political, legal, and economic power to sustain the settlement
once it was established. Caesar refers to t he “tribes” of Gau l as
civitates, a word best translated as “states,” and he talks about
ways in which the states held meetings to govern their aff airs
(for example, the senatus of the Aedui or the popular gather-
ings of the Treveri), the election of magistrates (such as the
elected chief magistrate of the Aedui), and the collection of
taxes (for instance, the auctioning of the right to gather tolls
from the traders among the Aedui).
Th e reasons for this abrupt change in settlement pattern,
from open to defensive positions, is not clear, especially in
central Europe, where we have no information on events from
the written sources for the early second century when the op-
pida were founded. Th e dates for southern Germany, Switzer-
land, and France of around 120 b.c.e., however, correspond
closely to the Roman invasion of southern Gaul in 125–123
b.c.e. and the defeat of the Arverni. With the collapse of the
major coalition, there may have been a power vacuum that
led to confl ict by new competing powers. By the time Caesar
arrived 60 years later, although the Arverni were still a major
force, they had been eclipsed by the Aedui based in Burgundy
and the Sequani to the east in the Franche Comté.
Not all of the oppida succeeded; some sites were founded
and their defenses constructed, but we have little evidence for
much occupation of them. In some areas, especially in west-
ern France, oppida were not established at all, even in places
where we have evidence for major open settlements. So the
pattern is not uniform.
Within the oppida there was considerable diff erence in
the types of houses, indicating that the population covered
the whole range of the society. At the top of the hierarchy were
fenced enclosures containing a number of buildings, some of
which seem to have been for agricultural purposes (stables,
barns, and granaries) and others for industrial activities such
as iron- and bronzeworking, coin production, as though some
aspects of production were under close elite control. At Mont
Beuvray one or two of these enclosures evolved, fi rst into large
timber houses and then, aft er the Roman conquest, into luxu-
rious stone houses with courtyards, mosaic pavements, heat-
ing systems, and elaborate painted walls, comparable to the
best Mediterranean houses. Th ese were clearly the residences
of the aristocrats who formed the leading groups within the
oligarchic states that Caesar describes.
Th ere are also industrial areas with small buildings
such as those along the main street at Manching. Th e best
preserved are those excavated at Mont Beuvray, initially
built in timber but again, aft er the conquest, reconstruct-
ed in stone, indicative of an independent and increasingly
wealthy artisan class. At Mont Beuvray the houses seem to
have been of two stories, with double rooms on the ground
fl oor, one of which was devoted to industry (the casting of
brooches, forging of iron tools and weapons, production of
glass ornaments, objects with enamel inlay, and so on). It
is less easy to identify public areas such as market squares.
Some of the sites had temples, but temples are more a char-
acteristic of the countryside in Gaul, where sanctuaries that
were to continue into the Roman period started appearing
from the fourth century onward.
Although many of these sites evolved into permanent
settlements, in some areas they were inhabited for only a
generation or two. Th is is most clear in the Aisne Valley in
northern France and in the Auvergne, where we can iden-
tify series of sites, one succeeding the other; in the Auvergne
parts of the earlier sites did continue to be occupied. Th e large
open settlement at Aulnat was completely abandoned at the
end of the second century b.c.e. in favor of a hilltop site at
Corent, centered on a religious enclosure. Although the tem-
ple remained in use, the majority of the population moved
to a more low-lying site at Gondole overlooking the river Al-
lier, and this, too, had a ritual area just outside the defenses,
where pits containing skeletons of men and horses have been
uncovered. By the time Caesar arrived, the center of popu-
lation was on a nearby hilltop, the site of Gergovia, which
he besieged unsuccessfully. Th is site, too, was abandoned a
couple of generations aft er the conquest in favor of the nearby
town of Augustonemetum, though the temple site continued
in use. Clearly the shift ing of the town required considerable
expense and resources, and the reasons for these shift s are
unclear. It was more common for the sites, once founded, to
continue in use, and many Roman towns in Gaul, both pro-
vincial capitals and smaller centers, are now known to have
pre-Roman origins.OTHER AREAS
Th e coastal areas of southern France and eastern and south-
ern Spain had been subject to colonization fi rst by the Phoe-
nicians (for example, at Cadiz, though some settlements were
little more than small intermediary trading centers with
few urban characteristics) and then from 600 b.c.e. by the
Greeks, most notably at Massalia (Marseilles) and Emporion
and Rhode (Ampurias and Rosas, in northwestern Spain)
which in their turn established their own colonies. Th e model
for all these sites was the “city-state” controlling only a small
amount of territory and mainly reliant on the sea for its ex-
ternal contacts.
Th ese sites were certainly one factor that led to urbaniza-
tion among the native peoples labeled as Ligurians and Iberi-
ans; a plethora of defended sites developed in the hinterlands
of foreign colonies as well as along the river Guadalquivir in
central southern Spain, though they certainly were not set up
in the image of the Greek sites. Th ey were mainly defended
sites on hilltops surrounded by impressive drystone walls
with projecting towers to allow cross fi re, as at Entremont in
Provence. However, certainly in southern France, the inter-
nal structure was very diff erent from the colonial sites—lack-
ing, for instance, the massive public buildings and temples
that dominated Greek cities.
Th e road system, oft en rectilinear, was designed to give
access to blocks of houses that were generally ver y uniform in
plan, with rarely more than a couple of rooms on the groundcities: Europe 221