Roman cadastral plans of Orange
The Roman cadastral plans of Orange are the only evidence of official land surveying from Roman antiquity. They are only preserved in fragments and were named after the place where they were found and kept, the city of Orange in France. Orange, called Arausio in ancient times, had been around since about 35 BC. A Roman colony in the province of Gallia Narbonensis .
Finds and dating
A first marble fragment was found in 1856, and two more in 1927 and 1929. In connection with construction work for a bank on Rue de la République, a good four hundred other fragments were discovered between 1949 and 1951, which, as it soon turned out, fall into three categories. The largest category consists of the fragments of three cadastral plans . For the sake of simplicity, these were called cadastral plans A, B and C, as they do not have any inscriptions that would allow an exact localization in the area. The names of the surveyors ( agrimensors ) are also not known. Cadastral plan B is the largest, it is around 5.9 meters high and 7.6 meters wide.
Second, at the same time as the fragments of the cadastral plans, an inscription was found, which is also only preserved in fragments and is translated as follows:
- «In the year of his eighth tribunician power (i.e. in 77), the emperor Vespasian ordered that the state lands given by Emperor Augustus to soldiers of the Second Gallic Legion and since then privately occupied by private individuals should be measured and recorded for the purpose of restitution, with an indication of the annual Rent per centurie . This work was carried out under the supervision of L. Valerius Ummidius Bassus, the proconsul of the province of Gallia Narbonensis. "
Based on this inscription, the cadastral plans are dated to the last quarter of the 1st century. However, it is unclear whether all three cadastral plans were created at the same time, as they have different dimensions and orientations. The cadastral plans could have been in use for a long time and were on public display.
In addition to the fragments of the cadastral plans and the inscription, a third number of inscribed stone slabs from the Roman archive (the so-called tabularium ) came to light. A longer inscription deals, for example, with tax revenues that were to be raised from renting a communal parcel to a private individual.
The fragments of the cadastral plans were painstakingly deciphered, put together like a puzzle and brought to the Museum of Art and History ( Musée d'Art et d'Histoire ) in Orange, which is located directly opposite the Roman theater. In 1962, when a floor collapsed in this museum, numerous fragments were damaged or even destroyed. The fragments that can still be used were reassembled on a wall in the largest room in the museum ( Salle des cadastres ), where they can still be viewed today.
Structure of the cadastral plans
All three cadastral plans from Orange are basically structured in the same way, but also show individual peculiarities. Since Cadastral Plan B is the largest and has the most significant fragments, the description in this chapter refers to it, unless expressly stated otherwise.
The surveyed area is divided by the two main roads that intersect at right angles, the kardo maximus and the decumanus maximus . Square areas, the so-called centuriae, nestle against it . A standard centurie has a side length of 2400 Roman feet . Depending on the assumed length of the Roman foot, the side length is between 707 and 711 meters (see also the table of Roman units of measurement ); for land register plan B, a side length of almost 710 meters or an area of 50.4 hectares per centurie is assumed. Deviating from this, the cadastral plan A shows rectangular centers of twice the size. Rivers and possibly paths running along them are recognizable at first glance, as they irregularly cut through the rectangular structure. The scale is approximately 1: 6000 and the cadastral plan is west-oriented (i.e. west is up). The orientation of land register plans A and C could differ from land register plan B, which cannot be clearly documented due to the lack of sufficiently well-preserved fragments.
Each centurie has at least one number and some additional inscriptions relating to the legal status. The numbering starts with the two main axes. For clarity, each number is preceded by a combination of letters that indicate whether the area is to the left or right of the decumanus and above or below the kardo:
- SD = sinistra decumani (left, here: south)
- DD = dextra decumani (right, here: north)
- VK = ultra cardinal (above, here: west)
- CK or KK = citra kardinem (below, here: east)
For example, the Centurie with the numbering DD IX KK XV is in 9th position to the right of the decumanus and in 15th position below the kardo. The number of Centuries shown and thus the extent of the cadastral plan is considerable. At least 27 centuries in height and at least 63 centuries in width can be recognized, which corresponds to an extension of the terrain from approx. 19.2 to 44.7 kilometers.
