC, incidentally, that Poseidonios, travelling around 90 BC, would have observed the Bards, Vates, and Druids, perhaps now more defined in their religious roles and institutionalized than before the Roman conquest. Whether the stone remains from Lattara, representing at least one monumental building from the early to mid-first century BC, can be explained in terms of these larger trends following the Roman conquest is unclear, but it is certainly possible. Archaeologists have suggested that the construction of the monumental building or temple at Lattara may have coincided with the bestowal of the Latin Right to the settlement, probably around 49 BC.52 Later, after ca. 25 BC – when Lattara became directly subjugated to the local authority of the Latin colony at Nemausus – centralized religious spaces also appear within the settlement, although seemingly less grand than those from the earlier parts of the first century BC, perhaps in part reflecting the diminished political importance of Lattara in the region by the time of Augustus. In the northern part of the settlement, for example, archaeologists uncovered a large open space adjacent to the courtyard house 6001 dating to the end of the first century BC. In the middle of this open space was a small structure consisting of two rooms, with a small antechamber leading into a larger room, which archaeologists interpreted as a small fanum, or temple (Fig. 6.5).53 The probable ritual or religious function of this two-room structure is furthermore reinforced by the presence of an enclosed space, apparently delimited by some kind of a wooden palisade, just to the east.54 Within this enclosed space archaeologists found the stone base for some kind of a stela or statue, surrounded by coins interpreted as votive offerings.55 A very similar

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Fig. 6.5: Map of the fanum and ritual enclosure from Zone 60-north (left) and of the ritual enclosure from Trench 26 to the north of the core of the settlement (right) (redrawn by the author, courtesy of Lattes excavations).

enclosure was also found farther to the north of the settlement during the excavations of Trench S26 during the GAP work in the 1960s.56 Here, a carving of a phallus on a stone, as well as a small bronze phallic amulet, were found, suggesting some kind of priapic cult, perhaps popular among the workers laboring in the surrounding workshops here during the first century AD. Interestingly, in both cases, these small ritual enclosures were located at the intersection of important streets.57 Neither of them, along with the possible fanum, seem to draw on aspects specific to Roman religion (e.g. Roman divinities), although in the case of a similar ritual enclosure from the site of Balaruc-les-Bains to the west, an inscription was found in the enclosure dedicated to the Roman god Mars.58 However, it is important to interrogate why spaces such as these were apparently not in existence before the Roman conquest, and instead only appear in the first century BC under Roman rule. One possible explanation is that the developments of the first century BC related to the creation of Roman rule, including the bestowal of the Latin Right, created more institutionalized political roles, and the centralization of religious practices in publicly defined places – such as the ritual enclosures – reflects a political centralization and hierarchization of local religion.59

Continuity and Entanglements at Lattara: 25 BC–AD 100 With the defeat of organized, large-scale resistance to Roman rule in the region in 74 BC, the possibilities for community-wide resistance began to effectively disappear,

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and Lattara began to lose its last vestiges of political and economic autonomy as the settlement came under the direct authority of the new civitas capital at Nemausus at the end of the first century BC. Nevertheless, the archaeological record, including the Roman-period necropolis, attests to a continuation of local, Celtic practices, cosmologies, and identities well into the first century AD, suggesting that Roman colonial rule did not create any clear rupture or break in local religious identities and practices. First, it is important to point out that the Roman conquest does not seem to have erased local identity in the sense that there is good evidence that the occupants of the settlement continued to think of themselves – perhaps even foremost – as Lattarenses (occupants of Lattara). This is evident based upon a fragmented dedication on a small stone altar that was found in a secondary context at the neighboring site of Maguelone (where the later inhabitants of this island settlement in late antiquity apparently reused architectural elements from the now abandoned settlement at Lattara).60 The inscription, which likely dates to the end of the first century AD, appears to read Latter(enses)/v(otum) s(olverunt) l(ibentes) m(erito) (“The people of Lattara fulfilled their vow willingly and rightly so”).61 Clearly, then, the Roman conquest did not manage to efface the local identity of the inhabitants of the settlement in terms of how they thought of their civic belonging. Most importantly, as we have already seen, domestic ritual practices, such as the deposition of votive offerings in the floors of houses and burial of perinatal children, continued well into the first century AD. For example, a votive offering dated to ca. AD 25–60 – consisting of two small drinking cups, two oil lamps, a coin, a pin, an egg, and several species of plant remains – was discovered in the corner of a large warehouse in the port of the settlement, likely designed to insure fertility and abundance for the tasks performed here.62 As mentioned in Chapter 3, similar deposits have been found in the houses from trenches S14, S15, and S26 to the north of the settlement.63 The continuation of domestic rituals is also evident even at fairly well-to-do courtyard houses, such as House A from Sector 4 at Ambrussum, where a snake was interred in a ceramic jar in the dirt floor of the kitchen (see Chapter 3). In fact, the occurrence of votive offerings and perinatal infant burials in the floors of houses at Lattara increased in the first century BC. In the case of the perinatal burials, as mentioned, this may reflect the increased stress placed upon the physical health of women in the settlement. The increase in votive offerings may perhaps reflect a need to cope with the increasingly difficult and oppressive conditions that people were living under during the first century of Roman rule. In one instance, archaeologists found a concentration of these two practices from ca. 75–50 BC (in Zone 4-north of the site), highlighting the persistence of traditional domestic rituals several generations after the initial conquest.64 In a pit in the northwest corner of the room, a ceramic vase was placed upright, containing two birds claws and a small bronze coin. The remains of a puppy – who likely died at birth – were in turn placed above this vase. Next to this upright vase, there was another ceramic vase, this time lying on its side, containing the skeleton of an infant born prematurely (at around 6

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months of gestation), and an iron nail. The remains of at least one other bird, along with another iron nail, and likely food offerings of pork and beef, were also placed in the fill of the pit dug for these two ceramic vases. In addition to the immediate continuation of traditional domestic rituals, the religious beliefs and practices evident at the Roman-period necropolis suggest a certain appropriation of Roman material culture in order to pronounce local, Celtic identities – at least on the part of a few notable individuals whose actions are still visible in the archaeological record. The Roman-period necropolis, which was apparently in use from the late first century BC through sometime in the latter half of the first century AD, was located to the east of the settlement on the other side of the Lez River. It was discovered in the 1960s and was partially explored by the GAP excavations, although it is important to point out that this specific necropolis was likely only one of several that would have been situated around Lattara during the Roman period.65 Amongst the 175 tombs excavated, 27 different tombstones were found, although only nine were apparently discovered in situ, the rest having been disturbed by later activity.66 Of the 30 deceased individuals recorded on the 27 different tombstones (one tomb contained two individuals, and another three), five individuals clearly have Celtic names, representing two women and three men.67 Furthermore, for some of the inscriptions with Celtic names either for the deceased or the father of the deceased, the formula of the inscription, although Latinized, hearkens back to the earlier Gallo-Greek inscriptions of the late second century and early first century BC. Specifically, the name of the deceased is given in the dative case, followed by their father’s name in the genitive, indicating the survival at least among some segments of the population at Lattara of the traditional Celtic patronymic system for naming people. This is evident, for example, in the inscription ILLANUAE ADGONNETI F · PIA, translated as “To Illanua of Adgonnetus, her faithful daughter (Fig. 6.6).”68 The name of Illanua is given in the dative, while her father’s name, Adgonnetus, is in the genitive, seemingly making use of a kind of “Celtic genitive,” in which there is no need to add “son” or “daughter” in order to state the paternal link, similar to the earlier Gallo-Greek inscriptions. By contrast, f(ilia) pia (faithful daughter) is apparently in the nominative case, making it unlikely that the faithful daughter was Illanua herself (whose name is given in the dative case). Instead, f(ilia) pia seems to refer to an otherwise anonymous daughter making the dedication in the memory of her mother.69 Similarly, the inscription DIVECILLO CARIONIS F FILI · PII translates as, “To Divecillus son of Cario, his faithful sons [made the dedication] (Fig. 6.7).70 Here, it is quite obvious, given the repetition of filius/filiii twice, that the faithful sons were those making the dedication. It is also striking that this apparently follows a logic of daughter for a mother and son for a father, suggesting an interesting gender dichotomy – and perhaps even gender balance – in local society at Lattara. This pattern is evident in at least three, and likely five, of the tombstones from Lattara, reflecting a certain creative use of the Latin formula filius pius or filia pia – usually simply abbreviated as F · P – taking the traditional Latin formula and

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using it to refer to those making the dedication, and not the deceased themselves.71 By contrast, for example, another tombstone from Lattara bears the inscription, M LUCRETI PIPERCLI MARINI F · P, translated as “[The tombstone] of Marcus Lucretius Piperclus, faithful son (filius pius) of Marinus.” In this instance – and here it is likely significant that we are dealing with a Roman citizen – the “faithful son” in question seems to be the deceased, not the person dedicating the inscription.72 Here, then, we see the use of foreign cultural practices and material culture to project a local identity, and it is clear that the use of Roman material culture or the Latin language in no way meant the rejection of local Celtic identity, even after a century of Roman rule. In addition, eight of the tombstones from the necropolis – including three out of the five with Celtic names for the deceased – bear an interesting motif that also seemingly reflects some kind of a traditional local custom. In these eight cases, instead of a square tombstone, or a tombstone with a rounded top, the tombstone is instead surmounted by a half circle, usually flanked on either side by a kind of peak or acroterion (Fig. 6.8).73 The exact symbolic significance of the circle is unclear, but it seems to derive from earlier Celtic and Iberian tombstone motifs found along the

Fig. 6.6: Tombstone of Illanua, daughter of Adgonnetus (drawing: author).

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Fig. 6.7: Tombstone of Divecillus, son of Cario (drawing: author).

northwestern Mediterranean.74 One possible interpretation is that the half-circle in some way makes reference to the sun – perhaps either metaphorically setting and/ or rising – and perhaps more generally representing the theme of circular time and the notion of rebirth and reincarnation. Finally, although the context of many of the tombs was not entirely recorded by the GAP excavations – or not as ideally as one would have liked – in at least one case it appears that the grave goods placed in the tomb were meant to assert a local identity that drew upon earlier Iron Age practices.75 In the case of Illanua, daughter of Adgonnetus, her mourners – presumably chief among them being her unnamed faithful daughter – made an interesting choice in terms of the type of ceramic vessels to place in the grave. Many of the tombs from the Roman-period necropolis at Lattara include terra sigillata vessels – shiny, red gloss plates, bowls, and cups that were made locally by the first century AD in the upland region of Mediterranean Gaul, especially at the production center of La Graufesenque, but which were based

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Fig. 6.8: Example of tombstones from the first-century AD necropolis at Lattara with a disk-shaped motif distinct to the region (drawing: author).

upon an earlier, Italian production based at Arezzo, Italy. By far, the most common type of these terra sigillata vessels placed in the tombs at Lattara was a relatively small, flat plate (usually type Dragendorff 18/31), reflecting a pattern that is evident throughout Mediterranean Gaul.76 However, in the case of the grave of Illanua of Adgonnetus, along with a small bluish glass urn, four small glass vials, a small ceramic oil lamp, and a wheel-thrown communal pot with a lid, the mourners also elected to place instead two small terra sigillata bowls (type Ritt. 8b), along with a cup (Dr. 27b), something that was seemingly not the norm for the tombs within the necropolis

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Fig. 6.9: Types of terra sigillata vessels found in the tomb of Illanua, daughter of Adgonnetus (left), compared with an earlier black gloss bowl from the Late Iron Age (top-right), and a Gallic terra sigillata plate typically found in the tombs from Lattara for the Roman period (drawing: author).

(Fig. 6.9).77 The stamp on the bowl suggests a production date sometime between AD 40 and 80, providing a rough date for when Illanua was buried.78 Interestingly, the bowls hearken back to earlier, black gloss Italic bowls that were the most common type of vessel in the second century BC and which figured prominently in many late Iron Age tombs.79 Recent chemical analyses of some of these Italic bowls indicate that one of their uses was apparently for consuming liquids, including wine.80 The choice to include the terra sigillata bowl in the grave of Illanua of Adgonnetus, which bears morphological similarities to the earlier black gloss drinking bowls, seemingly reflects a certain conscious choice to break with the norm and instead establish connections with the past, perhaps recalling the wine consumption of the pre-Roman period. To an extent, some of the instances in which we see the persistence of traditional aspects of religion at Lattara may have been conscious acts of resistance on the part of local inhabitants of the settlement against ongoing Roman rule, while in other cases, they may simply reflect the continuity of practice without any clear act of subversion intended.81 In general, concretely identifying resistance in the archaeological record can be notoriously difficult, and this is exacerbated in the case of post-conquest religion at Lattara, in that the interpretation of the political implications of any given religious act or display likely varied amongst individuals. Furthermore, unlike many examples of modern colonialism, there was no clear divide between local religion and the religion of the colonizers; in a polytheistic world, the incorporation of multiple religious practices to produce synthesized mixtures of different practices was indeed the norm.82 At the same time, to deny outright any possibility of potential resistance on the part of local peoples at Lattara would seemingly be to imply – either cynically

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or naively – that there was no one at all in the settlement who did not benefit from Roman rule (and this certainly does not seem to be the case), or that there was no one who may have harbored resentment against the wealthy Latin-speaking owners of luxurious villae in the surrounding region. Furthermore, as the noted anthropologist James Scott has documented through extensive ethnographic fieldwork, resistance to colonial rule and socio-economic oppression need not always take the form of overt resistance.83 The power relations of domination, he contends, compel those subordinated to put on public displays of acquiescence – due to the omnipresent threat of violence – but behind these “public transcripts” there is a host of quotidian ways in which subaltern groups express dissatisfaction and subtle forms of resistance to the status quo.84 However, at the same time that individuals such as the anonymous daughter of Illanua were creating local identities through traditional Celtic symbols, the very use of these Roman elements – especially the Latin language – arguably also had the unintended consequence of valorizing Roman material culture and norms. It is especially notable that those seemingly creating a local identity chose to have the inscriptions written in Latin – rather than purely in the Celtic language or using the earlier Greek characters. Presumably, if outright and overt resistance to colonial society was the goal, why use the Latin language at all? There is thus a tension between the creative appropriation of Latin – the foreign language of the conquerors – and at the same time, the implicit recognition and normalization of Latin as the publicly acceptable language of the greater community. The creeping inroads of Latin into daily life at Lattara are difficult to evaluate archaeologically, but several anecdotes give us some idea. Several examples of ceramic vases from the early first century AD have been found with Latin inscriptions carved on them post-firing, suggesting either a certain quotidian use of Latin amongst the Celtic inhabitants of the settlement, or the presence of Latin-speaking colonists – which in itself would have contributed to the propagation of Latin and its valorization in public life. For instance, on the bottom of a terra sigillata bowl from the early first century AD, the graffiti reads, Pone me, Domnae sum (“Put me down, I belong to Domna”).85 Furthermore, it is striking that certain individuals represented on the funerary inscriptions had parents with Celtic names, but they themselves bore Latin names: for example, Secunda daughter of Sunvicus, or Tertulla daughter of Commus.86 As we have seen in Chapter 2, while some of the Latin names from the necropolis may reflect foreign colonists, in other cases they apparently represent native Celts who took Latin names. This is especially evident in the case of Latin personal names which are in fact cognomina rather than a true praenomen (or first name) – such as Secundus, Quarta, Rustica, and so on. More generally throughout the western Roman Empire, it was not unusual for local non-citizens living under Roman rule (thus of peregrinus status) to take a Roman nomen gentilicium (what we might think of as a “surname”) as a given (first) name.87 Indeed, according to Suetonius, the use of Latin names by native provincials who were not Roman citizens (e.g. peregrini) had apparently become

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so frequent by the time of the early empire that Emperor Claudius sought to restrict the use of the nomen gentilicum to Roman citizens.88 This use of Latin names by obviously Celtic natives at Lattara thus likewise seems to represent an implicit recognition of the dominant position of the Latin language in local society and a certain social pressure to appear – at least in public encounters – to have a certain mastery of it. Writing in part from his own experiences in regard to French colonialism in North Africa, Albert Memmi writes that if the colonized: wants to obtain work, build his own place in society, exist in the city and in the great world, he first must bend himself to the language of others, of the colonizers, of the masters. Within this linguistic conflict in which the colonized resides, his own mother tongue is humiliated and downtrodden … He begins to distance himself from this disabled language, to hide it from the eyes of strangers, to only appear at ease in the language of the colonizer.89

Two thousand years earlier at Lattara, we can certainly imagine similar sentiments amongst the native Celtic peoples at the settlement as they wrestled with the dilemma of at once maintaining their traditional language and beliefs, while at the same time appearing integrated in the new colonial society. As we saw in Chapter 2, if ethnic background did not matter for advancing in Roman society, mastery of the Latin language was in fact a major criterion for obtaining humanitas. Furthermore, while local religious practices and the local Celtic language persisted after the Roman conquest – continuing in many ways uninterrupted for over 100 years after the initial invasion – it is striking nevertheless that neither the local language, nor the religious beliefs and practices linking people to the ancestors and to the sacred landscape, seem to have survived intact beyond the gradual abandonment of Lattara by the third century AD, and certainly not into more recent times.90 Although the actual settlement becomes much more dispersed by the end of the first century AD, with the port the most important core to the old settlement – making it difficult to say with any certainty in this regard – we can at least state with certainty that there is no evidence at Lattara in the second century AD for domestic rituals such as interring perinatal infants within houses or burying votive offerings in their dirt floors. Interestingly, the most recent artifacts found at the presumably sacred sites mentioned earlier from the surrounding countryside – the Pic Saint Loup, the Cave of the Madeleine, and the hot springs at Les Pins – at the latest all date to the early first century AD, and no later artifacts have, to date, been recovered from the second or third centuries AD.91 By the fourth century AD, the local population began to coalesce on the island of Maguelone, located in the lagoon 6 km southwest of Lattara.92 To date, nothing has been found from the site indicating the survival of the local Celtic language or more traditional Iron Age domestic rituals.93 Of course, the association of two of these rural sites with later Christian saints – at the Pic Saint Loup and at the Cave of the Madeleine (Mary Magdalene in French) – suggests that the memory of their sacred nature was preserved into more recent times under Christianity. Another possible survival of traditional religious practices in the area may relate

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to the interment of votive offerings of small birds at Lattara. Although somewhat speculative, it is also interesting to note that in modern times in Ireland, Britain, and France – including Mediterranean France – a peculiar tradition persisted of ritually capturing and then sacrificing a wren sometime in December, often on Saint Stephen’s Day (December 26). This practice, which continued in modified form in recent times in parts of Ireland, the Isle of Man, and Britain (and continued in early modern times at Carcassonne in Mediterranean France), seems to be ultimately linked to earlier, pre-Christian notions of death and rebirth at the time of the Winter Solstice.94 One wonders if the offering of small birds in the floors of houses during the Iron Age at Lattara is not perhaps somehow distantly connected with this later folk practice. At the same time, however, while these more traditional practices were largely waning as a whole by the second century AD, the Latin language and Roman deities became increasing visible within and around the settlement.

The Creation of New Religious Practices Although the archaeological record provides important evidence for the assertion of local identities, there also appears to be a significant incorporation or accommodation of Roman religious practices and divinities in the civic sphere of the larger community. This is certainly evident, for example, on a stone calendar found re-used as a tomb lid at the nearby site of Maguelone – which originally may have come from Lattara and would have been displayed on a public building (Fig. 6.10). After the settlement at Lattara was gradually abandoned in the second century AD, the population eventually coalesced in the more defensible site on the island at Maguelone, as stated above. Over time, the inhabitants at Maguelone began to re-use architectural elements from Lattara and, of the many re-used elements, some of which are still visible embedded in the walls of the cathedral on the island, archaeologists found the incomplete remains of the slab depicting a calendar95 which dates to the early first century AD, and originally would have been displayed on the outside of a civic or more likely religious building, quite possibly within the settlement at Lattara (although this is not certain).96 The surviving part depicts three columns of Roman numbers for days of a month, each representing a month. The first has 30 days, surmounted by a crescent moon. The other two depict the months of January and February according to the Julian calendar, with each month divided into segments of kalends, nones, and ides. The calendar thus seems to represent the alignment of a lunar calendar, with its 30 days per month, with the Roman solar calendar.97 It is noteworthy that several sources allude to the Celts using a lunar calendar, most notably Pliny the Elder, and the famous Coligny Calendar from the middle of Gaul in the first century AD also was designed to reconcile the Celtic lunar calendar with the Roman solar calendar, albeit in a far more complex manner.98 After Lattara lost its political autonomy and came under the direct authority of the civitas capital of Nemausus during the Augustan reforms, there was likely no need for a public cult – in the strict Roman legal sense of a cult supported by the

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Fig. 6.10: Stone calendar depicting the lunar (left) and solar calendars (right), found at the nearby site of Maguelone (photo: courtesy of the Musée archéologique Henri Prades).

