Short URL for this page:
bit.ly/HALRIV

[Much of my site will be useless to you if you've got the images turned off!]
mail:
Bill Thayer 		[Link to a series of help pages]
Help 		[Link to the next level up]
Up 		[Link to my homepage]
Home

The Romans on the Riviera
and the Rhone

A sketch of the Conquest
of Liguria and the Roman Province

by
W. H. (Bullock) Hall, F. R. G. S.
Corresponding member of the Literary and Scientific Societies of Nice and Draguignan, and of the Société Éduenne of Autun.

[A very detailed map of southern France extending West to East from about the middle of the Pyrenees to the Italian border and a bit beyond, and North to South from Chalon-sur‑Saône to the Mediterranean.]

The Riviera, Provence (Roman Province) & regions adjacent

The Author

William Henry Hall was born William Henry Bullock on April 5, 1837, and after attending Oxford and working for a living as a news reporter for a few years, inherited his uncle General John Hall's estate in 1872 and changed his name at that time. He died after a brief illness on April 21, 1904 on the Riviera at Valescure, now part of St‑Raphaël. A photograph of him late in life may be seen on a page devoted to St. George's Church at Six Mile Bottom, along with other information on his family and photographs of that church, built by his descendants in 1933. His obituary in The Athenaeum (No. 3992, April 30, 1904, p564) fills us in on some details:

We regret to notice the death in the Riviera of William Henry (Bullock) Hall, an excellent representative of the cultured English squire. Mr. Hall was at Rugby under Goulburn, and later at Balliol secured a first class in classical moderations in 1858. He was special correspondent of the Daily News throughout the Mexican troubles of 1864‑5, at Rome in 1866‑7, and in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. An excellent cricketer in his day and all-round sportsman, owner of, perhaps, the finest shooting in England at Six‑Mile Bottom, Newmarket, he took a wide interest in social questions, and also in literary and archaeological matters. At his house at Six‑Mile Bottom he entered many writers of repute, being an especial favourite with Jowett, while scholars of a much later time enjoyed the privilege of his ready interest and hospitality. Much of his time was spent in travel and unobtrusive philanthropy in London and in the various country places where he held property. His books include 'Polish Experiences, 1863‑4,' 'Across Mexico in 1864‑5,' 'Gleanings in Ireland after the Land Acts' (1883), and 'The Romans on the Riviera and the Rhone' (1898), the result of his archaeological studies in a favourite district.

The Book

The work is inscribed:

To my friend
Professor Ridgway
of the University of Cambridge
in grateful recognition of
assistance and encouragement
afforded throughout the composition
of this work

vii

Introductory

11

Hannibal in the Rhone Valley

14

Hannibal's Passage of the Alps

26

Invasions of Cisalpine Gaul and Liguria by Hasdrubal and Mago

40

The Ligurians

54

Campaigns in Eastern Liguria

70

Conquest of the Ingauni at Albium Ingaunorum (Albenga)

81

Conquest of Transalpine Liguria, South of the Durance

100

Campaigns to the North of the Durance

117

Marius and the Cimbro-Teuton Invasion

135

The Battle of Aquae Sextiae

147

The Roman Province from Marius to Julius Caesar

159

The Provincia Romana in relation to Caesar's Gallic and Civil Wars

182

Siege and Blockade of Marseilles

198

Events of the year following the Assassination of Julius Caesar

147

Meeting of Antony and Lepidus on the River Argens

234

Via Aurelia — Aurelia proper, Aemilia Scauri

250

Via Aurelia — Julia Augusta

270

Via Aurelia (continued) — Sections 4 and 5

285

 p. xi  List of Maps and Plans

The Riviera, Provence (Roman Province) & regions adjacent.

Frontispiece

The mouths of the Rhone.

10

Section of the Table of Peutinger.

13

Plan of Marseilles. Ancient and Modern.

140

Plan of Fréjus (Forum Julii). Ancient and Modern.

182

Other Illustrations
[This table is not in the printed book]

Roman aqueduct at Fréjus (Forum Julii)

viii

The Rhone, near Roquemaure where Hannibal crossed

23

Arles from the Rhone.