The legal status of the Centurie and the rent, if shares have been given to settlers at all, are indicated by further references in an abbreviated form. On the cadastral plan B about 245 centuria have such inscriptions. There are 200 iugeri or standard parcels per centurie . Admittedly, one iugerum per settler was often not enough, so that several parcels or shares had to be leased. However, not all of the 200 iugeri per centurie were allocated, so that, according to land registry plans , there was still plenty of undistributed land in state ownership. The following legal categories could be deciphered:
- EXTR = parcel assigned to new settlers
- REL COL = leased parcel with details of the annual rent and the name of the tenant (mostly of Roman origin, but Celtic and Greek names are also used)
- RP = public, non-leased land
- SUB = peripheral land, earmarked for later distribution
- TRIC RED = parcel returned to the indigenous Tricastines tribe
Represented area
There are various theories about the exact location of the three cadastral plans. Due to the change in the course of the Rhone and human interventions in the landscape, it is no longer possible to draw reliable conclusions about the area shown. A solution is made more difficult by the complete lack of toponyms on the three cadastral plans.
The location of the large cadastral plan B, which is to show the Rhône valley north of Orange towards Montélimar, is best accepted. Due to its respectable width, it also covers the adjacent hill country, which, however, according to general opinion, was never divided into parcels during the Roman period. However, since numerous Centuries are marked on the land registry plan B, but are not provided with details of the rent or ownership, this localization is not seriously questioned.
It is difficult to assign the location of land register plans A and C, which are much smaller and poorly preserved. Their location is more likely to be found in the south-west and south-east of Orange, as the north is adequately covered by the large cadastral plan B. But that's all that can be said with any degree of certainty. Since the localization of land register plans A and C is like a huge puzzle, not only scientists but also hobby researchers feel called upon to work out proposed solutions. For none of the extremely numerous interpretations are generally recognized arguments available so that all related papers must be read with great caution. The theory that the three land register plans are in nature at a certain distance and clear orientation to each other, which can be constructed with compasses and ruler, eludes final proof. A rather improbable assumption even puts the cadastral plans of Orange in the context of an actual large-scale triangulation along the Rhône. There is no evidence in the whole of the Roman Empire of such an undertaking.
meaning
The Roman cadastral plans of Orange are the only official plans of their kind that have survived. There are also some surviving Roman city maps, the most famous of which is the Forma Urbis Romae , but their scale and purpose were different. The discoveries of Orange promoted the modern understanding of the Roman surveying and the Gallo-Roman tax system and corroborated previously inconclusive findings. Together with the Corpus agrimensorum Romanorum , a collection of short texts on surveying from the 4th century, and a surveying instrument ( groma ) unearthed in Pompeii , one can imagine today what the cadastral surveying looked like in the Roman Empire.
Web links
- Les Cadastres d'Orange , suggested interpretation by Lionel R. Decramer, 2004–2005
literature
- André Piganiol : Les documents cadastraux de la colonie romaine d'Orange. Center national de la recherche scientifique, Paris 1962.
- Focke Tannen Hinrichs: The history of the gromatic institutions: Investigations on land distribution, land surveying, land management and land law in the Roman Empire. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1974, ISBN 3-515-01825-5 , pp. 136-146.
- Ursula Heimberg : Roman land surveying. Limitatio. ( Small writings on the knowledge of the Roman occupation history of Southwest Germany, No. 17). Stuttgart 1977, pp. 51-55.
- Rolando Bussi (ed.): Misurare la terra: centuriazione e coloni nel mondo romano. Panini, Modena 1983, pp. 240-249.
- O [swald] AW Dilke: Roman large-scale mapping in the early empire. In: JB Harley, David Woodward (Eds.): Cartography in the Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1987. ( The History of Cartography, Vol. 1), ISBN 0-226-31633-5 , pp. 212-233, spec. Pp. 220-225.