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civic magistrates where the necessary rituals conforming to Roman authority could be performed. Instead, these responsibilities were now likely in the hands of the civic magistrates at Nemausus, who held authority over the surrounding territory, including Lattara.99 This would seemingly explain the lack of evidence at Lattara for a large central temple for the first century AD. Nevertheless, private cults dedicated to Roman deities, especially Mercury – in the hands of individuals rather than civic magistrates – appear to have flourished at Lattara in the first century AD. Although no examples of Gallo-Greek inscriptions mentioning indigenous deities have been found here from earlier periods, by contrast, excavations have uncovered three different inscriptions in Latin characters from the first century AD which mention Roman deities: two inscriptions to Mercury and one to Mars.100 The two inscriptions dedicated to Mercury come from the remains of a small temple dating to the first and second centuries AD. This stood 200  m outside the original settlement along the left bank of the eastern branch of the Lez River.101 The temple was also in the immediate vicinity of the Roman period-necropolis, and a funerary inscription was discovered with the remains of the temple, suggesting its possible link with funerary practices.102 One of the inscriptions to Mercury is found on a stone lintel and is unfortunately incomplete, reading only Mercurio vot[um] sol[vit] (“the vow fulfilled to Mercury”).103 The second inscription is on a small stone altar and reads Mercurio Quintia ex voto (“To Mercury, Quintia has fulfilled her vow”).104 Evidence for the veneration of Mercury at Lattara is also found at the remains of a large public building, interpreted by archaeologists as a schola, dating to the late first century– early second century AD.105 It was also here at the site of this public building that an inscription dedicated to Mars was unearthed. In ancient times, a schola was the meeting place of a collegium, an association of artisans and other workers.106 In the case of this possible schola, the floor consisted of a thick layer of white concrete laid out over a layer of river pebbles (Fig. 6.11). No internal subdivisions to the building were evident, suggesting one large building, although a stone bench or table was likely built into the floor on one side of the large space facing, on the other side, a base for a statue or altar.107 Based on the fragments of painted wall fragments recovered, the schola was painted on the inside. In part, the interpretation of a schola is specifically based on the inscription mentioning Mars, which also seems to reference a collegium or collegia as well. This dedicatory inscription, which was found fully intact, appears to read, Deo Marti Aug[usto] et Gen[io] col[legiorum]. [Se]vir aug[ustalis] T[itus] Eppil[lius] Astrapton fabr[is] et utric[ulariis] Lattar[ensibus] [ob] mer[ita] eor[um] (“To Mars Augustus and to the Genius of the colleges. The sevir augustalis Titus Eppillius Astrapton has made this dedication to the artisans and dock-workers of Lattes on behalf of their merits”) (Fig. 6.12).108 Although the inscription was unfortunately not found in situ, but was rather discovered by a farm worker in 1964 during initial work at the site, its approximate location to the public building makes it highly probable that it was originally housed within the building.109 Based upon this fact, archaeologists have concluded that this large, seemingly public building (in the sense of non-domestic

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but not in the Roman legal sense), must have been the seat of the collegium for the artisans and other workers (fabrii and utricularii) laboring above all at the port of the settlement.110 A sevir augustalis refers to a freedman who was annually elected to serve as a priest in the imperial cult, in this case likely based at the regional capital of Nemausus. Within the imperial cult, six men (sex viri – hence sevir) from among the wealthy

Fig. 6.11: The remains of the late first-century AD schola from Lattara (photo: courtesy of Lattes excavations, UFRAL).

Fig. 6.12: The inscription dedicated by Titus Eppillius Astrapton found associated with the schola (photo: courtesy of Lattes excavations, UFRAL).

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freed slaves of the population were elected annually to this prestigious position and, as part of their service, they were expected to throw spectacles for the city and make lavish donations.111 In this case, the wealthy Titus Eppillius Astrapton seems to have made a substantial gift to the collegium of workers at Lattara, representing the concentration of wealth and political influence in specific religious roles under Roman rule. Additionally, amongst the architectural debris covering the remains of this building, archaeologists found a fragment of a stone sculpture depicting a hand clutching a money bag, a common symbol of Mercury in his role as the god of transactions and commerce.112 Further supporting this identification with Mercury, the earlier GAP excavations in the 1960s – which showed an uncanny knack for finding important artifacts – unearthed a small bronze votive statue of Mercury, measuring 3.2 cm high, again somewhere in the close vicinity of the schola, although the exact provenience was unfortunately never recorded.113 Interestingly, there is relatively little evidence in and around Lattara for the overt syncretization of local indigenous deities with Roman ones – what Roman authors referred to as interpretatio romana.114 There are several examples of inscriptions in Latin characters from the Roman period in the surrounding area that do mention Celtic deities, although even then this seems to be rarer than in other parts of the Celtic world under Roman rule. At the nearest neighboring oppidum to Lattara, Sextantio (Castelnau-le-Lez), archaeologists have found an inscription by a certain Nigrinus on a small altar dedicated to Mercury and an unknown local deity named Abianius.115 Another votive inscription solely to Abianus (spelled slightly differently), which was also inscribed on a small stone altar, was found among the likely remains of some kind of temple or sacred space in the countryside near the modern town of Saussan – roughly equidistant from Lattara and the oppidum at Murviel-les-Montpellier.116 In addition, depictions of the Celtic god Sucellus – identifiable by his omnipresent hammer – have been found in the form of a small bronze statuette found in House A from Sector 4 at Ambrussum (the same house with the snake offering) from the first century AD, another small statuette found near the Via Domitia after it crosses over the Lez heading westward, and on the small votive altar mentioned above from the hot springs at Les Pins.117 At Lattara, however, no concrete examples of any kind of syncretization or representation of local deities have been found, and it is striking that this seems to have occurred more frequently in domestic contexts, as with the courtyard house from Ambrussum, or in the countryside, as at Les Pins or Saussan. Certainly, those living at Lattara could have interpreted images of Roman gods in the settlement as equivalent to their own local divinities; Mercury, for example, was often equated with the Celtic deity Lug throughout Europe, the god with the skill of “many arts all together.”118 When Celtic-speakers living under Roman rule at Lattara passed by images of Mercury in the local schola, or in the temple outside the town, or anywhere else that the Roman god may have been represented, they may very well have made, on their own terms, the connection between Mercury and Lug, Abianus, or some other local deity. At the

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same time, at the larger social level of the entire community at Lattara, there are important social and political implications for not making any official or explicit links with local Celtic deities within the settlement itself. In part, this may represent the many Latin-speaking Roman or Italic colonists who settled in the region following the process of centuriation, and who enjoyed no doubt a privileged status in the public, civic, and religious life of the colonial community. At the same time, it may also reflect a willingness of the local inhabitants to accept aspects of the conquerors’ religion in order to advance socially. Furthermore, based upon the fragment of the stone hand from the schola, it seems that the aspect of Mercury related to commerce seems to have been particularly important, which is perhaps unsurprising in a port where money increasingly began to be exchanged on a daily basis in the first century BC. More generally, Mercury as the god of trade – and by extension, as the provider of material wealth – seems to have been a popular deity in private cults throughout Gaul more generally.119 The exact social implications of the use of Roman monumental architecture and Roman divinities in public, non-domestic spaces at Lattara following the conquest are unclear. In fact, the various inhabitants of the settlement likely interpreted the display of a Roman calendar or Roman deities in diverse ways based upon their own life experiences. Nevertheless, the placement of Roman and Celtic calendars side by side, or the prominent role of Mercury – the Roman god, among other things, of commerce – did not occur in a political or historical vacuum.120 The historical memory of the inhabitants of Lattara in the first century AD would have had to have been absurdly limited and shortsighted for them to forget that Rome had violently conquered the region, and that Celtic-speakers were often treated as “barbarians” in official public discourses within Roman courts of law. The very fact that Roman religion was so prominently visible at the settlement at all was ultimately a result of violent conquest – not the kind of (relatively) peaceful cultural exchange that had been present before the Roman conquest with Etruscan and Greek merchants. In this regard, it may be telling that the earlier inhabitants of Lattara never felt compelled to adopt elements of Greek or Etruscan religion so forcefully into their own public religious practices as they did later with Roman religion.121 Finally, the integration of local deities with Roman religion was above all reinforced by the creation of the imperial cult throughout Roman Mediterranean Gaul. The imperial cult developed first during the rule of Caesar Augustus and was one of the most important institutions for the expression of state loyalty in the provinces on the part of local citizens. The cult was based on offering sacrifices to the Roman emperors who had been deified upon their death, with the object of worship being the numen or genius of the emperor, rather than the living emperor himself. Narbo Martius (modern Narbonne), as capital of the province of Gallia Narbonensis, was the primary center of the imperial cult in Roman Mediterranean Gaul, but the cult itself was apparently popular in local cities as well. The cult was staffed by a number of important priests in the capital city known as flamines Augusti, and by lesser priests

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at the regional cities also known as flamines and seviri augustales, one of whom was the Titus Eppillius Astrapton mentioned in the inscription from Lattara. These orders of priests often came from wealthy and influential local families in the provinces. Specifically, in the area around Lattara, the imperial cult was based at the city of Nemausus (modern Nîmes), which functioned as the regional capital of the Roman administrative civitas incorporating the area of what is today eastern Languedoc, including the settlement at Lattara. At Nemausus, the two primary centers of worship for the imperial cult were at the natural springs located in the heart of the older Iron Age oppidum, and at the temple today known as the Maison Carrée in the city’s new forum (Fig. 6.13).122 These natural springs at Nemausus functioned as an important source of water at the base of Mount Cavalry, fed by an underground aquifer draining the hills to the north of the city, and produce a large natural basin of moving water, providing the epicenter for human habitation over several millennia. Although little evidence survives, it is quite plausible that an indigenous religious complex dedicated to Celtic water divinities was in place at the springs well before the Roman conquest.123 At the end of the first century BC, a vast new religious complex was created around the springs.124 The Augusteum that was built – dedicated to the imperial cult – was surrounded on three sides by a colonnaded portico with a monumental entrance that faced the large pool of water formed by the natural springs. The decision to build a center for the worship of the imperial family at an indigenous place of worship was clearly intended to have important social and political implications. In one sense, the establishment of the imperial cult at the site of indigenous cults was a way of both appropriating the native religion of the region and at the same time clearly reinforcing the imperial authority of the Roman state over all other religions. It is especially instructive that

Fig. 6.13: Left: view of the natural springs at ancient Nemausus as they appear today. Right: the Maison Carrée (photos: author).

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the wealthy donor Titus Eppillius Astrapton, who provided for the needs of the local workers at Lattara, was a sevir augustalis, serving in the imperial cult at Nemausus. In this way, Rome imposed its rule over the sacred site of the settlement at Nemausus that they had chosen to be the local administrative capital for what is today eastern Languedoc. In turn, this new capital at Nemausus exerted its authority on the surrounding area, including Lattara.

Conclusion As the archaeological evidence presented in this chapter has hopefully demonstrated, the Roman conquest and subsequent rule in Mediterranean Gaul did not result in any kind of clear rupture in local identity or religious practices at Lattara. On the contrary, throughout the 100 years or so following the initial Roman conquest and the subsequent revolt of the Volcae Arecomici, individuals at Lattara, such as Illanua daughter of Adgonnetus, seem to have articulated identities that were very much rooted in local traditions and beliefs. Traditional domestic rites – such as interring votive offerings in the floors of houses and other buildings – seem to have continued unabated in the first century AD. At the same time, it is interesting to consider that these local identities and traditions nevertheless continued within the context of very different social relations, as we have seen in the previous three chapters – different living arrangements, different relationships of production, and different relationships of exchange and value. In this sense, it is striking that the community-wide religious practices linking people together across the settlement at Lattara (as opposed to more private, domestic rituals) seem to be the most transformed by Roman rule. This involved – seemingly for the first time – public, monumental temples and the depiction of deities, now often adopted from the Roman pantheon. Furthermore, the creation of the imperial cult also seems to have reinforced the new subservience of Lattara at the end of the first century BC under the reforms of Augustus to the new local capital at Nemausus, implicating larger political transformations occurring under Roman rule.

Notes

   1  Arcelin and Plana 2011.    2  Py 2009, 323–325; Anwar and Curé 2011, 196.    3  Py 2004, 292–294.    4 For a general review, see again Dedet and Schwaller 1990; Fabre 1990; Fabre and Gardeisen 1999.    5  Fabre and Gardeisen 1999, 278–279.    6 Dedet 1999, 342; 2008; Belarte and De Chazelles 2011, 185. For the Neolithic, see, for instance, the site of Cambous in Canet and Roudil 1978.    7  Fabre 1990, 411; Fabre and Gardeisen 1999, 281; Dedet 2008, 74.    8 This includes five examples of perinatal children from the earlier GAP excavations at the site, see Fabre 1990, 403. For an overview of the data, see De Chezelles 1990; Dedet and Schwaller 1990; Fabre 1990; Fabre and Gardeisen 1999; Dedet 2008.    9  Fabre 1990, 410.

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  10 E.g. Arnal et al. 1974, 4. For a discussion of the evidence for child sacrifice at Punic sites in the central Mediterranean, see Aubet 1993, 207–217.   11  Dedet 2008, 74.   12  Fabre and Gardeisen 1999, 281; Dedet 2008, 131.   13  For an overview of Celtic religion, see for example, Brunaux 2000; Aldhouse-Green 2010.  14 See Caesar, Gallic Wars 6.14.   15 See Green 1992. Among many examples from Irish and Welsh mythologies, see for example, The Curse of Macha, The Destruction of Dá Derga’s Hostel, and Math Son of Mathonwy.   16 The one exception to this is the “Warrior of Lattes” statue whose torso was found reused in a wall from a later courtyard house in Zone 52. Michel Py (2011, 55–71) convincingly associates this statue with the Etruscan presence at Lattara.   17 Again, see De Chazelles 1990; Dedet and Schwaller 1990; Fabre 1990; Fabre and Gardeisen 1999. For two different examples from the site of Les Castels at Nages-et-Solorgues, one involving a snake lacking both its head and tail, and another involving a bird, see Py 1978, 84, 328; 2015, 310–311. An example of an upside-down ceramic pot from the first century BC containing a bird was also found at the site of Ensérune, although the results of this have never been published, see Py 1978, 328.   18  Dedet 2008, 131–138.   19  Dedet 2008, 132.   20  Fabre and Lacroix 1973, 98–99.   21 For references to the idea of reincarnation in Irish and Welsh literature, see for example The Wooing of Étaín.   22 Diodorus Siculus 5.28. For a similar passage also drawing upon Poseidonios, see also Strabo 4.4.4.   23  Julius Caesar, Gallic Wars 6.14.   24  Fabre and Gardeisen 1999, 281.   25  See Fabre 1990, 391–392.   26  Fabre 1990, 392.   27  See Armit 2006 for a general archaeological review of evidence for this.   28 For Irish and Welsh mythologies, see for example the Story of Branwen of Lyr, Briccrui’s Feast, or The Destruction of Dá Derga’s Hostel.   29  Found during the excavations of Zone 75, led by Gaël Piquès and the author.   30 See Roux and Raux 1996, 415 for a discussion of this decorated hearth. For a general discussion of the “Cheshire Cat” motif in Celtic art, see Jacobsthal 1944.   31  See for example Roure and Pernet 2011.   32  See again, for example, Aldhouse-Green 2010; Brunaux 2000; Derks 1998, 135–144.   33  See Vial 2003, 161, 384–385.   34  Vial 2003, 161.   35  Vial 2003, 384–385.   36  Vial 2003, 188.   37  Green 1989, 74–130.   38 The classic French films Jean de Florette and Manon des sources beautifully illustrates the importance of these springs in daily life for the regions of Languedoc and Provence – in the case of the film in the context of a growing capitalist ethos of the early 1900s.  39 Rolland 1958.   40  Anwar and Curé 2011, 196.   41 See for example Webster 1999 for an important historical contextualization of the evidence for Druids throughout ancient Europe.  42 Strabo, Geography 4.4.4.

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  43 Diodorus Siculus 5.31. Cicero, in his De Divatione 1.41.90 also mentions the Druids as predicting the future through augury, and one wonders if certain nuances or distinctions in the roles of Druids and Vates was not lost somehow on Roman writers.   44  Aldhouse-Green 2010, xvi.   45  See for example Caesar, Gallic Wars 6.13.   46  See Py 2009, 139–141.   47  For Nemausus, see Guillet et al. 1992; Sauvage 1992, and for Nages, see Py 2015, 215–225.   48  Lejeune 1985; Lambert 1994. See also Mullen 2013.   49  Roth Congès 1992.   50  Roth Congès 1992.  51 Rolland 1958.   52  Py 2009, 140–141.   53  Piquès and Martinez 2008, 177.   54  Piquès and Martinez 2008, 177–178.   55  Piquès and Martinez 2008, 177.   56  See Py 1988, 97.   57 A similar structure was found at Ambrussum, in use from the end of the late first century BC to the end of the first century AD, located in the settlement below the oppidum, directly behind the courtyard house from Sector 9. See Fiches et al. 2007.   58  Lugand and Bermont 2001, 191–193.   59 This is certainly the hypothesis of Ton Derks (1998, 183) in regard to the appearance of more monumental fana and other ritual enclosures in northern Gaul during the first century BC and onwards. For an important anthropological discussion of the relationships between ritual practices and political centralization, see Bloch 1989.   60  See Barruol 1988, 8–10.  61 Note that Latera or Lattera seems to be an alternate spelling for the now more accepted Lattara. Barruol (1988, 9–10) does mention another possible translation, in which LATTER would refer in fact to the divinity Lattera (a divine embodiment of the settlement), but ultimately, he rejects this theory in favor of the translation given above.   62 Rovira and Chabal 2008. A similar votive offering was also found in the ongoing excavations of the port, dating to the middle of the first century AD.   63  See Py 1988, 78–79, 97, 105.   64  Fabre 1990, 397–400; Py and Lopez 1990, 220.   65 Unfortunately, little to date has been published on the necropolis. For a general discussion see Py 2009, 170–173. For the tombstones, see Demougeot 1972, and Christol 1999 for a reevaluation of some of the inscriptions. See Pistolet 1981 for a catalogue of the glass objects from the tombs.   66  See Demougeot 1972 for an overview of the tombstones from the necropolis.   67  See Demougeot 1972, 71–72, 84–85, 90–93, 95–96.   68  Demougeot 1972, 71–72.   69 A point emphasized by Demougeot 1972, Christol (1999, 140) reaffirms the interpretation of Demougeot for these instances in which the F · P refers to the anonymous dedicator and not the deceased.   70  Demougeot 1972, 95–96.   71 Demougeot (1972, 85) suggests a fourth, that of Congus of Adcovicus, raising the number to four, although it is less evident from a reading of the grammatical cases of the inscription, as well as a fifth with purely Latin names, that of Quarta daughter of Lucius Gellius, see Demougeot 1972, 67–68. See again also Christol 1999, 140.   72  Demougeot 1972, 74–76.   73  Demougeot 1972, 81–93.