30

Pass of San Bernardo in the Apennines behind Albenga

40

Bas-reliefs found in ruins of Ligurian "oppidum," Entremont, environs of Aix-en‑Provence

53

Ancient wall and raised footway at Entremont

54

Gulf of Fréjus and valley of River Argens with view of Mont Roquebrune

87

Roman arch at Susa, erected by King Cottius in honour of Augustus.

92

Village of 'Fos' (Fossa Mariana) at mouth of Rhone

106

Mont Sainte-Victoire and environs of Aix-en‑Provence

115

Temple of Augustus and Livia at Vienne-en‑Dauphiné.

135

Roman bridge, on Via Julia Augusta, between Vado and Cadibona — the village seen through the arch.

154

Mediaeval bridge, repla­cing Roman Pons Argenteus.

160

Ponte Lungo near Albenga

174

Roman milestone in valley of Laghet, near Nice

177

❦

Technical Details

Edition Used

The edition transcribed here was a paperback reprint, Ares Publishers, Inc., Chicago, 1974: an "Unchanged Reprint of the Edition, London, 1898". Since the author of the book died in 1904, more than 70 years ago, the text is in the public domain.

The original edition is nominally online at Archive.Org: nominally, because the illustrations, both watercolors and photographs, are reduced to ghost images at best (mostly blanks), and the maps are somewhat unreadable.

[Similar photocopies of Hall's other books are also online at Archive.Org:

Across Mexico in 1864‑5

Polish Experiences: During the Insurrection of 1863‑4

Gleanings in Ireland after the Land Acts]

Illustrations

In the 1974 reprint edition the illustrations, all black-and‑white, are gathered on glossy pages at the end of the book. In the original edition, however, the various illustrations are interspersed thruout the text: and the maps were printed in color, and almost certainly the watercolor drawings as well. In this transcription, since I've seen the photocopy at Archive.Org but no physical exemplar of the original edition, I've been able to restore the placement of the illustrations, if sometimes moving them by a page or two better to accompany the text — but not the color of the drawings. For readability, I've colorized the maps and plans to my usual color scheme, except where the author indicated his own, which I've tried to restore as much as possible.

For citation and indexing purposes, the pagination is shown in the right margin of the text at the page turns (like at the end of this line); p57  these are also local anchors. Sticklers for total accuracy will of course find the anchor at its exact place in the sourcecode.

In addition, I've inserted a number of other local anchors: whatever links might be required to accommodate the author's own cross-references, as well as a few others for my own purposes. If in turn you have a website and would like to target a link to some specific passage of the text, please let me know: I'll be glad to insert a local anchor there as well.

Proofreading

As almost always, I retyped the text by hand rather than scanning it — not only to minimize errors prior to proofreading, but as an opportunity for me to become intimately familiar with the work, an exercise I heartily recommend: Qui scribit, bis legit. (Well-meaning attempts to get me to scan text, if success­ful, would merely turn me into some kind of machine: gambit declined.)

My transcription has been minutely proofread. In the table of contents above, the sections are shown on blue backgrounds, indicating that I believe the text of them to be completely errorfree. As elsewhere onsite, the header bar at the top of each chapter's webpage will remind you with the same color scheme.

The printed book was well proofread; the few typographical errors are marked, when important (or unavoidable because inside a link), with a bullet like this;º and when trivial, with a dotted underscore like this: as elsewhere on my site, glide your cursor over the bullet or the underscored words to read what was actually printed. Similarly, bullets before measurements provide conversions to metric, e.g., 10 miles.

A number of odd spellings, curious turns of phrase, etc. have been marked <!‑‑ sic  in the sourcecode, just to confirm that they were checked.

Any over­looked mistakes, please drop me a line, of course: especially if you have a copy of the printed book in front of you.

[A photograph of a well-preserved fully pedimented and roofed Roman temple, at the top of a short flight of steps. It has 5 Corinthian columns across the front and 6 down the side plus a pilaster with a small section of wall. The image serves as the icon on this site for 'The Romans on the Riviera and the Rhone' by W. H. Hall.]

The icon I use to indicate this subsite is a slightly colorized version of the black-and‑white photograph of the Temple of Augustus and Livia at Vienne included in the illustrations.

[Valid HTML 4.01.]

Site updated: 26 Aug 16

Accessibility