The Role of Marseilles in Destroying the Gallic Tribes

     One of the interesting things about transitioning from being an armchair historian, where all my knowledge came from books, to doing research in the field is the ability to see very different types of patterns. While I knew intellectually before this trip that Marseilles facilitated the Roman intrusion into Gaul by requesting Roman aid in 123 BCE (one of a number of requests between the 150s and 120s to various powers), I had not realized the impact that Marseilles decision had on the people who stood in Rome's way. Since Roman tradition stipulated that Rome could only fight defensive wars, it relied on rather thin pretexts such as aiding allies to annex new territory. Marseilles request for help dealing with Gallic tribes threatening their trading hegemony provided such a pretext.

The ruins of a house at Entremont

     The impact of Rome's decision to attack these Gallic tribes is usually seen through the eyes of the Romans, both because they won and because they had the ability to record their successes in writing. By visiting the ruins of their main towns, Entremont and Glanum, I got a glimpse of the war through their eyes. Entremont was the main hill-top oppidum (town) of the Saluvii and it was completely destroyed in 122 by the Romans. The site now is just a series of less than knee-high walls, a few archaeological finds such as the series of carved heads representing the headhunting cult, and a lot of Roman lead "bullets." The Romans further facilitated the destruction of Entremont by constructing a new Roman colony, Aqua Sextiae (now Aix-en-Provence), at the bottom of the hill. The other main oppidum of the Saluvii, Glanum, was conquered at the same time, but that conquest had to be "reinforced" in the 90s and again in the 70s. The city was transformed first into a Hellenistic city, then a Roman one. Its ruins are therefore an eclectic mix of architectural types.

Looking down on the ruins of Glanum from the Belvedere

     What really captured my attention at these sites, beyond the excitement of traipsing across ruins, was the combined sense of pride and sadness in the written descriptions accompanying the ruins. Pride I expected, since southern France has some spectacular Roman ruins. The sadness was unexpected. There was a sense in the words that while the Roman conquest did France a great deal of good both in ancient times and in the modern tourist industry, it came at the expense of the indigenous tribes. The Roman conquest not only destroyed the Saluvii completely even before Caesar's entrance in the 50s BCE, but also destroyed the ability of the modern world to know much at all about these people. The descriptions thus attempt to honor the Romans and the Saluvii at the same time.  I also found it quite interesting that while the signs at the two conquered sites mentioned the role of Marseilles in the conquest, the museums in Marseilles seemed to downplay its role, highlighting its Greek past and its positive relationship with Rome.
     While I could read about the Saluvii and see pictures of the sites in books, I would not have noticed the emotional undertone of both the sites and the signs without visiting. My dissertation is essentially about the positive results of Roman conquest for Rome--the celebrations, the triumphal architecture, the luxury goods, etc.--but this trip definitely got me thinking about the negative results.