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  74  See Demougeot 1972, 62.   75  On the less than ideal circumstances of the excavations of the necropolis, see Py 2009, 170.   76  See Pistolet 1981, 54.   77 Unpublished results. I am grateful for the generosity of Diane Dusseaux, the director of the Musée archéologique Herni Prades (Lattes), Lionel Pernet (the former director) and Mario Marco, who shared these unpublished results. See also Pistolet 1981, 20   78  See Pistolet 1981, 20.   79  See for example Luley 2014b; 2018a.   80  Dusseaux et al. 2017, 48–49.   81 For an overview of some of the anthropological literature on resistance, see for example, Miller et al. 1989.   82  See, for, example, Ando 2008.   83  Scott 1987, 1990.   84  Scott 1990, 77–90   85  See Py 2009, 338.   86  See Demougeot 1972, 66, 101–102.   87  Demougeot 1972, 55, 64, 66, 86; Christol 1999, 140.  88 Suetonius, Claudius 25.3.   89  Memmi 1985, 125.   90 See Mullen 2013 on the persistence of the Celtic language throughout the Roman period in Mediterranean Gaul, and in particular, Mullen 2013, 274–276 on the eventual decline and disappearance of the language.   91  Vial 2003, 161, 188.   92  See Py 2009, 175–176.   93  Barruol and Raynaud 2002; Garnotel et al. 2019.   94 See Lawrence 1997. Specifically for Mediterranean France, see Frazer 1951, 622–623, where he describes the ritual as it was practiced at Carcassonne.   95  For an overview of the physical characteristics of the calendar, see Barruol 2019, 21–24.   96 See Barruol 2019, 21–24 concerning the possible origin of the calendar. An alternate hypothesis is that the calendar derives from a religious or civic building located on the island itself, but possibly linked in some way to Lattara, which at the time was still the main settlement in the area.   97 Technically, a lunar month is approximately 29.5 days, and presumably in the course of the larger year, or within a cycle of years, some adjustments would have been built into the calendar.   98  Pliny the Elder, Natural History 16.24. For the Coligny Calendar, see for example Lejeune 1985.   99 For a discussion of the Roman legal distinction between “private” and “public” cults, see Derks 1998, 94. 100 Only one Gallo-Greek inscription has been found in the surrounding region: an incomplete inscription on a Doric-order capital from the nearby oppidum of Sextantio (see Vial 2003, 143). A second supposed inscription was found at Murviel, but its authenticity has been seriously cast in doubt, see Vial 2003, 307. 101  See Py 1988, 77. 102  See Vial 2003, 209 for a description of the funerary inscription. 103  Vial 2003, 209. 104  Vial 2003, 209. 105  Py 2009, 166–168. 106  See, for example, Garnsey and Saller 2015, 181. 107  Py 2009, 166–168.

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108 Over the past 50 years, several different, and somewhat competing, translations of the inscription have been offered. The translation above is based upon the most recent consensus, see Py 2009, 169. For earlier translations, see Demougeot 1966; Arnal et al. 1974; Barruol 1988. 109  For a discussion of this, see Py 2009, 166–170. 110  See Fiches 2010; Py 2009, 166–170 for the most up to date interpretation of the site. 111 The boorish but spectacularly wealthy Trimalchio, the object of ridicule in Petronius famous fictional work Satyricon was a sevir augustalis, illustrating how much wealth a freedman needed to acquire to rise to this position. 112 Py 2009, 168; Fiches 2010. See Derks 1998, 115–116 for a discussion of the popularity of Mercury in private cults in northern Gaul as a god of commerce and transactions, and more generally, as a bearer of material wealth. 113  Majurel and Prades 1972. 114  See for example, Webster 2001; Ando 2008. 115  Vial 2003, 147. 116  Vial 2003, 361. 117  For House A at Ambrussum, see Fiches 1986, 123; for the other statuettes, see Vial 2003, 361. 118  See Cunliffe 1997, 185. 119  Derks 1998, 99. 120 This is the central point of Jane Webster (2001) in her discussion of creolization in the western Roman provinces. See Webster 2001, 218. 121 See Dietler 2010 on the limited impact of Etruscan or Greek religion on the peoples of Iron Age Mediterranean Gaul. 122  Darde 2005; Breuil 2010. 123 Guillet et al. 1992; Sauvage 1992. 124  Gros 1984; Veyrac and Pène 1994; Monteil 1999, 113–121.

Chapter 7 Feasting, Power, and Money Transformations in Political Life at Lattara

The argument throughout this book has been that in analyzing the social and cultural transformations occurring within local communities in the conquered provinces of the empire, it would be misleading to separate an analysis of the fashioning of local lifeways from an understanding of the structural imbalances in power implicit in the Roman conquest and in subsequent Roman rule.1 This is especially true in regard to political systems, and how local structures of power may or may not have changed following the Roman conquest, especially since the Roman state was so dependent upon local leaders for maintaining power in the conquered provinces. Unsurprisingly perhaps, studies seeking to understand social transformations in the provinces after the Roman conquest have often focused on local “elites” as the primary agents for change.2 While the term may have its potential uses, the broad notion of “elites” also has the disadvantage of implying a relatively static and preexisting body of rulers – emphasizing thus a predetermined category of people rather than an ongoing political process – and there is often little distinction made between Iron Age “elites” and their Roman-period counterparts.3 In this chapter, I suggest that the crucial question for understanding the impact of Roman rule in regard to political life at a local community such as Lattara should not focus so much on the question of “elites,” especially if this is taken simply to mean “leaders” writ large. Indeed, the overly broad term “elite” risks ignoring a great deal of socio-political diversity across Iron Age Gaul, and furthermore promotes an overly simplistic, binary understanding of society, splitting society into two ahistorical and rigid categories: a small group of rulers and the majority of non-elites. In regard to the former point, it is important to remember that there can be a great deal of political variability within a single geographic region, even among culturally similar peoples.4 Indeed, one of the problems with traditional archaeological approaches to

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Iron Age Europe has arguably been the trend toward generalizing political systems and treating Iron Age Europe as a whole, rather than looking at the possibility of regional diversity. The ethnographic record in places such as Africa makes it clear that even in relatively small geographical regions, there can be a great diversity of political systems.5 One thinks, for example, of the great diversity noted by ethnographers in the South Sudan, with societies ranging from centralized polities with kings, such as the Shilluk who were ruled by the ret (king), to very large but decentralized societies lacking any fixed political leaders, such as the Nuer or the Dinka.6 Moving beyond the question of “elites,” a far more relevant question is rather how Roman rule may have impacted the daily material practices discernible in the archaeological record for obtaining and articulating social relationships of influence and power. In turn, this then raises the question of how this may have impacted differential access among local peoples to material wealth. In this regard, the archaeological evidence from Lattara reveals certain significant differences between the pre-conquest and post-conquest periods. Specifically, feasting seems to have been an important way for individuals to create and maintain social relationships and direct group activity at Lattara up to the mid-first century BC. At the same time, the material record suggests that wealth was relatively evenly distributed across society, likely indicating that the accumulation of material wealth was only indirectly tied to political leadership for this period. By the end of the first century BC, by contrast, political power seems to have become increasingly linked to the control of material wealth as valued in general-purpose money. Consequently, there appears to have been a notable increase as well in the material evidence for socio-economic inequality by the first century AD as manifested in particular by the size and quality of houses and by differences in funerary monuments.

Understanding Power in Iron Age Society Archaeologists of Iron Age Europe have often largely remained fixed on identifying specific political typologies and the presence of “elites” in the archaeological record.7 One of the recurring themes in many studies of Iron Age societies across Europe has been the suggestion that socio-political inequality emerged in late prehistoric Europe as “elites” gradually assumed control over access to material resources, especially so-called “prestige goods” and agricultural surpluses.8 Indeed, some studies have seemingly implied that a fundamental and universal characteristic of all Iron Age Celtic societies was that they were all “inegalitarian,” “strongly hierarchical,” and controlled by a “warrior aristocracy.”9 Although these studies, often evolutionary in orientation, have revealed certain trends, there has also been a tendency, as mentioned, to homogenize a great deal of socio-political diversity in European Iron Age societies.10 This has certainly been true for Iron Age Mediterranean France, where the vast majority of scholarship in regard to power and socio-political organization has focused on the question of whether so-called “elites” existed in Iron Age indigenous

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societies. The various opinions on the matter range from interpreting these Iron Age societies as relatively “egalitarian” (égalitaire) or “communal” (communautaire), although nevertheless with political leaders,11 to suggesting that these societies were dominated by a “class” of aristocratic warriors controlling the agricultural production of the countryside from rural estates outside of the main settlements.12 In regard to this latter interpretation, which tends to be the more vocal of the two, there is an emphasis on the use of the terms “dominating class” and “aristocrat” to describe the presumed rulers of Iron Age Mediterranean France. Some archaeologists, for example, have argued that Iron Age society was “very hierarchical” and that, “The base of power would have fundamentally been that of an oligarchic class.”13 However, the implication and meaning of these terms is not always discussed in any great detail.14 Here then, it is important to explicitly note, as we have seen earlier, that in this case, “class” refers to a relation of exploitation between different groups of people, in which one group controls the means of production (in this case, agricultural land and yields) and forcibly extracts whatever surplus (again, in this case likely above all agricultural yields) the other group produces.15 Societies with social classes are thus “stratified” in that “adults have differential rights of access to basic resources,” with status differences therefore being directly based upon economic differences.16 “Aristocrat” here refers in a very strict sense (although not in the etymological sense of the term) to a social class of wealthy land-owners, set apart by a system of inherited titles and roles, who control, either directly or indirectly, a great deal of the means of agricultural production in a society.17 In general, part of the problem with the archaeology of Iron Age Mediterranean France in regard to the question of inequality and power is that there has not always been a critical discussion of the terms used for analysis. Lastly, we can think of “power,” at least in a comparative, etic, and heuristic sense as “the ability to influence others and/or gain influence over the control of valued action.”18 However, it is important to note, as we shall shortly see, that this definition – in which power involves a relationship between people – is very much rooted in Western conceptions of socio-political relations. Furthermore, while the notion of “power” often implies in some way the ability to coerce people to do things they normally would be averse to doing, in fact, in some cases at least, this ability is so limited that “influence” may in some cases be a more suitable term to employ than “power.” Used in the way stated here, then, the terms “class” and “aristocracy” necessarily involve a direct relation between power, in the sense of the definition given above, and the control of economic resources. Under the influence of Western capitalism, modern scholars have often assumed that power in all cases is based upon differential access to material resources, rather than viewing this as an important characteristic of power within the capitalist mode of production, albeit not a characteristic that is unique to it.19 However, although archaeologists have often emphasized economic domination as the principle means of creating and maintaining positions of power and social hierarchy in ancient societies, it is important to point out that for many

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non-industrial societies documented ethnographically, control over access to material goods is not always an important means of acquiring influence and power. Indeed, in many non-industrial societies, power or influence is not conceived of in terms of a social relationship of dominance – as is the case in the industrialized Western world – but rather as an independent force or substance that can in certain circumstances be manipulated by individuals.20 Thus, “In most North American societies, men and women sought to enhance themselves not by the accumulation first of material resources, but rather by gaining contact with spiritual forces.”21 Power in this sense can in some cases even be conceived of as autonomy from outside forces, rather than control over others, with social coercion seen as an actual evil.22 Furthermore, any differential access to material goods is often in these cases a tangible result of possessing spiritual power, rather than a necessary basis for obtaining power.23 Among the Zuni of the American Southwest for example, the ability to influence the group was originally in the hands of priests, and their social importance was based upon access to spiritual power, rather than material wealth, with the Spanish conquerors imposing a more “secular” political office.24 Likewise, among the Tiv of central Nigeria, whom we have encountered earlier, the word “power” can often be translated by the word tsav, which is conceived of as a substance that sets its possessor apart from others.25 However, possessing tsav is considered dangerous, and “In a furiously egalitarian society like that of the Tiv, such power sets a man apart; it is distrusted, for Tiv believe firmly that no one can rise above his fellows except at their expense.”26 Far from being an actual source of power, having material resources is therefore a result of possessing tsav, and “Relative influence and relative wealth thus can be, and are, phrased as ranking in degree of tsav, and tsav is believed always to operate at the expense of others.”27 There is thus an important difference in political strategies in regard to the extent to which the accumulation or control of material resources constitutes the ultimate means by which one can influence or control the decision making of others. Following from this, it is therefore quite possible to have a society, even one relatively large in population, in which control over material resources is only indirectly tied to individuals acquiring social power or influence in various forms. It should be noted, however, that all of this is not to suggest that Iron Age societies at Lattara were directly akin to modern African societies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, or any other society for that matter. What is important, rather, is that in looking at ethnographic examples of non-industrialized peoples, we can gain a far better understanding of the various ways in which individuals can potentially accrue influence and power in societies, above all in societies lacking a monetized economy. Furthermore, an understanding of different cultural conceptions such as “power” or “wealth” can also help to deconstruct certain axiomatic principles implicit in a great deal of bourgeois thought, such as the relationship between selfhood and agency, material wealth, and power.28 This use of ethnographic comparison is perhaps what Sara Owen has in mind in her discussion of analogy in instances of ancient colonialism, in which

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she suggests that, “the role of analogy could be to expand our ideas of the ranges of human behavior rather than restrict us to familiar Western models.”29 In fact, to discard out of hand the potential utility of ethnographic comparison when looking at non-industrialized societies might seemingly imply either that there is no need for an explicit archaeological interpretation – and by extension that the archaeological data can simply “speak for themselves” – or (even more problematically), that the culturally and individually specific experiences of academics themselves in late stage capitalism are all that is needed to interpret culturally and historically different societies.30 With that in mind, it is apparent that in many societies, power is not always directly tied to material wealth, which, as we shall see, likely helps to explain certain important aspects of the archaeological record at Lattara for the pre-conquest period.

Political Systems in Iron Age Mediterranean Gaul: The Textual Evidence There are unfortunately no surviving ancient texts written before the Roman conquest of the region that describe in any kind of detail the political structure specifically of eastern Languedoc during the Iron Age. Although Polybius, writing in the second half of the second century BC, described Hannibal’s encounter with the Celtic peoples of the lower Rhône Basin during the Carthaginian general’s invasion of Italy in 218 BC, he is mute on any kind of political organization or leadership positions for the people specifically of eastern Languedoc, or even Mediterranean Gaul as a whole.31 In other parts of his account, however, he does mention “nobles” (βασιλίσκοι) among the Celtic peoples of the Po Valley in Italy and “leaders” (ἡγεμόνες) among the Allobroges closer to the Alps.32 Later, approximately one generation after the Roman conquest of Mediterranean Gaul, Poseidonios recorded what he saw among the Celts in a lost history later preserved by ancient authors such as Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, and Athenaeus. Based upon what is recorded in these later authors, Poseidonios apparently failed to record any details about specific Celtic peoples, preferring instead to treat them as a whole, as was typical of ancient ethnographies. However, when referring in general to “most” (πλείους) Celtic political systems, he (as recorded in Strabo) states that they elected one leader (ἡγεμών) every year, as well as also annually electing one war leader (στρατηγός). He also mentions that the Celts had councils (συνέδρια).33 Elsewhere, Poseidonios implies the presence of powerful or influential men in Celtic society, describing how at feasts, the most important man (κρáτιστος) would sit in the middle of a circle, and that his importance was due to either his skill in warfare (πολεμικὴ εὐχέρεια), his “descent” (γένος) (perhaps related to some kind of kinship ranking of lineages or clans), or his wealth (πλοῦτος).34 As mentioned in Chapter 2, there is no mention in any ancient text dating to before the Roman conquest of 125–121 BC of any kind of political structure grouping together the different oppida in Roman Mediterranean Gaul. After the Roman conquest, and particularly in the last three quarters of the first century BC, there are

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numerous references – both from ancient texts as well as from inscriptions – of a people named the Volcae Arecomici, who inhabited eastern Languedoc.35 The extent to which this reflects an indigenous ethnic concept or political organization from before the conquest, or whether this was largely a creation of the Roman colonial administration, is still very much debated by archaeologists.36 For example, there is epigraphic evidence for the existence of a single magistrate (praetor Volcarum) for the Volcae Arecomici as a whole under Roman rule for the period 50–25 BC.37 It is possible that this magisterial position was similar to the indigenous position of Vergobretus described by Julius Caesar for Temperate Gaul for the middle of the first century BC.38 However, many scholars suggest that the position of praetor Volcarum, at least in terms of a position with authority over all of the Volcae Arecomici, was a creation of the Roman colonial administration, and indeed, that the position may in fact have been filled by Italian colonists rather than by native Celts.39 In general, most specialists of Iron Age Mediterranean Gaul are in agreement that, before the Roman conquest, the individual oppida were likely grouped together into some kind of a loose confederacy, within which each oppidum was relatively autonomous.40 Especially telling is the numismatic evidence. When certain oppida in eastern Languedoc began to mint their own coins at the end of the second century BC, they always used the name of the oppidum on the legend, rather than referring to any kind of a larger political entity. Nemausus (modern Nîmes), for example, was the first indigenous oppidum in eastern Languedoc to mint its own coins, at the end of the second century BC, with small bronze coins bearing the legend NAMAΣAT and silver drachmae with the legend NEMAY.41 During the first century BC, small silver coins with the legend AMBR were also struck at Ambrussum.42 Furthermore, the use of the legend VOLC or VOLC AREC (for Volcae Arecomici) only appeared on coins from the mint at Nemausus around 75–60 BC, over 50 years after the initial Roman conquest and precisely around the time when there was a certain reorganization of the province following the revolt of ca. 74 BC.43

Feasting and Other Political Strategies at Lattara: 500–125 BC Throughout the wider Mediterranean world in antiquity, cereal grains were not just the basic staple of life, but, precisely because of their fundamental importance to human survival, were also a potential source of wealth and power.44 As discussed in more detail in Chapter 4, archaeologists have speculated that cereal grains may have been an important commodity in Mediterranean Gaul for exchange with foreign merchants trading wine and ceramic vessels from the Greek colony at Massalia or from farther abroad in the Italian peninsula. This may have been especially true for the region of eastern Languedoc, which lacks any deposits of valuable metals such as tin, silver, and gold – unlike in western Languedoc, especially in the Montagne Noire region. Ancient sources record that the land directly controlled by the Greek colony of Massalia was small and poor for farming but was good for olive growing and viniculture,45 certainly implying

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that these Greek colonists may have relied on indigenous societies in Mediterranean France for obtaining cereal grains. In a situation in which the production of cereal grains was so important, and one in which they could likely be exchanged for other imported goods, the control over agricultural production and its distribution could in principle be an important source of power. This has certainly been one of the key arguments for archaeologists of Mediterranean France, and of Iron Age European archaeologists more generally, who have argued in favor of the existence of a class of “warrior aristocrats” who dominated the rest of society. It has been argued, for example, that, “aristocracy is the control of the entire economy,” (one of the few examples where the term “aristocracy” is used in a precise manner) and that in Iron Age Mediterranean Gaul, there was a “relationship of production based upon dependence, in the framework of a society of classes.”46 More recently, it has been similarly argued that there was a “direct link between the dominant classes and the control of land and of agricultural production and food, from which they drew at least part of their economic power, along with the control over trade and the networks of distribution.”47 While artisans and the common population lived concentrated in the fortified oppida, the “dominant class,” so the theory goes, lived in rural estates in the countryside, where they could better control agricultural production.48 Such a scenario is presumably – although this issue is not always specifically explored – different from what Eric Wolf has referred to as a “tributary mode of production,” in which a dominant group, such as a chieftain and his supporters, simply extracts agricultural surplus from the majority of the population, with commoners, nevertheless, directly controlling their own agricultural production.49 This tributary mode of production was typical, for example, among African kings and chiefs, who were the richest members of society not because they themselves directly controlled agricultural production, but rather because they received large amounts of tribute.50 Instead, the theory of a land-owning aristocratic class in Iron Age Mediterranean Gaul seemingly implies that these aristocrats would have held direct control over the means of agricultural production, perhaps relying on a class of serfs, slaves, or dependents who worked these estates, with the agricultural goods they produced going to feed in part the large populations of the oppida. What is lacking in explanation, however, is how exactly a small minority of wealthy landowners could wield control over the majority of the population when these supposed “commoners” were concentrated in extremely well-fortified strongholds (the oppida), often located on commanding hilltops and/or located along the strategic trading points of rivers; a scenario that is the reverse of feudal society during the Middle Ages, when it was the feudal lords who lived in strongholds and the commoners in the countryside. In an era in which war or the threat of war amongst the Iron Age oppida was always possible, it seems unlikely – as proponents of the “elite estates” model imply – that the true centers of social power would have been at undefended rural sites, rather than the heavily fortified oppida. In this sense, it is striking, as we have seen in

