Arte - Narbonne The Second Rome (2020)

Did you know that Narbonne was once one of the most important cities in the Roman Empire? Recent discoveries and scientific breakthroughs shed light on the key role played by this flourishing city, which influenced the Mediterranean world for over three centuries. In Narbonne, in southwestern France, a team of researchers is exploring France's largest archaeological dig site to uncover the forgotten splendor of this small coastal town during antiquity. Colonized in the 2nd century BC, the Gallo-Roman Narbo Martius, in Aude, was the capital of a vast province of Occitania, Gallia Narbonensis. Its proximity to the Mediterranean, via the La Robine Canal, made it one of the most important hubs of maritime trade between Rome and its colonies, to the point that it was nicknamed “the second Rome”. Unlike in Arles and Nimes, which were much smaller towns, this presence has left few traces on the surface. But over the past twenty years, excavations undertaken in the heart and surroundings of the city have made it possible to exhume the remains of a capitol of monumental dimensions, an amphitheater and underground warehouses. In 2019, the discovery on its outskirts of a huge Roman necropolis mobilized the team of Inrap archaeologists led by Valerie Bel. The study of the 1,500 tombs it contains makes it possible to document the history of the inhabitants, their origins, but also their customs and their activities. At the same time, other construction sites revealed the remains of residential areas, wine farms, vast port facilities on the Port-la-Nautique site, as well as a luxurious imperial villa. What did Narbonne look like at the time of Roman colonization? Following Inrap teams on the ground, this documentary, supported by historians' insights and reconstructions in computer-generated images, brings to light the little-known history of a flourishing ancient metropolis which shined for more than three centuries on the Mediterranean world, and revives this golden age of Roman Gaul.

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