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A stately neighborhood in Bibracte (basically a town still mostly in the Iron Age), 1st century A.D. Gaul. Julius Caesar stayed here during the winter of 52-51 B.C. and wrote his Commentaries on the Gallic War. Roman style chimneys still rare. Illustration by Jean-Claude Golvin.
The town was built inside a ring of typical celtic defenses, called oppidum, covering a total of 1.35 square kilometers, with a population of about 30 000. (a population density of about 22,200 persons per square km, about 10% denser than modern Paris, with only two floor homes.
"Central" Bibracte would have looked something like this, homes of extended families who relied on farming but had side incomes in refinement of food and other agricultural products, smithing, trade, etc. Here we have some tiled roofs, fashionable Roman columns, shade trees etc.
The elite, Roman or native, lived in large fashionable villas like this, with their staff of slaves or freedmen, families, retainers, etc. This villa for example covers around 3000 square meters and was probably self sufficient in most necessities, with farmland outside town.
The town got most of its water from ten springs which fed five municipal "fountains", several of which doubled as holy places worthy of pilgrimage and worship (parts of which survived into modern times), as well as more prosaic activities like laundry, washing fleeces, etc.
The Fontaine Saint Pierre, as imagined by Jean-Claude Golvin, still looks like pure magic. No wonder people worshiped here.
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