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Chapter 3, that there is a notable equality in houses within the settlement at Lattara before the late first century BC, and that palaces or monumental houses are notably absent. In the case of late Republican Rome through the period of the Roman Empire – in which there was in fact such a class of landed aristocrats whose agricultural production did in part go toward feeding urban populations – the power of these aristocrats was in a large part insured through their privileged place in the Roman state, and they were thus able to rely on the support of the Roman army to suppress any peasant or urban unrest. Most importantly, as already discussed in Chapter 4, there is simply a complete lack of any archaeological evidence for the existence of “elite estates” or extended farms around Lattara during the Iron Age.51 Michael Dietler, for example, in regard to the theory about an aristocratic class living in rural estates has recently written, “It is unsupported by any convincing evidence: none of these supposed aristocratic residences, for example, has yet been identified.”52 For his part, Michel Py has argued that the theory of aristocrats dwelling in large estates in the countryside, while certainly not lacking in either “originality or improbabilities, has hardly convinced protohistoric scholars of southern France.”53 Furthermore, as already discussed in Chapter 4, it should be noted that this documented lack of aristocratic estates is not due to a lack of archaeological research investigating the Iron Age occupation of the countryside, either around Lattara or elsewhere. Already by 2008, a total of 74 hectares around the site of Lattara had been systematically surveyed and studied archaeologically (and this number of hectares has only increased since then), and of these 74 hectares, 13 hectares by 2008 had been excavated through large-scale excavations.54 These excavations uncovered evidence for farmsteads and other structures for the earlier Bronze Age and Neolithic periods, as well as for the later Roman period, but not for the Iron Age. For the fourth and third centuries BC, there is an overall absence of rural farms or buildings in the countryside around Lattara, something that would only change with the appearance of farms in the course of the second century BC. These late second-century BC farms – some of which may actually have appeared after the Roman conquest – appear, moreover, to be more an outgrowth of the expanding population of the oppida, rather than representing any kind of villas or aristocratic estates. Instead, all the archaeological evidence suggests that during the Iron Age, the production and storage of cereal grains and other agricultural produce appears to have been largely directed from the settlement of Lattara itself. As mentioned in Chapter  4, the different aggregated blocks seem to have been relatively self-sufficient in terms of economic production; each two-room unit at Lattara consistently had storage facilities for agricultural produce, and in addition, the extended blocks aggregating these individual two-room units were also generally associated with a more specialized storage room. In particular, it is striking how unprotected these storage rooms were, with a door often opening out onto a major street, implying the exact opposite phenomenon to the kind of “palace economies” (e.g. the Inka Empire,

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late Bronze Age Minoa and Mycenae, and so on) in which rulers would hoard away agricultural surpluses in centralized and heavily guarded storage facilities. Furthermore, as we have seen in Chapter  3, there were no major differences between houses at the settlement prior to the Roman conquest, either in terms of size or in how ostentatiously they were decorated; on the contrary, everyone seems to have been living and sleeping in strikingly similar conditions, in stark contrast to what we see after the Roman conquest. This is significant in that a large number of archaeological and anthropological studies have demonstrated the persistent links across time and space between social inequality and a hierarchy of houses in terms of size, quality of construction, and greater privacy or a more restricted access.55 In fact, the image that emerges of life within the settlement at Lattara before Roman rule is one of groups of families each working their own land and quite possibly controlling their own surpluses of cereal grains and other agricultural produce. There is simply no archaeological evidence at Lattara or in the surrounding territory for centralized storage or hoarding of agricultural surpluses by any kind of “elite” group, suggesting a basic autonomy to social life for families that precluded the formation of a truly centralized or hierarchical political system based upon socio-economic class. As we have already seen, this is also reflected in the archaeological record by the conspicuous absence of public architecture and monuments at the settlement before the first century BC. This is not to imply, however, that food had no role in terms of the political strategies of individuals influencing group decisions, but rather that this role was likely indirect, and that many different individuals could manipulate politics indirectly through agricultural surpluses, rather than a situation in which one socio-economic class dominated another. Ethnographically, in many agricultural societies in which there is no form of generalized money and a commoditization of most goods and services – as the evidence presented in Chapter 5 suggests for pre-conquest Lattara – subsistence goods such as cereal grains are in and of themselves not an inherent sign of wealth, nor can they necessarily be easily converted into the prestige goods that do confer a measure of importance on their owner. One means of obtaining influence through an agricultural surplus in a system in which agricultural produce has no prestige or exchange value is through feasting.56 Among the decentralized and egalitarian Bantu Kavirondo of the early twentieth century in western Kenya, for example, social relationships were maintained by giving gifts and participating in common feasts.57 Communal feasts, often given by elders, in which beer or beef were distributed, were held to maintain feelings of unity within clans or age-groups, as well as between two different clans. For the beer feasts, which were organized by the elders, all people of the neighborhood contributed baskets of grain. Despite being an egalitarian society, a certain relative hierarchy could exist among the Bantu Kavirondo at the feasts based upon who contributed grain and how much. A surplus in grain could thus allow someone to obtain a certain degree of influence by being able to offer hospitality to guests and neighbors in the form of beer.58 Nevertheless,

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there were no fixed political roles, and wealth could not translate into any kind of direct political office. Instead, the unofficial leaders of the clans drew their influence from a combination of their relative importance in the family (with first-borns considered to have more importance), their relative wealth, skills as an orator, skills as a warrior, their mastery of certain rituals related to the ancestor cult (a common theme ethnographically), and above all their age, with the eldest in the clan generally being the most important.59 Thus, one possible way for those with agricultural surpluses at pre-conquest Lattara to obtain greater influence was likely through feasting. Poseidonios certainly attests to the importance of feasting in general in Celtic societies, describing the feasts that he apparently witnessed.60 During the Bronze Age and early Iron Age, it is quite probable that grain surpluses were converted into political influence through feasts in which beer was distributed. However, after the arrival of foreign merchants importing wine at the very end of the seventh century BC, beer consumption likely waned with the increased availability of imported wine. Now, cereal grains were likely exchanged for wine and tableware ceramic vessels, both of which played a central role throughout the rest of the Iron Age as prestige goods and constituted the new main element in feasting in the late Iron Age. An example of a typical feasting assemblage

Fig. 7.1: Probable feasting assemblage dating to ca. 175–150 BC found in a well from Lattara (redrawn by the author).

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of bowls and plates was found at Lattara in the fill of a well from around 175–150 BC, consisting apparently of an assemblage thrown away all together after a likely feast.61 In addition to a number of Italic amphorae, archaeologists found seven Campanian bowls and cups, likely for drinking wine, as well as five larger Campanian bowls, and a large Campanian plate (Fig. 7.1). However, as with access to agricultural produce, access to these imported goods – such as wine and black gloss vessels – appears to have been relatively non-hierarchical over time at Lattara, suggesting that whatever influence there was that could be gained through feasting was relatively dispersed, rather than being concentrated in a specific socio-economic class of individuals.

Prestige Goods and the Distribution of Material Wealth in Pre-conquest Lattara Specifically, the two categories of “prestige goods” that are the most visible archaeologically consist of metal jewelry – such as fibulae, torques, armbands, and bracelets – and imported ceramics associated with wine consumption. These ceramics include fineware vessels, usually drinking cups, bowls, and plates that were shaped on a potter’s wheel and were then sealed with a shiny gloss, usually in centralized pottery workshops throughout the Mediterranean world (Fig. 7.2). By the fourth century BC, almost all the imported fineware pottery vessels were a kind of ceramics known as “black gloss,” which was characterized by a glossy, semi-vitrified black or dark grey surface, and which was produced at various centralized pottery workshops throughout the western Mediterranean. By the end of the third century BC, most black gloss ceramics in eastern Languedoc came specifically from the region of Campania in central Italy, and are referred to as Campanian A. In addition, wine was shipped to Lattara in ceramic vessels known as amphorae, first from Etruria, then the Greek colony at

Fig. 7.2: Example of a Campanian A black gloss bowl found in an occupation layer at Lattara (left), and two examples of Massaliote wine amphorae, also from Lattara (right) (photos: courtesy of Lattes excavations, UFRAL).

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Massalia, and then by the third century BC from the Italian peninsula, and the broken sherds from these amphorae are ubiquitous across the site. Based upon ethnographic literature as well as early medieval texts from Ireland, other types of valued goods at Lattara may have included cloth, cattle, and pigs, as well as more immaterial things such as magical titles and rights over other human beings, including marriage rights, services owed, and so on. As we have seen already in Chapter 5, among the Tiv of Nigeria, for instance, the category of prestige goods included cattle, a certain kind of valuable cloth, brass rods, and things of an immaterial nature like traditional medicine, magic, and ritual titles.62 Somewhat similarly, in the opening verses of the famous early Irish epic the Táin Bó Cuailnge, the list of valuable items counted by the bickering couple of Queen Medb and King Ailill of Connacht include: buckets, cauldrons, iron pots, and other vessels; finger and thumb rings, bracelets, and golden treasures; valuable cloth of different colors, most notably purple; and herds of sheep, horses, pigs, and cattle – all seemingly listed in ascending order of value.63 Interestingly, the two most valuable categories of grave goods from Iron Age tombs around Lattara – namely jewelry and metal vessels – are actually listed here in the Irish texts as the least valuable of the precious items owned by the royal family. Thus, the ethnographic literature and early historical texts such as the Táin remind us that what we find archaeologically at a site might not always represent the most valued resources of a society. Furthermore, it is also worth noting that for the Tiv, as with many other non-industrialized peoples, their prestige goods were valued not so much in and of themselves, but for the ways in which they could further the creation of social relationships for those who possessed them (hence the notion of “human economies” – see Chapter 5).64 As mentioned, archaeologists have often assumed (erroneously) that political “power” – as the ability to influence group decisions – is always and in all cases based upon differential access to material resources, rather than viewing this as a specific historical and cultural creation.65 Although it is much more difficult to analyze the distribution of goods like cloth or livestock across the settlement at Lattara, when we look at the distribution of metal objects and fineware ceramics and amphorae, it becomes quite clear that there is no area where these prestige goods seem to be concentrated; on the contrary, there appears to be a fairly even distribution from one block of houses to another (Figs 7.3 and 7.4). Although some rooms tended to have more imported goods than others, which is in part likely a result of the room’s overall function, from one block to another there are only minor differences (Fig. 7.4). There are some blocks of houses that appear to have either more amphorae or more black gloss fineware, or even in a few rare cases, both, than do others. It is possible that the blocks with slightly more imported goods could correspond to perhaps larger or more economically productive lineages or kin-groups, which may in turn have possessed a greater amount of influence in society. In general, however, these differences do not in any way suggest that there were “rich” or “poor” areas of the site, nor do they suggest that there was the existence of socio-economic classes at Lattara. On the contrary, every area of the site excavated had access to these imported goods, and there were no groups in society

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Fig. 7.3: The distribution of imported wine amphorae and black gloss sherds (Attic, Italo-Greco, Petites Estampilles, Roses, and Campanian) at Lattara out of the total number of ceramic fragments for the periods 300–200 BC and 200–125 BC (after Luley 2016, 44).

Fig. 7.4: Percentage of black gloss fineware and wine amphorae sherds amongst all ceramic fragments by residential block at Lattara (after Luley 2016, 45).

that had exclusive access to them. Overall, there was an increase in imports, especially in black gloss fineware, by the second century BC, which was presumably related to the increase in agricultural intensification mentioned in previous chapters, suggesting

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perhaps greater competition among social groups. Again, however, all the individual blocks of houses appear to have enjoyed an increased access to these goods over time, without any one group obtaining any kind of a monopoly on access. Some low-level of redistribution, such as perhaps lineage or clan elders or some other kind of local leader redistributing wine and other prestige goods to fellow kin, is certainly possible but there is no archaeological evidence for any kind of a centralized redistribution center or palace where prestige goods could be hoarded away and then selectively redistributed by a centralized ruler, comparable, for example, to the provincial warehouses of the Inka state. While the evidence from the settlement thus seems to indicate a relative degree of equality in economic life between groups of families, an obvious question which then arises is whether there is similarly an even distribution of prestige goods within the burials around Lattara (at least relatively speaking). Unfortunately, although archaeologists have identified a necropolis directly associated with the Roman-period settlement, dating to the late first century BC and first century AD, no Iron Age necropolis has been found to date, although a number of more isolated tombs have been unearthed. Overall, the evidence from tombs around Lattara throughout the period from ca. 500 BC to the time of the Roman conquest around 125 BC suggests that local society made distinctions in terms of age, gender, and some possible differences in terms of social roles and importance, without reflecting any rigid socio-economic hierarchy or class society. During the second half of the Iron Age at indigenous sites throughout Mediterranean Gaul, cremation, rather than inhumation, was the norm and these isolated Iron Age burials around Lattara are no exception. The greatest number of tombs found around the settlement date to the sixth and fifth centuries BC. By contrast, tombs from the fourth century BC up to the time of the Roman conquest are much less common, corresponding to a period, perhaps not entirely coincidentally, when rural settlements in the countryside became scare as well. Furthermore, the burials from the sixth and fifth centuries BC tend to be somewhat “richer” – in the sense that there tends to be more objects, and that the objects tend to be more of the type of things we would think about as “prestige goods” – than tombs from the fourth and third century BC, and even most of the second century BC.66 Above all, these valuable objects from the sixth–fifth century BC include metal jewelry and other metal objects such as Etruscan-made bronze basins and bowls. Of these sixth- and fifth-century tombs, the most notable come from a recent discovery at the site of Saint-Pierre 2 km northwest of Lattara. Here, five tombs were found of both adults and children, as well as, curiously, a perinatal child who, as we have seen, were hardly ever buried with other members of the community.67 For all the tombs the deceased individual was apparently burnt on a nearby funeral pyre along with personal adornments such as fibulae, rings, bracelets, and other jewelry. One tomb contained the remains of relatively impressive jewelry, such as a pair of silver earrings and a number of coral, silver, and gold beads.68 Ceramic vases, such as an Attic black gloss cup or a locally-made cooking pot, were sometimes also

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placed on the pyre, suggesting ritual libations and food offerings. 69 A handful of the individual’s ashes were then placed in a ceramic vase, which was buried with other objects from the pyre. To a certain extent, some of the objects in the tombs are relatively rare, such as an Etruscan-made bronze basin and bowl found in one tomb – although hundreds of Etruscan-made bronze disks were found, as mentioned, at the religious sanctuary of Mas de Causse. However, the objects placed in the tombs were clearly part of specific rituals for the funeral of the specific individual in question, such as libations, food offerings, and funerary meals. Were these objects the specific “property” of the deceased? This is arguably not as obvious as is often assumed, and what it likely reflects, above all, is the deliberate choice by the mourners to honor the deceased in a specific way, pointing to likely differences in social status, but not specifically in terms of social class. More generally, throughout Iron Age Europe, a principle function of metal jewelry was to signal to other members of the community certain social identities such as age, gender, and specific social roles – and given the types of jewelry in the different tombs, this also seems to be the case here. These trends are certainly borne out at the one major late Iron Age necropolis excavated in the general area around Lattara: that found below the Iron Age oppidum at Ambrussum dating to ca. 275–200 BC.70 All the tombs from the necropolis consisted of simple pits in the ground, some covered by a very shallow mound of earth, within which the ashes of the deceased were directly placed. The tombs were quite austere, and very few grave goods were associated with the burials. There were no intact ceramic vessels, although fragmented bowls over the tombs suggested that libations were made for the deceased. Based on an analysis of the remains, it appears that children under 5 years of age were under-represented, likely corresponding with the common practice of burying deceased infants and young children within the houses rather than in the necropolis; otherwise both sexes appear to have been equally represented.71 Two general categories of grave goods can be discerned: one comprising spindle whorls and simple jewelry, which the excavators associated with women, and the other comprising weapons (lance, sword, sheath and belt, and shield, of which swords were the most common), which excavators associated with men.72There were no apparent differences in quality of the weapons, although preservation makes this difficult to say definitively. The category of “jewelry” consists of bronze or molded colored glass bracelets, bronze earrings, and necklaces of colored glass beads. Both the “feminine” and the “masculine” tombs (as identified by the excavators) also sometimes contained a fibula, a metal pin for attaching clothes. Interestingly, a distinction appears to have been made between these two types of tombs based upon the material used for these fibulae, with only bronze fibulae found in the “feminine” tombs and iron ones exclusively in the “masculine” tombs. This dichotomy again seemingly suggests an emphasis on defining adults based upon gender roles, rather than socio-economic classes. Of the 21 tombs excavated from the necropolis, only five (25% of all tombs) lacked any kind of jewelry or fibulae, instead containing only ceramic vessels, and no tomb had any kind of concentration of jewelry or weapons.

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Excluding the burials of children, 35% of the tombs contained weapons, suggesting that approximately two-thirds of men from the oppidum were buried with their weapons.73 Based upon the conclusions of the excavators, there is no clear social hierarchy present in the necropolis, although there were distinctions made between men and women (if the assumptions are correct) and between different age groups. Other cemeteries from eastern Languedoc for this same period reflect these trends, with an emphasis on a distinction between men and women and young and old, rather than socio-economic differences.74 The excavators at Ambrussum thus conclude that, “the presence of weapons does not likely reveal a dominant status, a ‘class’ displaying the instruments of its power. Without a doubt it simply marks in the tombs instead the presence of men capable of defending, while they were alive, the village and the village community, its territory, its harvests, and its herds when the circumstances necessitated it.”75 Rather than representing an “aristocratic warrior elite,” the ubiquity of weapons in this way may reflect some kind of an age-set system which cut across kinship lines. Interestingly, the isolated tombs from around Lattara for the fourth through the second century BC – such as two examples from the site of La Céreirède dating to the first half of the second century BC – are quite similar in their lack of ostentation to those from Ambrussum.76 If the Iron Age necropolis from Lattara – and there surely was some consecrated space outside the settlement for burying the dead – was similarly unostentatious as that from Ambrussum, this could explain why it has proved so elusive, and one wonders if it has not already been built over in the wave of construction at Lattes in the 1970s and 1980s.

Heterarchy and Power in Pre-conquest Lattara Based on the evidence discussed here, there is no concrete archaeological evidence from the 35 years of extensive excavations at Lattara and in the surrounding countryside to support the idea that pre-conquest society was dominated by a “class” of aristocratic warriors – especially in the sense of the definition given earlier – who controlled agricultural production and the distribution of imported goods. The relatively even distribution of prestige goods across the settlement, combined with the lack of truly ostentatious burials or houses from before the first century BC, seemingly suggests a society in which there were no true fixed classes of people, in the strict sense of the term, distinguished by differential access to material wealth. All of this seemingly implies, then, a situation in which political power may have been relatively diffused across society. Success in battle and feasting were likely two important strategies for gaining influence and the ability to influence group decisions. Although success in battle may have been an important strategy for gaining political power – as was the case for example, in many African societies – the distribution of weapons suggests that all men in a certain age-set category could at least in theory obtain influence in this way. In addition, some kind of access to spiritual

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power – unfortunately largely invisible in the archaeological record – may have also likely been paramount. Overall, one of the most striking characteristics of the material culture of Lattara, and eastern Languedoc more generally, is the overall absence of anything ostentatious or luxurious in the archaeological record: the houses are all small, undifferentiated, and unimpressive in terms of construction or decoration, locally made ceramics are undecorated and low-fired, and metal objects consist of small items such as fibulae and pins, often in iron. In fact, the largest concentrations of material “wealth” found at Lattara for the Iron Age seem to consist of the hoards of hundreds of silver coins found buried in the dirt floors of some houses. As outlined in Chapter 5, these hoards may have belonged to resident Greek merchants, or they may have been associated with local leaders who perhaps used the coins for social payments, including marriages, alliances, fines, feasts, and so on. More generally, it seems significant that the coins do not seem to have been converted into durable forms of material wealth – for example ostentatious houses or elaborate sculptures or other works of art – as would be the case by the first century AD. This seems to suggest a situation where the accumulation of material goods was not so much an end in itself, but rather a means to create social relations, as for example, through feasting. At a general level, the geographer Strabo noted how Poseidonios, as well as many other ancient authors, had noted in earlier times how the inhabitants of Celtica were “not extravagant (πολυτελαί) in their ways of life” and as a result, wealth was concentrated in sacred enclosures, again suggesting a flow of wealth in communities that was largely antithetical to individual accumulation.77 Although leaders may likely have existed at Lattara during the Iron Age, they are largely invisible archaeologically prior to the Roman conquest, except for perhaps the warrior graves from the countryside – although even this only increases substantially after ca. 125 BC (see below). To the extent that Poseidonios is accurate, there may have been annual elected leaders or magistrates (ἡγεμόνες) and permanent councils (συνέδρια). Again, however, it seems significant that whatever rulers there were do not seem to have been directly associated with durable material wealth that would have left discernible traces in the archaeological record – as we will see for the later Roman period. The situation described here, then, seems to conform to Carole Crumley’s discussion of heterarchy.78 Whereas hierarchy implies relationships of subordination, in which there is a rigid ranking of elements of society, “heterarchy” involves “the relation of elements to one another when they are unranked or when they possess the potential for being ranked in a number of different ways.”79 Furthermore, the lack of direct archaeological evidence for leaders – and especially for any permanent accumulation of material wealth – is likely significant in that ethnographically, many anthropologists have noted that “ranked” societies have leaders who are no wealthier than anyone else – and in fact may be materially poorer than others.80 Of course, none of this is to suggest that society at Lattara was purely egalitarian (according to popular notions of the term), harmonious, or peaceful; nor is it meant to idealize pre-conquest society, but it does point to quite different forms of

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social relationships structuring political life at Lattara than what emerges after the Roman conquest.81 Feasting may have grown increasingly competitive by the eve of the Roman conquest, and intergroup violence throughout the region likely increased over time as well, as relations with the Greek colony at Massalia apparently became increasingly antagonistic, as settlements competed over trade, and as the shadow of the expanding Roman Republic grew ever longer.

