Le Rempart Romain

The first stage of the construction of a rampart at Forum Iulii dates back to the Augustan period (27 BC – 14 AD). But several phases of construction at different times were carried out.

The Roman wall (listed as a Historic Monument in 1886) was built in small regular sandstone blocks from the Esterel Massif. This wall enclosed an area of ​​approximately 35 hectares. This monumental rampart, 8 m high and 2,50 m wide, was pierced by 4 gates, corresponding to the ends of the cardo (North-South axis) and the decumanus (East-West axis) of the Roman city and ran for approximately 4 km.

Two gates have survived to this day, the gates of Rome to the East and of Gaul to the West. The Agachon gate to the North was destroyed in 1955. To the South, a vast sloping access gave onto the port, located below, and the Orée gate, which is not a city gate but a vestige of the second century thermal baths. These are contemporary names, the gates originally took the names of the towns closest to Forum Lulii: the West gate was then called Aquae Sextiae (Aix en Provence) and the East gate was that of Antipolis (Antibes). They could also take the name of the Roman road that passed below, here the Via Aurelia, which left Rome and crossed Fréjus.

The top of the rampart, in its north-eastern part, over 700 m in length, served as a base for the aqueduct bringing water from Mons to the city, in the second half of the 1st century.

The enclosure was then punctuated by several circular towers, spaced regularly, the remains of which can still be seen. The exterior facade of only one tower is still preserved, thus giving an idea of ​​the original height.

To the west of the Butte Saint-Antoine, the facing has disappeared in places, revealing empty semi-circular cells which served as internal buttresses to support the embankment of the mound, a technique found in Nîmes and Pompeii.

Quite regular in its layout and partly used as an aqueduct, the purely military role of such an enclosure does not therefore seem to be of primary importance. It was rather a question of demonstrating to the visitor the prestige of the city and of materializing the pomerium, the sacred limit of the city's territory in accordance with the legendary creation of Rome, referring to the legend of Romulus and Remus.