The Topographical Evolution of the City of Paris 
PLAN OF THE AMPHITHEATER OF LUTECE 
From “ Les Ar'enes de Lutece ”— Normand 
The shaded portions indicate walls found in 1870-71, the black 
portions walls still standing. The area above the line ABC exca 
vated in 1870-71 and occupied by the Depot des Omnibus. The area 
below the line A B C is the present Square des Arenes. 
of the brook called Bievre to Arcueil, where 
it crossed the valley by a double arcade 
which has given its name to the suburb. 
Passing into the city nearly in the course of 
the Orleans road, it entered the palace on 
the northern side. Traces are found in the 
ruins of the Thermes. Remains of the Ro¬ 
man arches may still be seen at Arcueil and 
at various points on the route. In building 
his aqueduct for the Palais du Luxembourg 
early in the seventeenth century, Salomon 
de Brosse followed closely the line of the 
Roman work. 
On the He de la Cite many remains ot 
Roman civilization have been found. In 
1848, in the court of the Sainte-Chapelle at 
the Palais de Justice, foundations were dis¬ 
covered which are supposed to have be¬ 
longed to a public building, the first of the 
series of palaces which have stood in that 
region. The arrangement of substructures 
of houses found on the sites of the Marche 
aux Fleurs, the Hotel-Dieu, and the Parvis 
Notre-Dame indicate that a large area in the 
center of the island was devoted to a market 
or forum. In 1711, during excavations in 
the choir of Notre-Dame, there were discov¬ 
ered in an old wall fragments of sculpture 
and an inscription which came from a large 
altar dedicated to Jupiter by the Nautae 
Parisiaci in the reign of Tiberius (Emperor 
14—37). Revolutionary Paris has had a 
church at that point or near it ever since. 
The altar of the Nautae doubtless took the 
place of some Druidical shrine. 
The first enceinte , or surrounding wall, en¬ 
countered in the history of Paris was built 
in 406, around the He de la Cite. Some of 
the material was taken from the amphithe¬ 
ater which will be described below. 
There were temples to Mercury and Ju¬ 
piter on Montmartre, a temple to Diana on 
the site of the Church of Saint-Etienne du 
Mont, a temple to Bacchus on the site of 
the Church of Saint-Benoit, a temple to 
Ceres on the site of the Church of Notre- 
Dame des Champs, and villas and cemeteries 
in various places. In the reign of the Em¬ 
peror Postumus (251-267) the first market 
was opened on the site of the Halles Cen¬ 
trales. 
During all the early history of Paris there 
was a region on the eastern slope of the hill 
of Sainte-Genevieve which was called by the 
people Clos des Ar'enes. Old writers, like Fe- 
libien and Jaillot, recognize it by that name, 
and students of Parisian topography gen¬ 
erally believed that somewhere in that neigh¬ 
borhood there lay buried the remains of a 
Roman amphitheater or arena. It was hardly 
possible that a city as important as Lutetia 
should not have provided some large place 
for public amusement, and such a building is 
often mentioned vaguely by ancient authors. 
Julian himself speaks of the “theater” of 
the Parisii in the Misopogon (written in 
the year 358). In 1870, when cutting the 
Rue Monge between the Rues du Cardinal 
Lemoine and Lacepede and in excavating 
for a depot des omnibus , portions of this 
monument were discovered under an accu¬ 
mulation of fifteen to twenty meters of 
earth. About one-half of the amphitheater 
was excavated at that time and photographs 
and drawings were made; but owing largely 
to the approach of the Franco-Prussian war 
it was impossible to interest the government 
of Napoleon 111 . in any scheme for its pres¬ 
ervation. The excavations were abandoned 
58 