Transformations in Status and Society at Lattara: 125–50 BC Between the end of the second century and the middle of the first century BC, there was an apparent rise in the number of tombs throughout eastern Languedoc and, additionally, a noticeable increase in the number of grave goods, including weapons and related accoutrements such as swords, spears, shields, scabbards, and sword belts.82 Significantly, this increase in the number of tombs corresponds precisely with the period of time situated between the initial Roman invasion of Mediterranean Gaul in 125 BC and the revolt of the Volcae Arecomici in the 70s BC.83 The most notable example of this found to date is a tomb from the early first century BC at the site of La Céreirède, around 1.5 km north of Lattara.84 The tomb was situated along a major road leading into Lattara from the north, and the site had already been the locus of burials as early as the end of the sixth century BC.85 Following the initial Roman conquest of the region, the ashes of a deceased individual were interred sometime around 100 BC, or shortly thereafter, in a far more ostentatious tomb than anything previously seen in the region. In this case, the burial was surrounded by a square enclosure demarcated by ditches. Within the enclosure there was one principle burial, containing a carved monolithic stone chest covered by a stone slab, which held, in one corner, a handful of the ashes of the deceased, next to three ceramic drinking vessels (Fig. 7.5). Scattered animal bones, probably from a funerary meal, were also found in this stone chest. An Italic amphora was placed next to the stone chest, along with a Campanian black gloss bowl and large plate and a jumble of burnt wood and bits of metal from the funeral pyre. The metal fragments represent a significant collection of 6–10 bronze vessels associated with feasting that had been apparently burnt with the deceased on the funeral pyre, including a minimum of two situlae (a bucket for holding wine or other beverages), a basin, pitcher, cauldron, and a ritual patera for libations, along with a bronze lamp and iron tripod candelabra.86 Metal jewelry, including bracelets and a torque, along with the individual’s weapons – including sword, two lances, and a shield – had also been burnt on the pyre. The grave goods and faunal remains again indicate the importance of feasting, but the ostentation of the tomb – with the remains of a full ensemble of bronze feasting equipment and the monolithic carved stone chest – is unprecedented, and represents one of the richest tombs from the Iron Age and early Roman period in all of Mediterranean France.87 Other similar, if somewhat less ostentatious, “warrior graves” have also been found for this period (125–50 BC) throughout eastern Languedoc,

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Fig. 7.5: Photo of the tomb from La Céreirède, just to the north of Lattara, dating to ca. 100 BC (photo: courtesy of the Musée archéologique Henri Prades).

especially in the region around Nemausus and Ugernum (modern Beaucaire), attesting to a new emphasis on honoring certain individuals in death in different ways than before (Fig. 7.6). In part, this may largely represent the warriors killed in battle between the initial Roman conquest and the revolt of the Volcae in the 70s BC, with family and the larger community seeking to give special honors to loved ones who fell in battle. Certainly, these warrior graves are for the most part set apart not because they contain goods to which only a select few would have had access in life (the bronze feasting equipment from La Céreirède notwithstanding) but rather because these types of burials seemingly represented only a segment of the population, suggesting new and important differences in social status, although again not of social class strictly defined. In fact, the most common grave goods in these tombs from the second and first centuries BC are Campanian black gloss vessels for eating and drinking, which again suggest funeral meals or feasts. As we have seen, at a site like Lattara, all social units within the settlement had access to objects such as imported Campanian ware

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Fig. 7.6: Graph showing the number of grave goods by tomb for the periods 200–125 BC, and 125–50 BC, as well as the weapons contained in each tomb for eastern Languedoc (after Luley 2016, 47).

vessels and wine amphorae. Furthermore, as a point of comparison, within a single occupation level of soil (US35029) from a small courtyard (Sector 2 of Block 35) of a modest house (House 3501), where a great deal of daily debris would have presumably

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accumulated for the period roughly 125–100 BC, archaeologists identified, out of a total of 1059 ceramic sherds, a minimum of 23 black gloss drinking bowls, 3 black gloss cups, 37 black gloss bowls for eating, and 15 black gloss plates. In a single 25-year occupation level from a group of rooms there are thus far more black gloss vessels than in any tomb in the region. With a few exceptions (as at La Céreirède), if social differences were being expressed between the individuals of the tombs, there is no reason to believe that those differences were because certain individuals enjoyed an exclusive, or even restricted, access to prestige goods such as imported ceramics associated with feasting. Instead of representing a social class of people – the putative “warrior elite” so often posited by archaeologists – what these tombs certainly often do reflect is the concern of a community to honor certain individuals in death in quite different ways than they would have honored other members of the community. At the same time, several of the tombs that are especially rich seemingly lack weapons – most notably the tomb from La Colombe and the double burial (Tomb 19) from the site of Marroniers.88 In these cases, it seems that the individuals from these burials had been honored perhaps for some kind of special social or political role in society, and along with the truly exceptional tomb at La Céreirède, again likely point to a certain political centralization in local society throughout eastern Languedoc ca. 125–50 BC.

The Transformation of Political Systems at Roman Lattara: 25 BC–AD 100 As we have already seen in earlier chapters, Roman colonialism seems to have introduced into Mediterranean Gaul – or at least significantly intensified – new notions of land ownership that privileged individual ownership of land with formally defined boundaries that could be bought and sold.89 Related to this, the growth of a generalpurpose money and a monetized economy allowed for wealth to be easily converted from one sphere of exchange to another. At the same time, the Roman colonial state also introduced political institutions that allowed for certain locals to actively participate in the maintenance of Roman rule in the province. This began in the aftermath of the bloody uprisings against Roman rule throughout Mediterranean Gaul between 125 and 61 BC, when Roman rulers granted the Latin Right to numerous local settlements in eastern Languedoc. Already by the early first century BC, the Roman authorities had established a distinction between Roman citizens (civis romanus), which included both Roman colonists and a select number of local Celts who received Roman citizenship, and the rest of the defeated local population, who were considered peregrini – literally “foreigners” (rather ironically). Around 49 BC, Julius Caesar granted a number of oppida in Mediterranean Gaul the Latin Right (ius latinum), which assured the inhabitants of these settlements certain privileges and legal protections under Roman law.90 It appears that Lattara was one of 24 indigenous oppida in what is today eastern Languedoc that received these rights.91

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In towns holding the Latin Right a system of civic government was created mirroring that in Roman cities. At the head of this civic government were four magistrates, known as quattouviri (or “four men”) – who would receive full Roman citizenship upon serving their term as magistrate – as well as a town council of additional magistrates.92 The Greek author Strabo, for example, noted how the nearby oppidum of Nemausus, “also has what is called the ‘Latin Right,’ so that those who have been considered worthy of the offices of aedile (ἀγορανομία) and quaestor (ταμιεία) at Nemausus become Roman citizens, and because of this, these people are likewise not under the command of the generals (στρατηγοί) from Rome.”93 An inscription found near the neighboring village of Lunel-Viel gives a good sense of the typical political career of ambitious locals in the region around Lattara during Roman rule. The inscription is found on a stone funerary altar dating to the second century AD and reads, D(is) M(anibus) Q(uinti) Frontoni(i) Q(uinti) fil(ii) Volt(inia tribu) Secundini, quatuor vir(i) jur(e) dicund(o), pont(ificis), praef(ecti) vigi(lum) et arm(orum), Craxia Secundina (mar)ito opt(imo), translated as “To the departed shades of Quintus Frontonius Secundinus, son of Quintus, of the Voltinia tribe, quattovir, priest, prefect of the watch and of arms. Craxia Secundina, to her excellent husband.”94 The inscription lists in descending order three civic positions for which Quintus served; he was likely first the prefect in charge of the night watch, then served as the municipal priest (pontifex), and then finally served as one of the four town magistrates (quattovir), most certainly at the local capital of Nemausus, the highest level to which one could ascend locally. For this last position, Quintus received Roman citizenship, if his father the elder Quintus did not already have it, and it is notable that the Roman tribe to which natives in Gallia Narbonensis were assigned when they received citizenship was the Voltinia tribe.95 The fact that the tombstone was found in the countryside suggests that Quintus Frontonius Secundus was perhaps buried on his estate, no doubt a major contributor to his wealth and local power. It should be noted, however, that it appears that in the case of Roman Mediterranean Gaul, local inhabitants of a Latin Rights settlement (oppidum latinum) such as Lattara were generally still considered peregrini, and that the notion of a specific “Latin citizen” (civis latinus) did not exist at the time.96 Certainly, the political structure of the Latin Rights settlements seems to have been mainly meant to favor those who had substantial control over local wealth – which in the Roman world meant above all control over agricultural land. Furthermore, during the administrative reforms in the provinces initiated by Caesar Augustus beginning around 21 BC, these 24 oppida in eastern Languedoc were placed under the authority of the oppidum at Nemausus, which was selected as the capital city of the local administrative civitas of the Volcae Arecomici. As a result, Lattara likely lost its local magistrates with these Augustan reforms, and the quattroviri based at Nemausus now probably had jurisdiction over Lattara. Lastly, it is also interesting to ask whether these new magisterial positions at the Latin oppida incorporated pre-existing political institutions already in place before the Roman conquest. As mentioned, Poseidonios mentions both official leaders and

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councils among the Celtic peoples he purportedly observed (wherever that might be) – although again it should be noted that he is describing the situation a generation or so after the Roman conquest of 125–121 BC, and no archaeological evidence (inscriptions, etc.) survives that attests to specific political institutions in eastern Languedoc from before the conquest.97 As mentioned earlier, an inscription dating to ca. 50–25 BC was found at the site of the Latin oppidum of Avennio (modern Avignon), which mentions the position of praetor Volcarum, occupied by a certain Titus Carinius.98 In principle, this position, which seemingly had control over the Volcae Arecomici as a whole during the early period of Roman rule, could perhaps derive from an earlier indigenous position theoretically similar to the position of Vergobretus described by Julius Caesar for Temperate Gaul for the earlier first century BC.99 However, it is important to note that the most recent evaluation of the inscription suggests that Titus Carinius was a Roman citizen of Italian origin, rather than a local Celt – suggesting perhaps more Roman origins for the position.100 More importantly, based upon the archaeological evidence from Lattara and the surrounding region, it appears that the political strategies for attaining the position of local magistrate had become quite different by the end of the first century BC, compared with the strategies of feasting we have seen for the pre-conquest period. Significantly, the new institutionalized political roles at local settlements seem to have inscribed a clear relationship between political power and access to material wealth valued in general-purpose money – largely in the form of agricultural land. Within the Roman world by the time of Augustus, the Roman state recognized three orders (ordines) among the wealthiest and most powerful echelon of Roman society: senatores, equites, and decuriones.101 The decuriones, the lowest of these three elite social orders, were comprised of members of the local town councils across the Empire. All these orders had a minimum wealth requirement; by the time of Augustus, to be a member of the senatorial order, the highest of the three, one needed to possess a minimum wealth valued at 1 million sesterces.102 The wealth requirements for the equestrian order was then 400,000 sesterces, and while the requirement for the decuriones seems to have varied based upon the size of the town, it could be as high as 100,000 sesterces.103 In this, then, the system of Latin Rights created a political structure that tended to recapitulate at a local level the hierarchy and socio-economic inequality implicit in Roman colonial society, assuring that those in power, even at the local level, were landowning men of considerable wealth. This in turn was assured by the probable transformations in land-ownership related to the colonial process of land redistribution (centuriation) already seen in Chapter 4, involving the creation of true class relations, in which certain privileged groups directly owned the means of production – in this case productive agricultural land – while less fortunate groups were likely increasingly subjugated to the status of slaves, wage laborers, and tenant farmers. Interestingly, by the first century AD, throughout the province of Gallia Narbonensis, a few native Celts began to accrue enough wealth to reach these highest

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strata in the Roman state. All told, from among the emerging class of native Celts rising to the rank of senator, the province would produce at least a dozen Roman consuls, including Cn. Domitius Afer from Nemausus, who served as consul in AD 39, and Pompeius Paullinus from Arelate, who served as consul in AD 53.104 Perhaps the most famous native Celt to rise to the highest level of Roman society was the late first-century BC historian Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus. Originally from the city of Vasio (modern Vaison in Provence), the capital of the Vocontii people in Roman times, we know from texts that the historian’s grandfather had served in the army of Pompey the Great during the war against Sertorius. In recognition for this service, Pompeius Trogus’ grandfather was rewarded with Roman citizenship, taking the nomen (or family name) of the general under whom he had served. Presumably, the ancestors of the two consuls referenced above, Cn. Domitius After and Pompeius Paullinus, had likewise served, respectively, in the armies of G. Domitius Ahenobarbus in the late second century BC and Pompey in the 70s BC. By creating political positions at indigenous settlements, Roman rulers allowed certain local peoples to participate actively in local Roman political life. However, social influence and the ability to coordinate group activities was no longer tied to the earlier system of feasting, but was now increasingly linked to the direct ownership of agricultural land – which could be bought and sold through general purpose money – ultimately allowing native Celts who had benefited from Roman centuriation to become the ruling political class in local colonial society. Profits from the land – whether that be through the export of locally produced wine or from the rent exacted on tenant farmers – could also then be used to buy political influence, make public gifts to further gain political favor, and to invest in elaborate and ostentatious houses and tombs as a tangible way of signaling one’s wealth and status. Here, then, the full social context of the inscription found at Lattara mentioning a certain Titus Eppillius Astrapton becomes clear. As the reader will recall, the aforementioned Astrapton was a former slave who worked his way up to the coveted position of sevir augustalis, a priest serving for a year term in the imperial cult, which in this case was likely based at the regional civitas capital of Nemausus. In an inscription dating to the early second century AD, he made an unspecified gift or donation to the professional association (collegium) of fabri and utricularii at Lattara, dedicating the gift to the god Mars Augustus. The cognomen Astrapton is Greek, and because many enslaved individuals were given Greek names, regardless of their actual origin, it is difficult to determine where Astrapton was originally from.105 How exactly he won his freedom is also unclear, but he presumably must have succeeded in amassing a notable fortune such that he achieved the honor of sevir augustalis, and then was able to make an important gift or donation to a local collegium. What is clear above all is the role that money played by the time of Astrapton in the second century AD in terms of obtaining political power and influence. While the fact that Astrapton was originally a slave points to the possibility of social mobility in a world in which money meant power – and which could be obtained through both trade and acquiring

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productive agricultural land – it is also important to remember that for every slave who rose up in the ranks of this hierarchical society, there were thousands of others living and dying in abject poverty.

A New Socio-Economic Hierarchy in Houses and Tombs: 25 BC–AD 100 As a result of the changes in class relations and the political organization of both the local community at Lattara and its relation to the wider region, an increasing socio-economic inequality becomes evident in the archaeological record in and around the site – especially in terms of houses and funerary monuments. In general throughout the Roman world, the size and ostentation of a house was meant to reflect the social status of its owner, and considerable wealth would be invested in houses in order to lavishly decorate them with wall paintings, mosaic floors, and marble statues.106 Similarly, tombs and funerary monuments could be quite ostentatious as well, placed in visible areas along major roads leading into towns. In both cases, money in the form of coinage was necessary to buy the labor and materials necessary to carve stone, lay the tiny tesserae of the mosaics, and paint the walls. An inscription found at Sextantio, to the north of Lattara, for example, mentions the money (pequnia – apparently a misspelling of pecunia) collected in order to erect certain statues.107 Compared with the evident equality in living conditions during the Iron Age, when everyone was sleeping, eating, and socializing in the same kinds of spaces, there is a striking new hierarchy in houses that emerges at Lattara and in the surrounding area by the late first century BC and first century AD. This is evident both in terms of differences in the size and functional organization of the houses, as well as in their level of ostentation. On the one hand, there are many houses from the first century AD that, for the most part, reproduce the traditional, pre-conquest houses, with dry-stone foundations, adobe walls, and packed earthen floors, such as those from what was likely an artisanal quarter just to the north of the original walls of the settlement (see Chapter 3).108 Not coincidentally, in several examples of such houses, archaeologists found the remains of ceramic vases buried in the dirt floors, attesting to traditional domestic rituals.109 Even here, however, some evidence for new architectural features is evidenced by the presence of red roofing tiles, painted internal walls and, at least in one instance, possible traces of the use of mortar to cover the outside of the walls.110 Other houses, seemingly larger and often oriented around a central courtyard, such as House 6001, made more extensive use of Roman architecture, including concrete floors and more extensively painted interior walls.111 In some houses, the remains of rich mosaic floors, such as the house from Trench S19 where archaeologists found a large mosaic floor decorated with geometric motifs and what appear to be fish or dolphins, suggest a certain level of wealth that other houses clearly did not enjoy (Fig. 7.7).112 The difficulty in defining what exactly constitutes a “house” at Lattara during the pre-conquest period makes it extremely difficult to quantify definitively the

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Fig. 7.7: Mosaic floor dating to the late first century AD found at Lattara (photo: author, courtesy of the Musée Archéologique Henri Prades).

differences in house sizes. However, as discussed in Chapter  3, the differences in space syntax from the pre-conquest period to the first century AD are striking (see Fig.  3.7). Overall, the archaeological evidence from across the region for the first century AD reveals a great diversity in houses, both in terms of size and decoration, ranging from small, traditional houses to opulent villae such as the Villa Loupian to the west of Lattara (Fig. 7.8). In some cases, these traditional houses, mirroring pre-conquest examples, could be physically attached to larger dwellings, such as at the Villa Loupian or the smaller courtyard house from Sector 9 at Ambrussum, suggesting the existence of Celtic families living as dependent or enslaved laborers in larger, richer households.113 In other cases, small groups of traditional houses appear to have stood on their own; this may be the case, for example, with the houses from Trenches S14 and S26 at Lattara, and is certainly the case at the Roman and medieval period village of Lunel-Viel near Ambrussum, to the east of Lattara.114 Here, the differences in the size and the quality of houses from the later first century AD are especially conspicuous.115 At the lowest level of social status were two houses consisting of two rooms each, essentially the same as the basic social unit from the Iron

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Age.116 Above this were two larger dwellings, consisting of multiple rooms oriented around a central courtyard, and above this, two other houses which were much larger and more richly decorated, with painted interior walls and mosaic floors.117 In one case, there was also evidence for a triclinium, the specialized dining room typical of wealthy Roman houses.118 Furthermore, in contrast to earlier Iron Age settlements like Lattara, where two-room houses were grouped together into larger social units, at Lunel-Viel in the latter half of the first century AD, the houses, including the smallest, traditional ones, were all isolated one from another – as at Lattara for the late first century BC onwards – emphasizing further the social isolation and physical distancing of social classes through domestic organization. The fact that this kind of hierarchy in terms of the size and opulence of houses is present not just in the larger cities of Gallia Narbonensis, such as Narbo Martius (Narbonne) or Nemausus (Nîmes) but also in smaller settlements such as Lattara, Ambrussum, and Lunel-Viel,

Fig. 7.8: Comparison of house sizes from Lattara, Ambrussum, Lunel-Viel, and the Villa Loupian for the Roman period (redrawn by the author).

