Roman City

The first recorded reference to the city is found in Roman general Julius Caesar’s commentary on the Gallic Wars, De Bello Gallico, written in probably 51 or 50 bc.

The work describes Caesar’s conquest of the city in 52.

In the early years of Roman occupation, the settlement, which the Romans named Lutetia, was contained on the Île de la Cité.

Its population traded up and down the Seine and coined its own gold currency.

A monument to the Roman god Jupiter, erected by a corporation of water merchants in the 1st century ad, stood at the site of the present cathedral of Notre Dame.

The monument, called Le Pillier des Nautes, is now on display at the National Museum of the Middle Ages at the Hôtel de Cluny.

The city grew quickly over the course of the 1st century ad, spreading to what is now the Latin Quarter on the Left Bank.

It became a substantial Roman city, with a forum, two amphitheaters, an aqueduct, and baths.

Some of these Roman structures still stand in the Left Bank, including baths, notably the Thermes de Cluny, and the remains of the Arènes de Lutèce, one of the amphitheaters.

In addition, the Left Bank’s grid of straight roads—characteristic of Roman city planning—remains, including the ancient city’s cardo (main north-south road), which is now Rue Saint-Jacques.

Lutetia reached its peak in the middle of the 2nd century, but by the end of the century a series of barbarian invasions began.

One such invasion destroyed the Left Bank in the middle of the 3rd century.

The city was reduced, once again, to the Île de la Cité, around which the inhabitants built a wall.

Christianity filtered into the region around this period, and Saint Denis was named the city’s first bishop in about 250.