Roman history, history everywhere

Hello, hello...

After just a few days of full-on tourism, since leaving the vineyard in Beaujolais, I've seen a number of interesting sites.... and almost hit my saturation point on history for a while!

The Roman ruins in southern France really do intrigue me, however -- to be honest, while I knew vaguely about the province of Gaul, my last course in ancient Europe history was a long time ago and I can't say that I typically think of Roman history when I think of France -- more so, I think of wine, cheese, bread -- all of which seems quite accurate, too!

In any case, I did some good exploring in both Lyon and the town of Arles. It's very impressive to see the careful restoration and preservation work underway in both cities. In Lyon, I thought it was neat that the relics of the ampitheatre are basically an open park, so you can walk freely. There is a beautiful view down on the city, as the site is situated on a hill. But I was surprised to learn that the audience members in Roman times would not have shared the same view, since there was an elaborate backstage construction that would have taken up the space of my lovely view!

In Lyon

In Arles, the theatre dates to the 1st century before Jesus Christ, with construction of the town starting on the orders of Julius Caeser in 46 BCE and most of the construction taking place under his successor Augustus. The ampitheatre was built a bit later, but still a while ago -- starting in approx. 90 C.E. (AD). It housed gladiator fights with 20,000 spectators and has now been restored -- it houses bullfights now, which I have some concerns about!

The photos below are from Arles -- the first two, of the ampitheatre. You can see, if you look carefully, that there are modern metal bleachers supplementing the seating where reconstruction wasn't fully completed. The last photo is the theatre which is no longer used. Very little of the site was intact and less reconstruction has taken place. The pillars show where the backdrop/stage would have been -- as in Lyon, it was an elaborate construction, so no view from the seating through the backstage area! What intrigues me, too, is that there are layers of history over top of one another, so to speak, at each of these sites. In the "Middle ages" the sites were generally used for other purposes. In Arles, there was a residential area built up inside the ampitheatre, protected by its walls. Towers were added for military purposes. At other sites, church organizations reclaimed the sites. I've often heard conversations in Canada about how history is forgotten in North America while heritage is valorized in Europe -- there may be some truth to that, but there were obviously periods when history was not a major concern!  (Many of the reconstruction and archaeological efforts I've heard about began in the 1800s and certainly now, the tourist industry must be a significant motivating factor.