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indicates how pervasive the new colonial order of socio-economic hierarchy was throughout the province. Likewise, in the Roman-period necropolis from Lattara dating to the end of the first century BC and first century AD, there are signs of a greater level of social distinction based upon wealth. Foremost, of the 175 tombs excavated in the late 1960s, only 26 were found to have stone markers; in some cases this may have been because the tombstones were later removed from certain graves, but it appears that not everyone was able to afford to pay someone to carve a tombstone with the deceased’s name inscribed on it.119 In addition, there is a clear hierarchy in terms of the type of burial; at the lowest level were tombs lacking any built structure to hold the cinerary urn, with the urn and any accompanying grave goods – usually of a smaller number – placed in a pit in the ground and then buried.120 Above this were burials that employed a broken off amphora, usually from Baetica (Southern Spain) to hold the grave goods, which tended to be more numerous and more varied.121 Finally, a number of tombs were made of roof tiles or stone slabs, and usually contained the largest number of grave goods. Not coincidentally, the tombstones were most often associated with this type of burial.122 As we have seen, the presence of certain grave goods is not always a clear and unambiguous indicator of social status, and again, many of the types of grave goods, such as terra sigillata plates and cups, beigeware ceramic pitchers, and even glass vessels, are relatively abundant at the settlement. However, it is perhaps notable that glass vessels only appeared in 81 of the 175 tombs excavated (or a little less than half the burials).123 In general, however, what seems to be most indicative of social inequality is the type of monument placed above the burial. Fairly quotidian household objects such as ceramic vessels likely do not reflect a significant investment in wealth, but the skill required to carve stone likely meant that only those with money to pay a specialized craftsman could afford a monumental tombstone. Perhaps not surprisingly, of the 27 tombstones with inscriptions, only one appears to be of notable craftsmanship – and fittingly, it was for the daughter of a Roman citizen, Valeria Moderata.124 In addition, another tomb had a monumental carved stela placed above it – although unfortunately no inscription was found associated with it – depicting the rather tender image of a father, mother, and son grouped together (Fig 7.9). 125 Interestingly, it was this tombstone that may have been associated with the only excavated tomb from the necropolis to have produced bronze objects, including a bronze cup and strigilum.126 More generally, in contrast to the tombs from the Iron Age, there seems to be a very select number of burials from around Lattara from the first century AD and onwards with grave goods that only a very privileged class of people could have possessed. This is the case, for instance, at an isolated tomb from the early second century AD found just outside the modern city of Montpellier, to the north of ancient Lattara. Within an expensive stone chest, archaeologists made the exceedingly rare discovery of an urn, pitcher, and ritual patera all elaborately carved in expensive alabaster, along with several other glass pitchers.127 In fact, the most ostentatious

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Fig. 7.9: A carved funerary stela depicting a family, found in the Roman-period necropolis at Lattara from the first century AD (photo: courtesy of the Musée archéologique Henri Prades).

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funerary monuments do not seem to have been found in the necropolis of Lattara, but are rather found in the surrounding countryside – likely often near the wealthy villae where the deceased once lived. This seems to be the case, for example, with the funerary monument dedicated to Quintus Pompeius at the likely villa found at Soreich, to the north of Lattara, or more recently with the discovery of an elaborate mausoleum from La Cougourlude, just to the east.128 In regard to this latter discovery, uncovered only recently, based upon over 500 architectural fragments found, the mausoleum dates to the late first century BC and would have been comparable in its ostentation to the famous Mausoleum of the Julii from Glanum.129 Finally, if the archaeological evidence clearly points to a markedly stratified society at Lattara by the first century AD based upon access to wealth – as valued in a generalized form of money – it is also clear that this hierarchy involved several gradations, rather than a purely binary division between rich and poor. The archaeological evidence certainly points to a few very rich individuals, along with a much greater number of unfortunate individuals living in poverty as enslaved workers, wage laborers, or tenant farmers. At the same time, the courtyard houses at Lattara and other sites such as Ambrussum (as well as many relatively modest independent farms in the surrounding countryside) also point to the existence of “middling groups” as well.130 The occupants of these houses, although relatively modest, nevertheless likely owned land themselves, and relied on the labor of a small number of dependents and slaves, and were likely able to pay for a modest tombstone. The fabri and utricularii of the local collegium at Lattara – professional craftsmen but nonetheless with enough affluence to pay for the membership fees in the collegium – also were likely part of this group of local people below the level of the rich landowners, such as the owner of the Villa Loupian, but above the mass of truly dispossessed. Here, then, we see the provincial version of what Pliny the Elder referred to as the plebs media – the commoners who possessed a certain affluence while never rising to the elite level of the wealthy decuriones who ran the political affairs of local towns.131

Conclusion Unlike with religious practices, where there is a notable degree of continuity and the ongoing creation of local identities at Lattara during Roman times, in the realm of political life there is much less tangible, archaeological evidence for any kind of concrete continuity in local political institutions following the creation of Latin Right oppida in eastern Languedoc in the mid-first century BC. If the Roman state employed pre-existing local political institutions and roles – which is certainly not impossible – there is nevertheless no clear archaeological evidence for this. Indeed, the very fact that political leaders and institutions are seemingly so invisible in the archaeological record at pre-conquest Lattara and in the surrounding region – in contrast to the archaeological evidence for an aristocratic class (in the strict sense of the term) of local rulers for the Roman period – is itself quite significant. These differences in the archaeological record for the Iron Age and the Roman period suggest that even

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if local political institutions themselves continued relatively unchanged after the Roman conquest, the actual means by which locals could achieve power or influence, and then articulate this in material daily life, seems to be noticeably different.132 By extension, these differences in strategies may have meant that those in power in the Roman period were not necessarily those from pre-conquest times, and it is in this vein that Laurence Tranoy reminds us that the “elite” of Roman Gaul were above all, “those who had escaped the [Roman] purge because they were consenting and ready to collaborate with the new regime, a necessary condition for the maintenance of their local power.”133 In addition, in contrast to what I have suggested is a large degree of heterarchy in the political situation for the Iron Age, the Roman period exhibits indications of a much greater socio-economic hierarchy and inequality. For example, there is a clear hierarchical structure for settlements in the province of Gallia Narbonensis, starting at the top with the provincial capital of Narbo Martius and then descending down to the local civitas capital of Nemausus, which after the Augustan reforms apparently held jurisdiction over previously autonomous settlements such as Lattara. Drawing upon the famous classification of Morton Fried, the evidence from Lattara for the pre-conquest period seems to largely conform to a “rank society,” whereas the Roman conquest seemingly resulted ultimately in the creation of a “stratified society,” in which class relations – in the strict Marxist sense of the term – predominated.134 Overall then, as with the other aspects of material daily life at Lattara following the Roman conquest – domestic relations, relations of production and exchange, and so on – while there are notable elements of both continuity and rupture in social life, the social relationships structuring the overall community at Lattara seem to have transformed in important ways as a consequence of the Roman conquest and subsequent Roman rule.

Notes

   1 The first half of this chapter is based upon an earlier article (Luley 2016), which examines the issue of “elites” in Iron Age Mediterranean Gaul, focusing on eastern Languedoc.   2 E.g. Millet 1990; Johnston 2017. See also the discussion in Woolf 2002.    3 See Revell 2016, 83–84 on the bias in the archaeology of the Roman provinces toward “elite” material culture. She also her important discussion of studying elites and non-elites in the conquered provinces (Revell 2016).    4 This is certainly true, for example, when looking at the different types of government present in the Greek city-states for the Archaic and Classical periods.   5 E.g. Fortes and Evans-Pritchard 1940; Middleton and Tait 1958.    6 For Shilluk, see Westermann 1970, for the Nuer, see Evans-Pritchard 1969, and for the Dinka, see Lienhardt 1958.   7 E.g. Brun 1987; Arnold and Gibson 1995; Perrin and Decourt 2002; Brun and Ruby 2008. See, however, the recent collection of case-studies going beyond this in Currás and Sastre 2019.   8 E.g. Bintliff 1984; Brun 1987; Earle 1997; 2002.   9 E.g. Cunliffe 1997, 25, 107; Megaw and Megaw 1996, 178. See also Ferández-Götz 2014; Johnston 2017, 5.   10  See Hill 2006, 172; Thurston 2010, 206.  11 E.g. Py 1990, 173–77; 2012, 281–83.

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 12 E.g. Jannoray 1955, 265–66; Clavel 1975; Arcelin 1999; Arcelin and Gruat 2003.   13  Arcelin and Rapin 2002, 32; see also Bernard 2002, 71.   14  See Py 2012, 246.   15  See again de Ste Croix 1981, 32, 43. See also Terray 1984, 86–88.   16  Fried 1967, 52.   17  See for example Morgan 1962, 133.   18  Cohen 1970, 31.  19 Anderson 1972.   20  Anderson 1972; Colson 1977; Issacs 1977.   21  Colson 1977, 384.  22 Colson 1977.   23 This is evident, for example, in Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus’ (2012, 208–228) discussion of the sources of chiefly power.   24  Bunzel 1938, 336–337.   25  Bohannan 1958; Bohannan and Bohannan 1953.   26  Bohannan and Bohannan 1953, 84.   27  Bohannan and Bohannan 1953, 55.   28  For an extended discussion, see Sahlins 1976.   29  Owen 2005, 21.   30 See the discussion of “double hermeneutics” implicit in archaeological interpretation Hodder 1995, 12.  31 Polybius 2.17.   32  Polybius 3.44.5; 3.50.2–3.  33 Strabo, Geography 4.4.3.  34 Athenaeus 4.36.  35 Vial 2011.   36  See for example Py 1974; 2012, 276–77; Vial 2011.   37  Christol and Goudineau 1987, 93–96; Christol et al. 2005.   38  Lewuillon 2002. See also the discussion in Lamoine 2009.  39 Christol et al. 2005.   40  Py 1990, 177–181.   41  Monteil 1999, 492; Feugère and Py 2011, 185–234.   42  Fiches and Richard 1985.   43  Py 1974, 253.   44  For a general discussion, see for example Garnsey 1999; Garnsey and Saller 2015.  45 Strabo 4.1.5.   46  Clavel 1975, 57, 61–62.   47  Girard 2013, 46.   48  See for example Arcelin 1999; Arcelin and Gruat 2003.   49  Wolf 1982, 79–88. See also Sahlins 1972, 101–148.   50  Fortes and Evans-Pritchard 1940.   51 Occasionally, one hears the complaint that this kind of interpretation risks using the absence of evidence as evidence. Here, then, I would point out that I am very well aware of the complexities of interpreting the absence of a certain artifact or feature in the material record. I would also underscore the fact that archaeologists do use negative evidence on a daily basis in archaeological interpretation: what is important is an understanding of both what is found at a site, what is not found, and – most crucially – a critical understanding of both the cultural and natural site formation processes and taphonomies that create the material record as we unearth it in the present. For example, the evidence (both positive and negative) suggests that the Roman-era extension of the port at Lattara (zone 206) was likely abandoned by the

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late second century AD, in part due to the lack of ceramics found in the occupation levels of the zone that would be characteristic of the third century AD (e.g. certain types of vessels in céramique Claire B, as well as céramique africaine Claire C overall, see Luley 2018b, 94). Regarding the question of putative “elite” estates in the countryside around Lattara prior to the Roman conquest, there has been substantial survey and excavation done around Lattara, and archaeologists have found actual built structures from the Neolithic through the Early Iron Age, as well as from the latter Roman period (suggesting that it is not a question of taphonomy). While new archaeological discoveries can always change our interpretations, the mere possibility of discovering something new in the future (e.g. Iron Age elite estates around Lattara) should in itself not be the basis of an entire model for pre-conquest society at Lattara.   52  Dietler 2010, 88–89. See also similar remarks in Py 2003, 315; 2011, 53; Vial, 2011, 23.   53  Py 2012, 348.   54  Bel and Daveau 2008, 24.   55  See especially Netting 1982; Feinman and Neitzel 1984; Hayden 1997; Ames 2007.   56  Dietler 1990; 2001; Dietler and Herbich 2001; Bray 2003; O’Connor 2015.   57  Wagner 1940, 206–208.   58  Wagner 1940, 231.   59  Wagner 1940, 231–235.   60  As quoted in Athenaeus 4.36; Diodorus Siculus 5.26.1–3.   61  Poux 2004, 552–554; Piquès 2005, 21–23.   62  Bohannan 1955, 62; 1959, 493.   63  Based upon the translation by Thomas Kinsella, see Kinsella 1969, 54–55.   64  See Bohannan 1955, 62–66; 1959, 495, 500.   65  See for example Anderson 1972.   66 For some discussion of tombs immediately around Lattara, see for example Bel and Daveau 2008; Bel and Chardenon 2010a; Dusseaux et al. 2017.   67  Dusseaux et al. 2017, 42–43.   68  Dusseaux et al. 2017, 86.   69  Dusseaux et al. 2007, 43.   70 See Dedet 2012 for a detailed presentation of the archaeological data from this necropolis. The more recent results of the Iron Age necropolis from the oppidum at Ugernum (modern Beaucaire), somewhat farther away from Lattara than Ambrussum, reveals similar results to that from Ambrussum (see Demangeot et al. 2016).   71  Dedet 2012, 188.   72  Dedet 2012, 189.   73  Dedet 2012, 201.   74  Dedet 2012, 201; Py 2012, 347.   75  Dedet 2012, 257.   76  See Bel and Daveau 2008, 30–32.  77 Strabo, Geography 4.1.13.  78 Crumley 1995.   79  Crumley 1995, 2–3.   80  See, for example, Fried 1967, 118; Lee 1990, 238.   81  See Lee 1990, 232, 243 for a general anthropological discussion of this point.   82  For an overview, see for example, Bel et al. 2008.   83 It is also important to point out that the dates assigned by archaeologists to these tombs is based upon known production dates for certain types of pottery, most especially Italic black gloss ceramics, meaning that the assignment of these dates is strictly independent of any possible association with known historical events.   84  See Bel and Daveau 2008; Bel and Chardenon 2010b.

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  85  Bel and Chardenon 2010a.   86  Bel and Chardenon 2010b.   87  Bel and Chardenon 2010b.  88 See Garmy et al. 1981.   89 Jean-Luc Fiches (1989, 228) discusses the possibility of certain antecedents for this in the earlier second century BC.   90  See Christol and Goudineau 1987. See also Ebel 1998.   91  See Py 2009, 143.   92  See, for example, the discussion in Lamoine 2009.  93 Strabo, Geography 4.1.12.   94  Christol 1999; Vial 2003, 244.   95  See Christol 1999.   96  Chastagnol 1995, 53.   97 See Lamoine 2009 for an interesting discussion of the possibility of an earlier, Celtic substratum to the local Roman political positions in Roman Gaul.  98 Christol et al. 2005.   99  Lewuillon 2002. See also the discussion in Lamoine 2009. 100  See Christol et al. 2005, 420–421. See also Lamoine 2009, 127–129 who supports this conclusion. 101  See Garnsey and Saller 2015, 136–138. 102  See the discussion in Revell 2016, 62–64. 103  Garnsey and Saller 2015, 137. 104  Rivet 1988, 85. 105 See Arnal et al. 1974, 252, although the authors do not seem to consider the possibility that Astrapton was a name given by his masters. For a similar example of a sevir augustalis, also with a Greek name, in this case from Orange (ancient Arausio), see Faure et al. 1999. 106  See for example Wallace-Hadrill 1994. 107  See Vial 2003, 147. 108 E.g. the remains from Trenches S14, S15, and S26 of the GAP excavations at Lattes, Barruol 1973, 492; Py 1988, 79–80, 93–108. 109  Py 1988, 79–80. 110  Py 1988, 79. 111 In addition to House 6001 discussed in Chapter 3, see for example, Trench S17 of the GAP excavations at Lattes, Barruol 1973, 492; Py 1988, 79–80. 112 Arnal et al. 1969; Barruol 1969b, 394; Py 1988, 76; see also Py 1988, 79, 82 for other evidence of mosaics. 113  See Chapter 3. 114  For an overview of archaeological work at the site, see, for example, Raynaud 1990; 2002. 115  Raynaud 2002, 564. 116  Raynaud 1990, 55–67. 117  Raynaud 1990. 118  Raynaud 1990. 119  Demougeot 1972. 120  See Pistolet 1981. 121  Pistolet 1981. 122  Pistolet 1981. 123  Data compiled by the author from Pistolet 1981. 124  See Demougeot 1972, 63, 103–104. 125  Pistolet 1981.

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126 Unpublished data. I wish to again thank Diane Dusseaux, Lionel Pernet, and Marco Mario from the Musée archéologique Henri Prades for sharing these data. See also Pistolet 1981, 7 for a brief (and vague) mention of this. 127  See Vial 2003, 276–277. 128  See Vial 2003, 228 for Soreich. 129 There is to date no publication for this recent discovery from La Cougourlude, but the finds are currently on display at the Musée archéologique Henri-Prades at Lattes. 130 For discussions of the term “middling groups,” rather than “middle class” in relation to the ancient Roman world, see for example Zuiderhoek 2017, 122–130. 131  Pliny the Elder, Natural History 26.3. See also Wallace-Hadrill 1994, 173. 132 See Roymans 1996, 37–41 for a discussion of a decline in martial ideology and the emergence of a “different kind of elite” by the first century AD in parts of Gallia Belgica were farming was relatively important. Likewise, this conclusion seemingly aligns with Revell’s (2016, 84) more general conclusion that, “there was a fundamental restructuring of the power relations within provincial societies” and the conclusion of Woolf (2002, 15) that “Continuity has been shown to be something of a mirage. Successive elites employed different means to gain and to retain social eminence. Protestations of continuity … were as ideologically loaded as Augustan traditionalism.” 133  Tranoy 2010, 115. 134  See Fried 1967.

Epilogue: After Lattara That being settled, I admit that it is a good thing to place different civilizations in contact with each other; that it is an excellent thing to blend different worlds … But then I ask the question: has colonization really placed civilizations in contact? Or, if you prefer, of all the ways of establishing contact, was it the best? I answer no. And I say that between colonization and civilization there is an infinite distance. Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism1

For some seven centuries Lattara had been an important port of trade and a locus of cultural exchange with the wider world of the western Mediterranean but, by the second century AD, the settlement was clearly waning in importance. Even then, its demise was slow and gradual. As early as the late first century AD there is evidence for a progressive abandonment of large parts of the core of the old settlement and archaeologists have found a dark humus layer of soil across the site dating to the first half of the second century AD, suggesting open fields or gardens where houses had once stood.2 It was in this context that the wells in the center of the settlement ceased to be used and instead became trash dumps at the end of the first century AD (see Chapter 4).3 As mentioned in previous chapters, in the first century BC, and reaching its height in the first century AD, more and more people settled in the surrounding countryside, likely contributing to the decline in the size of the actual settlement. At the same time, the port nonetheless functioned well into the second century, but evidence for a continuation into the third century is more sparse; ongoing excavations in the port, for example, indicate that the artisan and commercial buildings associated with the port were likely abandoned by the end of the second century AD. The occasional find across the site of ceramics dating to the third and fourth centuries points to some kind of occupation for this period, but this was likely sporadic and dispersed.4 By this time it appears that the harbor of the port – so vital to the existence of the settlement – had become effectively silted up, and that the Lez River had shifted farther to the west, closer to where it flows today. Thus, the settlement at Lattara seems to have been essentially abandoned by the fourth century AD, marking the end of a long process of decline beginning as early as the second century. The exact reason for this shift in population away from Lattara is still not entirely clear, although the impracticality of continuing to use the old port was likely one factor in the ultimate decline in the settlement.5 Increasing flooding may have perhaps also been a concern. Certainly, the network of drains and sewers that was constructed at the end of the first century BC throughout both the settlement and the port indicate a concern with evacuating excess water, and it is notable that in the port area in particular, the archaeological site today is covered by a thick layer of silt

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that was deposited over time by repeated flooding of the Lez River. More generally, however, the end to the occupation at Lattara by the fourth century seems to have been more broadly linked to larger social changes occurring throughout the region by the time of the late Roman Empire. Significantly, other important Iron Age oppida in the region that continued to be occupied during the early period of the Roman Empire were also abandoned by the fourth century AD, including Ambrussum and Samnaga (le Castellas at Murviel-les-Montpellier), neither of which were situated along the coast.6 By contrast, the oppidum of Sextantio (today Castelnau-le-Lez), ca. 8 km upriver on the Lez, apparently flourished up to the Middle Ages, while many villae in the countryside also maintained their importance throughout late antiquity, including the opulent estate at the Villa Loupian. The precise social factors in these changes are still debated today, although certainly the disruption of the third century AD, combined with the ensuing political reorganization of the region (now part of the province of Narbonensis Prima, which was within the larger Dioecesis Viennensis) may have played some role.7 In addition, it should be noted that another important social development occurring at this time was the spread of Christianity in the area from the third century onward, which quite likely provided a social context for the creation of potentially new relations and identities within local communities. Vulnerable both to flooding, and perhaps also to political unrest and invasions (given that Lattara lacked any fortifications since they had been torn down after ca. 50 BC), it is perhaps unsurprising that a far more defensible site became the epicenter of the local population in the area by late antiquity, to the detriment of Lattara.8 Specifically, by the fourth century AD, there was a notable growth in the settlement on the island of Maguelone, situated in the lagoon 6 km southwest of Lattara.9 Maguelone thus seems to have become the main community in the area, and it was here that an important early Christian cathedral was built by the sixth century. The episcopal seat of the region remained at Maguelone until the sixteenth century, when it was moved to the cathedral of St Pierre in Montpellier in AD 1536. It was also at Maguelone that we see the first signs of the spread of Christianity in the region, with the earliest evidence dating to the late second century AD.10 Although Maguelone had become the major center of the surrounding territory by the time of the late Roman Empire, less dense human occupation across the area formerly occupied by the settlement at Lattara likely still continued. Even the name of the old site apparently endured in the memories of those living in the area. As we saw in Chapter 6, toward the end of the first century AD, when the settlement was already beginning to wane in importance, the local inhabitants still apparently thought of themselves as Lattarenses, making a religious dedication that has survived in fragmented form to this day.11 Centuries later, when a new port for the medieval city of Montpellier just to the north was established, between AD 1120 and 1140 – referred to in medieval texts as the castrum de Latis – it bore a transformed version of the original name of the settlement.12 By the seventeenth century, the alternate spelling Lattes appeared

