The Maison Carrée, a pseudo-peripteral temple
The Maison Carrée is a hexastyle Corinthian temple: six columns on the front. It is called pseudo-peripteral because its side and rear columns are engaged in the wall of the cella instead of standing free. In all, thirty columns 9 metres tall surround it. The temple stands on a podium 2.65 metres high, reached by fifteen steps. You first pass through the pronaos, a columned vestibule, before reaching the cella, 10.50 metres by 16, the sacred chamber, originally closed by a door almost seven metres high. The architrave is decorated with a frieze of scrolling foliage.
The Arènes: moving around without mixing
The amphitheatre measures 133.38 metres by 101.40, and its arena 69 metres by 38. The 21 metre façade lines up two levels of 60 arches. Inside, the cavea has 34 rows of tiered seating divided into four zones, the maeniana, separated by corridors and low walls. Seats followed social rank: notables at the bottom, the common people at the top. Vaulted galleries and staircases led each group to its zone through the vomitoria, without crossing the others. At the top of the façade, pierced stone brackets held the masts of the velum, a canvas stretched to shield the audience from the sun. Drainage holes in the tiers carried away the rain.
The aqueduct and the castellum
The aqueduct, about 50 kilometres long, ended at the castellum divisorium, on rue de la Lampèze. This circular basin almost 6 metres in diameter, originally covered, received the water and then distributed it through 10 openings of 40 centimetres, from which lead pipes ran to the different districts. At the bottom, three outlets fitted with bronze valves drained off the surplus. Discovered in 1844, it has been a listed historic monument since 1875.
The Augustan walls
Built under Augustus, in peacetime, the walls served mainly to display the city’s prestige. More than 6 kilometres long, they enclosed 220 hectares. The walls, almost 10 metres high and up to 3 metres thick, combined a base of medium and large dressed stones with a facing of pointed rubble stones over a core of infill. They had around 80 towers and about ten gates. The Porte d’Auguste, the Porte de France and the Tour Magne bear witness to them.
- Maison Carrée
- 2.65 m podium, 15 steps
- Arènes
- 34 rows of seating
- Arena floor
- 69 x 38 m
- Castellum
- 10 outlets of 40 cm
- Walls
- 220 ha, around 80 towers