Saintes
During the Gallic period, Saintes was a territory on which a Gallic people called the Santons lived and Mediolanum developed. The city erected on the banks of the Charente, at the end of Via Agrippa, which connected Lyon to Aquitania, became an important administrative centre. Back then, the ancient Mediolanum was endowed with a series of monuments worthy of a great capital, testifying to the Roman’s desire to mark their hold on the city. The developing city also bore witness to the exchange of ways of life between the Gauls and the Romans.
Mediolanum was the first historic capital of Aquitaine Gaul, one of the three major regions of Gaul conquered by Caesar.
Some of the edifices that have been preserved – in particular the Amphitheatre and arch of Germanicus – are among the principal witnesses of Gallo-Roman antiquity in western France.