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more and more frequently on maps of the area, and it is this form of the name that has continued in usage to this day. In some sense then, the settlement at Lattara simply transformed, fluctuating and morphing in form over the course of time. Indeed, in so much as communities – comprising intricate webs of ever changing social relations – are constantly in a state of being reshaped through the daily actions of local people in a complex interplay with larger, global forces, both continuity and rupture are consistent elements in this social process.13 However, these ongoing processes of historical change that constantly recreate local communities are never homogeneous in nature, and scholars should not confuse colonialism with mere cultural contact or exchange. The significant material changes in social life in and around Lattara as evident in the archaeological record dating to the first century BC and first century AD appear to be of a quite different magnitude and nature than the transformations in material culture at the settlement prior to the Roman conquest. The substantial body of archaeological evidence from over 35 years of intensive excavations of the site reveal very different forms of social interaction that emerged after the Roman conquest – even if more traditional social relations persisted alongside. Within the settlement there is a notable reorganization of urban space, with the overall end to the traditional aggregated blocks of houses and the emergence of large public spaces and monuments, along with the appearance of courtyard houses that exhibited a different spatial form of domestic organization. Beyond Lattara in the surrounding countryside, there is a notable growth in rural settlements during the first century BC. By the first century AD, large villae devoted to viniculture appear for the first time as well. Similarly, the number of coins evident in the archaeological record rises drastically in the first century BC, indicating very different patterns in the use of money following the Roman conquest. I have argued in this book that the violence and social disruption implicit in the Roman conquest of Mediterranean Gaul and in subsequent Roman rule were crucial factors in the processes of recreating and articulating social relationships in the community in the first century BC and onward. When we seek to understand the material transformations occurring in local communities such as Lattara under Roman rule, to paraphrase the thoughts of Aimé Césaire quoted at the beginning and the end of this book, we cannot in fact so easily dispose of several decades of violence, enslavement, rebellions, land confiscations, grain levies, and oppressive taxation. Although at one level, the local Celts of Lattara in the decades following the Roman conquest continued to assert identities rooted in local experiences and knowledge by incorporating both local and foreign objects in daily life, the larger structures of power linking the community at Lattara to the wider world had changed significantly. By the first century BC, the peoples of Mediterranean Gaul found themselves living under the violently imposed rule of a culturally and linguistically distinct group of foreign people seeking to control and tax the region. It is significant in this regard that the first transformations in material culture involve a sharp rise in the

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number of bronze coins lost in daily use during the period 125–50 BC and a rise in rural settlements around the site of Lattara by the middle of the first century BC. Precisely during this time period historical sources indicate that the Roman state was beginning to redistribute land as punishment for the rebellion of the Volcae Arecomici – something which is visible archaeologically in the series of four different centuriations around Lattara – and was also apparently imposing heavy taxes and grain levies on the local population. The social disruption inherent in these processes may very well have provided an important catalyst for the important changes that we see in terms of urban and domestic organization within the settlement itself somewhat later on, toward the end of the first century BC. By the following century, changes in land ownership, the rise of class relations in the form of wage and slave labor, and the monetization of the local economy all contributed to quite different strategies for gaining political power. Not coincidentally, the archaeological record also suggests a growing material inequality for the first century AD, which previously had largely been absent at the site prior to the Roman conquest. This is especially evident in the new hierarchy in terms of the size and ostentation of houses in the region, as well as in the differences in funerary monuments and burials. In all of this, then, the historical processes of Roman colonialism were inextricably part of the local changes we see at ancient Lattara, setting the period of Roman rule apart from earlier periods of contact and exchange with Etruscan and Massaliote merchants and traders. While this book has hopefully helped to ameliorate the overall lack of detailed studies analyzing the archaeological context of specific communities living under Roman rule, this should not mean that Lattara is somehow representative of Roman colonialism as a whole. Indeed, comparing this one intensive study of the experiences of a local community with other examples throughout the Roman Empire will undoubtedly reveal a great deal of differences as well as similarities. This will likely be evident even when analyzing different sites in proximity to Lattara, for example, the settlement now generally identified by archaeologists as Samnaga (the site of le Castellas at Murviel-les-Montpellier), the main settlement of the Samnages people, only ca. 14 km to the west of Lattara. Although the results from the excavations of this important site are still in the process of being fully published, Samnaga appears to have enjoyed an important level of autonomy from the first century BC to the second century AD as an oppidum latinum, independent from the authority of the civitas capital at Nemausus.14 This is above all evident in the massive stone fortification walls which were erected around 50 BC at Samnaga – not long before the ramparts at Lattara were torn down – and in the later monumental forum at the heart of the settlement. The very different nature of the settlement at Murviel-les-Montpellier would thus likely have resulted in quite different responses to Roman rule among members of that community as compared with Lattara.15 Of course, in both cases, individuals of the two communities were responding in potentially divergent ways based upon local circumstances to the historical processes of Roman colonialism,

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underscoring the need to understand local identities and relationships as emerging from these historically specific events of conquest and attempts at exploitation. Furthermore, the political relations that emerged within indigenous communities after the Roman conquest in central and western Languedoc – at sites like Ensérune or Béziers – may have very well been quite different from what the archaeological evidence indicates for Lattara, given that farther to the west there is more archaeological evidence for political centralization and hierarchical institutions during the late Iron Age.16 At the same time, certain trends evident at Lattara may very well have correlates more generally across Gaul. As mentioned in Chapter 3, more diachronic studies of the changes in domestic architecture and social organization from the Iron Age to the Roman period are arguably needed, especially regarding the residences of the less powerful or wealthy. In general, however, while it is clear that wealthy houses in Roman Gaul often drew heavily on local traditions while incorporating new building techniques – rather than simply emulating a “Roman” house – overall, it seems to be the case throughout Roman Gaul that the physical architecture of the house played a far greater role in social differentiation – both within a house and between houses – than any Iron Age house ever did.17 At the same time, in other areas of social life, such as economic exchanges, it is quite probable that a monetization of the economy was often less pronounced in other areas of Gaul than what we observe at Lattara, depending upon factors such as local taxation. Somewhat related to this point, it is lastly important to point out that Lattara – and Roman Mediterranean Gaul more generally – can offer an important perspective on Roman colonialism in part because Roman rule here seems to have ultimately had a more direct – and often severe – impact on social life than in many other areas of the western provinces. Certainly, the Roman conquest occurred quite early here and there appears to have been far more instances of centuriation and settlement by Roman or Italic colonists in Gallia Narbonensis than elsewhere in Gaul.18 Throughout the western Roman Empire, what the conquered provinces had in common was the fact that Rome established control over these territories through violent conquest – with “pacification” often taking decades or longer – followed by attempts to varying degrees at controlling and exploiting local peoples through taxation and other policies – a series of historical processes that I have referred to comparatively as colonialism. While violence was a constant in all cases of colonialism, the actual policies and practices of Roman rule varied considerably based upon local circumstances. The local actions and motivations of individuals and communities within these conquered provinces thus presumably created divergent and distinct forms of local identity and social relationships evident in the archaeological record. To cite briefly one last example, in the northwest corner of the Iberian Peninsula (modern Galicia, Asturias, and Cantabria in Spain, along with northern Portugal) the first Roman invasion occurred under Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus in 137 BC but the region was never fully pacified until the rule of Caesar Augustus at the end of the

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first century BC. Perhaps due in part to the remoteness of the region compared with Mediterranean Gaul, the first century AD in the northwestern Iberian peninsula in contrast witnessed the fluorescence of the regional “Castro Culture” that continued in a much more unbroken way from the earlier Iron Age.19 During the period when we see important social transformations at Lattara in the first century AD, sites like the castro at Santa Trega (today near the town of A Guarda in Galicia, Spain) seemingly exhibit much more evidence for a much greater contuinity in social life within the community than what we see at Lattara (Fig. 8.1), illustrating how the commonality of the Roman conquest could nevertheless engender quite different local responses.20 In all of this, hopefully this book above all will prove to be an important point of reference for more detailed and intensive comparisons of different sites across the provinces of the Roman Empire – in order to analyze more fully the local actions and responses of conquered peoples – and perhaps more generally, provide as well an important point of comparison with other instances of colonialism across time and space. Ultimately, in so much as archaeologists construct various understandings of the past which are inextricably rooted in modern webs of meaning, any analysis of the past will in some sense always be incomplete, and we can never really exhaust

Fig. 8.1: View of the castro at Santa Trega (Galicia, Spain), which was primarily occupied from the late first century BC to the middle of the first century AD, showing clusters of traditional houses (photo: author).

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our interpretation of it.21 This is particularly true for an issue as complex as Roman colonialism, in which different individuals must have experienced colonial rule in a myriad of diverse ways. With the decline in the paradigm of Romanization, Roman archaeology has seen a plethora of different approaches for understanding social and cultural transformations in the provinces – post-colonial approaches, identity, globalization, and so on – but it would perhaps be misleading to somehow insist that there is one interpretative framework that can get us to the “true” or “real” understanding of life in the provinces.22 Telling the story of the experiences of those who lived and died under Roman rule at a settlement like Lattara will always be inherently interpretative, and will also ultimately be forever incomplete in nature. In this book, then, I hope to have demonstrated the efficacy of one specific approach to understanding the Roman world – and larger comparative issues of colonialism as well – in analyzing the interplay of agency, structure, and colonialism as it unfolded in the social lives of those living under three centuries of Roman rule at ancient Lattara.

Notes

1 From the English translation by Joan Pinkham, Césaire 2000, 33–34. For the original French, see Césaire 2004, 10. 2 See Vial 2003, 207. 3 See Piqués and Buxó 2005. 4 Py 2009, 173–174. 5 See Py 2009, 174. 6 Raynaud 2019, 255–259. 7 Claude Raynaud (2019, 255) suggests a level of “competition” amongst cities throughout the first and second centuries AD as an important factor. 8 In regard to political unrest, it is interesting to the cite the example of Anagia (Nages), farther to the interior, which had been abandoned in the early Roman period but was briefly reoccupied in the mid-third century AD. At this time, the local inhabitants in the countryside apparently took advantage of the oppidum’s ancient ramparts and commanding heights for temporary protection (see Py 2015, 232–238). 9 Barruol and Raynaud 2002; Garnotel et al. 2019. 10 Vial 2003. 11 See again Barruol 1988, 8–10. 12 Barruol 1988, 10; Vial 2003, 215. 13 See, for example, Victor Turner’s (1968) famous work Schism and Continuity in an African Society: A Study of Ndembu Village Life, which provides a detailed study of the vicissitudes and intricacies of social life in a Ndembu community. In fact, the title of this book is a conscious nod to Turner’s work. 14 For relatively recent important publications, see, for example, De Chazelles et al. 2013; Thollard and Christol 2010. 15 A recent study, for example, suggests that the clearly favored political status of Samnaga may have been due to a possible early acquiescence and cooperation with the Roman conquerors (De Chazelles et al. 2013, 148–149). 16 For example, during the second and first centuries BC, the indigenous oppidum of Baeterrae (Béziers, in the Hérault valley) minted a series of coins with a legend in Greek characters containing a Celtic proper name, presumably that of a leader or magistrate, followed by the Greek title ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ (“king”) (Py 2012, 277).

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17 To cite two important examples, see the early Roman-style houses built at Bibracte (Burgundy, France) from the late first century BC (Paunier and Luginbühl 2004) and the large longhouse built at Rijswijk (Netherlands) in the third century AD (Bloemers 1978). 18 Greg Woolf (1998) originally made this important observation. 19 As especially evident at sites like the castros of Santa Trega and San Cibrán de Lás in the modern region of Galicia and the castro of Citânia de Briteiros in Portugal. For a general overview, see, for example, De la Peña Santos 2005; Rodríguez Corral 2009. 20 For an overview of the site of Santa Trega, see De la Peña Santos 2001. 21 See Geertz 1973, 29, “Cultural analysis is intrinsically incomplete. And, worse than that, the more deeply it goes the less complete it is.” 22 Again, see Geertz 1973, 28–29 and his discussion that in regard to anthropological interpretation, it is ultimately “turtles all the way down.”

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Index Abianus/Abianius (Celtic divinity), 171 Adam Smith, 4, 120 aes alienum, (see also “debt”) 137 agency, 3, 4, 5, 86, 182, 231 agriculture, 93, 96, 97, 138 agricultural surpluses, 86, 88, 92, 96, 113, 136, 180, 181, 185, 187, 188 as a source of wealth, 128, 138, 185, 187, 188, 202 intensification of agricultural production, 57, 85, 90, 93, 98, 100 storage of, 51, 57–60, 67, 70, 73, 75, 92–94, 96, 99, 100–102, 104, 115, 125, 186, 187 Aix-en-Provence, 28, 31 Allobroges, 31, 32, 35, 36, 38, 108, 137, 183 Ambrussum, 71, 73–77, 79, 107, 132, 133, 159, 171, 184, 193, 194, 204, 205, 208, 216 coinage minted at, 184 lower settlement, 71, 74, 107 necropolis, 193, 194 oppidum of, 71 Sector 4, House A, 74, 77, 159, 171 Sector 9, 74, 75, 77, 204 amphorae, 14, 21, 22, 25, 27, 28, 30, 60, 65, 85, 86, 100, 103, 104, 106, 121, 129, 153, 189–191, 198 Etruscan amphorae, 22, 27, 28, 153 Gallic amphorae, 85, 86, 103, 104 Italic amphorae, 22, 65, 189 Massaliote amphorae, 30, 153 Anagia (les Castels, Nages-et-Solorgues), 28, 89, 98, 108, 157 ancestors, 50, 147, 155, 166, 202 Arausio (Orange), 39, 106 archaeological excavations, 3, 13, 14, 27, 53, 57, 71, 90, 98, 104, 131, 132, 160, 162, 186, 215 archaeological survey, 89, 90, 98, 186 preventive archaeology, 89, 90, 98 aristocracy, 180, 181, 185, 186, 194, 208 definition of, 181 artisan workshops, 49, 67, 69, 71, 102, 104, 131–133, 139–141, 203, 215

Arverni, 31, 32 Avennio (Avignon), 201 Baeterrae (Béziers), 39, 219 bakery, 102–104, 112, 131, 132 Bantu Kavirondo (Kenya), 187 barbarians (Roman discourse), 10, 11, 41, 42, 97, 110, 172 Bards, 155, 157 black gloss ceramics (see also “Campanian ware”), 30, 60, 96, 164, 189, 190, 191, 192, 196, 197, 199 bread, 93, 94, 103, 112, 119–121, 134, 139, 140 bread ovens, 93, 103 bridewealth, 127, 143 Bronze Age, 25, 26, 51, 57, 67, 90, 149, 153, 186, 187, 188 chronology for, 25 burials (see also “tombs”), 34, 192, 194, 196, 197, 199, 207, 209 differences in wealth, 192–194, 196–199, 206–207 gender distinctions, 192–194 Iron Age burials, 90, 147, 192–194 perinatal burials, 55, 78, 100, 111, 149–150, 159 Roman period burials, 162–164, 202, 203, 206, 218 status distinctions, 193, 197 Caesar Augustus, 12, 39, 40, 108, 157, 172, 201, 229 Augustan reforms, 40, 174, 200 Campanian ware (see also “black gloss ceramics”), 189, 191, 196, 197 capitalism, 7, 121, 129, 140, 141, 181, 183 Castro Culture, 220 Catalonia (Catalunya), 13, 25, 85, 125, 126, 148 Cave of the Madeleine, 153, 166 Celts, 10, 11, 12, 22–24, 33–37, 40, 41, 42, 50, 77, 79, 100, 107–109, 120, 137, 140, 147, 155, 165, 167, 183, 184, 199, 201, 202, 217 ancient names for, 12, 22–24

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“Celtoscepticism”, 24 Celtic personal names, 40, 63, 147, 160, 161, 165 Roman views of the Celts, 10, 41 Celtic language, 10, 23, 157, 165, 166 disappearance of, 166 modern examples of, 23 Celtic religion, 150–151, 155 centuriation, 36, 78, 79, 105–107, 109, 112, 172, 201, 202, 218, 219 at Orange (Arausio), 106 at Lattara, 36, 106, 107, 109, 218 dates for, 107 Sextantio-Ambrussum, 107 ceramics, 14, 27, 71, 77, 90, 94, 100, 103, 104, 147, 189, 190, 195, 199, 215 imported finewares, 14, 189, 190, 199 non-wheel thrown wares, 94, 95, 195 pottery workshops, 103, 104, 189 tablewares, 27, 85, 96, 129, 188 wheel thrown communal wares, 100, 103, 104, 106 Christianity, 166, 216 arrival of in Mediterranean Gaul, 216 Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero), 11, 33, 35, 36, 37, 40, 41, 42, 105, 107, 108, 137, 138 citizens, 32, 36, 39–42, 108, 165, 166, 172, 199, 200 citizenship, 39, 40, 41, 108, 109, 199, 200, 202 awarding to loyal Celts, 40, 109, 199, 202 civis romanus (see also “citizens”), 40, 199 civitas (civitates), 11, 40, 159, 167, 173, 200, 202, 209, 218 class, 65, 77, 86–88, 93, 113, 114, 141, 181, 185– 187, 189, 190, 192–194, 197, 199–203, 205, 206, 208, 209, 218 class relations, 87, 88, 113, 114, 141, 201, 203, 209, 218 class society, 86–88, 113, 192 definition of, 88 coins, 28, 29, 39, 96, 112, 119–141, 157, 184, 195, 217, 218 and ritual practices, 127, 133, 157 archaeological context of, 122–127, 132, 136, 139, 141 as (denomination), 139, 153 bronze denominations, 119, 121, 122, 125, 131, 132, 135, 136, 139, 218 drachma, 121, 122, 125, 184 minted at Ambrussum, 184

minted at Nemausus, 29, 39, 131, 184 function, 127, 129, 130, 131, 139, 140, 195 hoards, 123–126, 131, 132, 195 in the Greco-Roman world, 120, 138, 139 lost as stay finds, 123, 124, 132, 136, 141 Massaliote denominations, 121, 125, 131, 132 monnaie à la croix, 122, 125, 126 obol, 121–127, 129, 130 Roman coins, 122, 132 collegium, 169–171, 202, 208 colonialism, 2, 4, 6–10, 21, 25, 28, 41, 43, 85, 87, 113, 147, 182, 217, 219, 220, 221 archaeology of, 2, 8, 9, 50 comparative studies, 6–9, 219 definition of, 9–10, 21 modern colonialism, 4, 7–10, 41, 136, 164, 166 Roman colonialism, 15, 28, 43, 76, 86, 88, 105, 119, 120, 199, 217–221 conscription, 21, 42, 43, 79, 110 consumption, 4, 50, 60, 86, 103, 164, 188, 189 consumption studies, 4, 85, 86 Cosa (Italy), 64, 65 countryside, 34, 69, 75, 78, 88, 89, 90, 95, 97, 98, 101, 105–107, 109, 113, 153, 166, 171, 181, 185, 186, 192, 194, 195, 200, 208, 215–217 Iron Age occupation, 89, 90, 186, 192 religious practices in the, 153, 166, 171 Roman-period occupation, 78, 97, 98, 101, 105–107, 113, 208 cubicula, 69, 73, 75 cultural exchange, 21, 172, 215, 217 distinct from colonialism, 215, 217 debt (see also aes alienum), 112, 119–121, 130, 134, 136, 137, 140, 141 decuriones, 201, 208 Dependency Theory, 4 Diodorus Siculus, 23, 31, 33, 37, 151, 155, 183 discourse, 7, 8, 41–42, 172 dolium (dolia), 57, 58, 92, 98, 100, 102, 104, 151 domestic rituals, 78, 79, 127, 147, 159, 160, 166, 174, 203 decorated hearths, 55–57, 60, 148, 150 perinatal burials, 55, 78, 100, 111, 149–150, 159 votive offerings, 55, 133, 148–150, 154, 157, 159, 166, 167, 174 dominium, 109 domus, 37, 49, 69, 76

Index as a social unit, 49, 76 Druids, 151, 155–157 economy, 85, 86, 93, 101, 102, 113, 119–121, 128, 134, 136–138, 140, 141, 182, 185, 199, 218, 219 “human economies”, 121, 128, 190 economic growth, 86, 105, 119 monetized economy, 119–121, 134, 136, 137, 140, 182, 199 egalitarian, 181, 182, 187, 195 elite estates, 90, 92, 185, 186, 211 lack of evidence for, 90, 186, 211 elites, 39, 40, 179, 180 problem with the term, 179 Emporion, 25, 125 Ensérune, 57, 219 enslavement, 42, 43, 79, 217 enslaved workers (see also “slaves” and “servi”), 34, 37, 42, 50, 73, 76, 86, 88, 99, 108–111, 113, 138, 140, 202, 204, 208 Entremont, 28, 31, 33, 37, 89, 148, 153 equites, 35, 201 Étang du Méjean, 14, 30, 90 ethnicity (see “race and ethnicity”) ethnography/ethnographic observations, 10, 96, 136, 140, 141, 165, 180, 182, 183, 187, 188, 190, 195 ethnographic comparisons, 136, 140, 141, 182, 183 Etruscans, 1, 3, 21, 25–28, 50, 172, 218 Etruscan amphorae, 22, 27, 28, 153 Etruscan bronze disks and basins, 154, 192, 193 fabri, 111, 113, 140, 170, 202, 208 familia, 138 fanum, 157, 158 feasting, 60, 96, 130, 180, 187–189, 194–199, 202 archaeological evidence for, 188 ethnographic comparisons, 187 political importance of, 188, 194 fibula (fibulae), 141, 154, 189, 192, 193, 195 fortifications, 26, 27, 71, 89, 98, 216, 218 Gailhan, 51 Galátai, 22–24, 29 Galicia, 219, 220 Galli, 22, 24 Gallia, 12, 22, 24 Cisalpina, Gallia, 32, 40, 138

243 Narbonensis, Gallia, 12, 23, 40, 105, 106, 108, 112, 172, 200, 201, 205, 209, 216, 219 Transalpina, Gallia, 12, 32, 33, 35–40, 136, 137 Gallo-Greek inscriptions, 23, 63, 160, 169 Gauls (see also “Celts”), 22, 24, 31, 33–38, 41, 141, 156 garum, 2 gender, 77, 97, 160, 192, 193 Glanum, 37, 148, 154, 157, 208 globalization, 9, 221 grain levies, 21, 42, 79, 217, 218 grinding mill (stone), 53, 67, 93, 94, 102, 103, 140 Groupe archéologique Painlevé (GAP), 13, 27, 103, 132, 158, 160, 162, 171 Hannibal, 29, 30, 183 Hellenization, 2 Heraklean Way, 30, 32 heterarchy, 195, 209 hierarchy, 5, 10, 64, 65, 76, 77, 139, 181, 187, 192, 194, 195, 201, 203, 205, 206, 208, 209, 218 Hispania, 5, 38 Citerior, Hispania, 32, 33, 126 houses, 2, 26, 27, 49–79, 86, 93, 96, 100, 108, 110, 123, 127, 136, 148–151, 159, 181, 186, 187, 190, 192, 194, 195, 198, 202–206, 208, 215, 217, 218, 219, 220 as indicators of social hierarchy, 76–77, 187, 208 Bronze Age houses, 51 building materials, 27, 49, 50, 53 cooking activities, 51, 67 “courtyard blocks”, 58–60, 69, 71 courtyard houses, 2, 49, 50, 57, 58, 67, 69, 71–78, 133, 157, 159, 171, 204, 208, 217 definition of house, 50 destruction of elongated blocks, 67–69, 108 differences in size and decoration, 65, 76–77, 186, 187, 195, 202–205, 208, 218, 219 elongated blocks, 49, 54, 56–58, 60, 67–69, 86, 93, 96 functional division of space, 51–54, 69, 73–75 symbolic division of space, 51–53 household (see also, “kinship”), 2, 50, 51–54, 60, 64, 68–70, 75, 76, 78, 92, 93, 96, 103, 112, 128, 138, 147–151, 204 definition of, 50 humanitas, 10, 11, 166

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Iberian Peninsula (see also “Hispania”), 32, 97, 219 northwestern Iberian Peninsula, 219, 220 Iberians, 23 identity, 2–5, 25, 77, 78, 85, 147, 159–162, 165, 174, 219, 221 Illanua, daughter of Adgonnetus, 160–165, 174 Illanua, freed by Tertullia, 110 imperator, 33 imperial cult, 69, 170–174, 202 imperium, 33, 107 inscriptions (see also, “Gallo-Greek inscriptions” and “tombstones”), 13, 22, 23, 38, 40, 63, 109–111, 113, 129, 130, 139, 140, 147, 154, 157, 158–161, 165, 169–171, 173, 184, 200–203, 206 interpretatio romana, 171 interpretation (in archaeological theory), 7, 8, 183, 221 Iron Age, 12, 23–30, 40, 49–51, 57, 60, 63, 64, 67, 69–76, 85, 86, 88–95, 97, 98, 100–104, 111, 113, 140, 147, 148, 150, 153–156, 162, 164–167, 173, 179, 180–188, 190, 192–196, 203, 205, 206, 208, 216, 219, 220 chronology, 12, 25 Iron Age political organization, 29, 184 Iron Age societies, 97, 180–185 Italy, 12, 25, 29, 30, 32, 33, 37, 38, 40, 97, 104, 105, 108, 138, 163, 183, 189 Italic settlers, 36, 40, 41, 106–109, 172, 219 Julius Caesar, 23, 26, 30, 34, 38, 39, 40, 107, 108, 150, 151, 156, 184, 199, 201 Keltoí, 12, 22–24, 29 kinship, 50, 54, 55, 63, 64, 67, 76, 78, 96, 109, 183, 194 kinship mode of production, 96 lineages, 93, 183, 190 nuclear family, 50, 51, 55, 57, 58, 69, 76 patronymic naming system, 63, 160 political importance of, 55 La Céreirède (Lattes), 194, 196, 197, 199 La Cloche (oppidum), 38 La Cougourlude, Iron Age settlement, 27, 50, 79, 90 La Cougourlude, Roman villa, 100, 208 La Gardiole, 89, 90 La Graufesenque, 104, 162

La Source (Nîmes), 173 La Vineuse, 98 lagoon, 14, 27, 30, 39, 88, 89, 99, 100, 166, 216 land seizures (see also “centuriation”), 42, 79, 120 landscapes (see “countryside”) Languedoc, 12, 33, 76, 151 eastern Languedoc, 23, 29, 32, 34, 35, 37, 38, 51, 64, 71, 76, 89, 107, 108, 122, 131, 148, 150, 154, 156, 173, 174, 183, 184, 189, 194–196, 199, 200, 201, 208 western Languedoc, 23, 30, 32, 37, 51, 57, 122, 125, 126, 219 Laouret à Floure, 51, 52, 57 Late Bronze Age IIIb, 26, 51 Latin Colony (colonia latina), 39, 64, 65, 157 Latin Oppidum (oppidum latinum), 200, 201, 218 Latin Right (ius latinum), 39, 107, 157, 158, 199–201, 208 Latin language, 10–12, 22, 24, 25, 35, 147, 165, 167, 171, 172 dominant position in colonial society, 165, 166 Latin inscriptions on tombstones, 147, 160–161 Latin names on tombstones, 40, 108, 165 Lattara, 1–6, 12, 23, 26–30, 32, 35, 36, 38–40, 64–67, 215, 217–218 abandonment of settlement, 15, 215–217 domestic space (see “houses”) excavations of the settlement, 13–14 fortifications, 14, 15, 26, 27, 50, 66, 67, 103, 216 history of settlement, 13–15, 26–28 identity as Lattarenses, 159, 216 political status, 29, 30, 38, 39 port, 14, 15, 27, 104 presence of foreign merchants, 14, 27, 129–130 ramparts (see “fortifications”) Roman-period necropolis, 40–42, 160–166, 169, 206–208 size of settlement, 27 trade at settlement, 25, 27, 28 Trench S14, 71, 77, 159, 204 Trench S15, 71, 159 Trench S19, 103, 203 Trench S26, 70, 71, 77, 132, 158, 159, 204 urban organization, 26–28, 64–67 Zone 1, 52–57

Index Zone 5, 103, 104, 112 Zone 52, 58, 61, 69, 71 Zone 60-north, 132, 135, 158 Zone 60-south, 68, 69, 73 Zone 75, 103, 112 Lattes (modern town), 13, 194, 216 Le Cailar, 143, 153 le Midi, 1 Les Pins, hot springs at, 153, 154, 166, 171 Lez River, 14, 88, 89, 107, 160, 169, 171, 215, 216 Ligurians, 23 Lironde River, 89 Lunel-Viel, 77, 78, 200, 204, 205 Maguelone, 159, 166–168, 216 maison à cours (see also “courtyard houses” and “courtyard blocks” under “houses”), 51, 58 Maison Carrée (Nîmes), 69, 173 Marcus Fonteius (governor of Gallia Transalpina), 35–37, 41, 42, 69, 107, 108, 137 markets, 4, 103, 112, 121, 128, 129, 136, 139, 141 Marseille (see “Massalia”) Mars (Roman divinity), 32, 158, 169, 202 Mas de Causse (ritual site), 153, 154, 193 Massalia (Marseille), 21, 23, 25, 27, 29–32, 38, 64, 104, 107, 110, 121–123, 125, 129–131, 184, 190, 196 Mediterranean France, 1, 12, 22–24, 25, 76, 167, 180 Mediterranean Gaul, 12, 22–24 geographical extent, 12, 22, 23 elevation to senatorial status, 4, 40, 108 merchants, 3, 14, 21–27, 30, 36, 37, 50, 92, 93, 96, 108, 120, 129, 130, 136, 138, 172, 184, 188, 195, 218 Mercury (Roman divinity), 2, 169–172 metallurgy, 94, 103, 127, 131, 140, 141 metalsmiths, 94, 95 mode of production, 87, 96, 113, 120, 181, 185 change with Roman conquest, 113 definition of, 87, 88 domestic mode of production, 96 kinship mode of production (see “domestic mode of production”) money, 35, 120, 121, 124, 127–129, 136–141, 147, 171, 172, 180, 187, 199, 201–203, 206, 208, 217 and debt, 119, 120, 136, 137 as a means of exchange, 121, 133 as a social payment, 120, 121, 127, 129, 130

245 as a system of credit, 130 colonial demands for money, 35, 136–137 definition of money, 121 economic theories on its origin, 120 ethnographic examples, 128–129, 136–137 general purpose money, 121, 127, 128, 136, 138–140, 180, 201, 202 in early medieval Ireland, 127–128 limited purpose money, 121 Montpellier, 13, 90, 107, 206, 216 mosaic, 70, 71, 99, 203–205 Narbo Martius (Narbonne), 12, 32, 36, 39, 40, 77, 78, 104, 108, 172, 205, 209 necropolis, 40–42, 108, 110, 147, 150, 159, 160–165, 169, 192–194, 206–208 Nemausus (Nîmes), 29, 38–40, 69, 77, 107, 122, 131, 153, 154, 157, 159, 167, 169, 170, 173, 174, 184, 197, 200, 202, 205, 209, 218 neo-colonialism, 4, 7, 10 Neolithic, 51, 90, 149, 153, 186 Occitan, 12, 76 Occitanie, 12, 13 Octavian (see also “Caesar Augustus”), 12, 39 olive oil, 2, 85, 112, 121, 129, 139 Olynthus (Greece), 64, 65 oppidum (oppida), 25, 26–29, 31, 32, 38, 39, 69, 71, 76, 89, 98, 107, 108, 131, 153, 154, 171, 173, 183–186, 193, 194, 199–201, 208, 216 monumental architecture, 64, 148, 157 political organization, 29, 184 urban organization, 25–26, 64–67 palace economies, 93, 186 pater familias, 138 Pech Maho, 30 Pérols, 89, 90, 100 Pic Saint-Loup, 153, 154, 166 plebs media, 208 Pliny the Elder, 38, 39, 89, 167, 208 Polybius, 29, 32, 33, 183 Pompeii, 77, 103, 124, 139 Pompey (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus), 35, 37, 38, 40, 42, 107, 109, 136, 202 Pomponius Mela, 13, 30 Poseidonios of Apameia, 10, 23, 37, 97, 110, 151, 155, 157, 183, 188, 195, 200 post-colonial theory, 6–9, 221 post-structural analysis, 4, 86

246

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power, 3–6, 9, 21, 41, 87, 147, 156, 165, 179–182, 184–186, 194–195, 200–202, 209, 217–219 asymmetrical relations of power, 4, 9, 21, 179 definition of power, 181 during the Iron Age, 180, 181, 184–186, 194–195 during the Roman period, 200–202 non-Western notions of power, 181–182 Prades, Henri, 13, 103 praetor Volcarum, 184, 201 prejudice, 10, 41 prestige goods, 128, 129, 136, 180, 187–192, 194, 199 distribution at Lattara, 189–192 proconsul, 31–33, 37 Pro Fonteio (“In Defense of Fonteius”), 35, 41 Pro Quinctio (“In Defense of Quinctius”), 36–37, 108, 140 property, 36, 37, 88, 96, 97, 108, 109, 130, 138, 193 communal ownership of land, 96–97 Iron Age notions, 97 private property, 96, 97 Roman notions, 97, 109 propraetor, 33, 35, 37 Provence, 12, 21, 23, 30, 106, 108, 202 western Provence, 23, 30–32, 34, 37, 63, 64, 89, 148, 154, 157 provincia, 12, 33 public cult (Roman legal definition), 167–168 public monuments, 64, 67, 148, 154, 156, 157, 172–174, 218 Publius Quinctius, 36, 37, 108, 140 quattouviri, 200 Quintus Frontonius Secundus, 200 race and ethnicity, 10–11, 41 rank society (typology of Morton Fried), 195, 209 rebellion (see “revolts”) reincarnation, 141, 147, 151, 155, 162 religion, 147, 150, 151, 155, 158, 164, 172, 173 Celtic divinities (see also “Abianus” and “Sucellus”), 150, 171, 173 religious beliefs, 28, 148, 150, 153, 155, 160, 166 religious practices, 24, 127, 148, 155, 158, 164, 166, 167, 172, 174, 208

Roman divinities (see also “Mars” and “Mercury”), 147, 158, 167 resistance, 4, 8, 9, 35, 38, 140, 141, 158, 164–165 revolts, 1, 4, 32–34, 37–39, 42, 107, 137, 157, 174, 184, 196, 197 Rhône River, 12, 23, 25, 29, 31, 33, 63, 89, 183 ritual enclosures, 132, 135, 158, 195 Roman conquest, 3, 4, 8–10, 12, 21, 30, 34, 42, 43, 217–219 of Mediterranean Gaul, 30–32 of northwestern Iberian Peninsula, 219 of Temperate Gaul, 34 Romanization, 2, 6, 221 Roman Empire, 1–3, 6–10, 12, 41, 50, 86, 100, 104, 136, 165, 186, 216, 218–219 Roman Republic, 12, 33, 196 Roman Senate, 12, 30, 32, 33, 37 Romans, 1, 2, 10–12, 22–24, 32–34, 36, 41, 42, 105, 109, 120, 137–139, 140, 157 Roman army, 21, 31, 33–35, 37, 40, 42, 79, 108, 109, 186 Roman attitudes toward Celts, 10, 11, 41, 172 Roman citizenship (see “citizens” and “citizenship”) Roman colonialism, 15, 28, 43, 76, 86, 88, 105, 119, 120, 199, 217–221 Roman colonies, 12, 32, 36, 39, 78, 106–108 Roman colonists (coloni), 9, 34, 36, 40–42, 106–109, 138, 165, 172, 184, 199, 219 Roman religion (see “religion”) trinomina naming system, 100, 110, 165–166, 202 Roquepertuse, 30, 64, 148, 153 Ruscino, 51 Saint-Pierre (Lattes), 192–193 Saint-Blaise (oppidum), 31 Sallèles-d’Aude, 78, 104 Salluvii/Salyes, 30–32, 37, 157 Samnaga (le Castellas at Murviel-lesMontpellier), 171, 216, 218 Santa Trega (A Guarda, Galicia), 220 schola, 169–172 Second Punic War, 30, 32 senatorial order, 201 Septimania, kingdom of, 12 Sertorius, 33, 37, 202 sesterces, 138, 201

Index sevir augustalis, 169, 170, 173, 174, 202 Sextantio (Castelnau-le-Lez), 29, 89, 107, 171, 203, 216 skeletons, 111, 149 slaves (servi) (see also “enslavement”), 31, 34, 36, 37, 43, 73, 128, 138, 171, 185, 201–204, 208 freed slaves, 171, 202 Soreich (Lattes), 100, 109, 208 Spain (see “Hispania” and “Iberians Peninsula”) spheres of exchange, 128–129, 134, 136, 137 starvation, 35, 128, 136 status (see also “class,” “citizenship,” and “gender”), 10, 40, 41, 150, 151, 165, 172, 181, 194, 197, 201–204, 206 age status, 150, 151 peregrini, 40, 41, 165, 199, 200 Roman citizen (see “citizens”) Strabo, 10, 23, 25, 33, 37, 39, 97, 110, 155, 183, 195, 200 stratified society (typology of Morton Fried), 181, 209 structure, 3–5, 86, 87, 217 subaltern, 8, 165 subsistence goods, 112, 121, 127–129, 134, 136, 140, 187 Sucellus (Celtic divinity), 73, 77, 154, 171 tablinum, 73, 77 Tacitus, 34, 43 tavern, 102–105, 112 taxation, 4, 42, 86, 119, 120, 136, 137, 140, 217, 219 temples (see also “fanum”), 2, 37, 56, 64, 69, 147, 148, 157, 169, 171, 173, 174 tenant farmers, 86, 201, 202, 208 terra sigillata, 2, 77, 85, 104, 162–165, 206 Titus Eppillius Astrapton, 169–174, 202 Tiv (central Nigeria), 96, 128, 136, 182, 190 Tolosa (Toulouse), 37, 122 tombs (see “burials”) tombstones, 40, 41, 147, 157, 160–162, 163, 200, 206, 208 Celtic names on tombstones, 40, 63, 160 differences in quality, 206 half-circle motif on tombstones, 161–162 Latin inscriptions on tombstones, 147, 160–161 Latin names on tombstones, 40, 108, 161, 165, 200, 206

247 Toutomotulus, king, 31 trade, 14, 15, 21, 22, 25–28, 37, 85, 93, 96, 104, 129, 172, 185, 196, 202, 215 triclinium, 205 Trogus, Gnaeus Pompeius, 202 Ugernum (Beaucaire), 197, 211 urban space, 27, 49, 64–65, 67, 68, 110, 138, 217 utricularii, 111–113, 140, 170, 202, 208 Valeria Moderata, 206 Valerius Maximus, 141, 151 Vates, 155, 157 Vergobretus, 184, 201 Via Domitia, 32, 33, 38, 89, 107, 110, 171 Vidourle River, 71, 107 villa, 86, 87, 91, 92, 98–101, 109, 113, 165, 186, 204, 208, 216, 217 Villa Loupian, 75, 99–103, 110, 204, 205, 208, 216 viniculture, 85, 98, 113, 184, 217 for export, 98, 101, 103 violence, 4, 5, 8–10, 30, 32–35, 38, 42, 43, 78, 134, 165, 196, 217, 219 as inherent to colonialism, 9 Visigoths, 12 viticulture, 89, 138 Volcae, 29, 30, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 86, 97, 107, 174, 184, 196, 197, 200, 201, 218 as a general term, 29, 35 Volcae Arecomici, 29, 30, 35, 37, 38, 40, 97, 107, 174, 184, 196, 200, 201, 218 Volcae Tectosages, 37 wage labor, 86, 109–111, 111–114, 119, 120, 136, 137, 140, 201, 208 as an historical development, 113–114 relation with debt, 112 warfare, 30–35, 38, 39, 183, 196 warrior tombs, 34, 195–197 wine (see also “amphorae” and “viniculture”), 21, 25, 27, 28, 30, 60, 85, 93, 98–101, 103, 104, 112, 121, 129, 130, 139, 164, 184, 188–189, 192, 196 consumption, 60, 164, 188–189, 196 wine trade, 25, 28, 30, 93, 100, 121, 129, 130, 184 women, 97, 110, 111, 150, 159, 160, 182, 193, 194 World Systems Theory, 4