But is perhaps best known in late antiquity for its role in early Christianity. In 290-291, two emperors, Diocletian and Maximian, chosen Milan as a site of their conference, and the latter built a great palace complex in the city. Milan remained a site of prominence in imperial Rome. The Romans, led by Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus, according to Polybius's " Histories," took the area over in the 220s B.C., dubbing it "Mediolanum." Writes Strabo, "The Insubri still exist their metropolis is Mediolanum, which formerly was a village, (for they all dwelt in villages,) but is now a considerable city, beyond the Po, and almost touching the Alps." Livy chronicles its legendary founding by two men named Bellovesus and Segovesus. Francesco Hayez/Mondadori Portfolio/Contributor/Getty ImagesĪncient Celts, specifically the tribe of the Insubres, first settled the area of Milan. Ambrose of Milan refuses Theodosius entry to a chapel after he massacred his citizens. In the political vacuum left behind, some say a leader rose up to take control - King Arthur. Often, enslaved people were also traded.Įventually, the imperial control over the extensive Roman provinces grew tenuous enough that Rome withdrew its military presence from Britain in the early fifth century A.D. Travelers came from all over the empire to trade goods, like olive oil and wine, in exchange for British-made items like wool. Designed as a Roman town, complete with a forum and bathhouses, Londinium even boasted a Mithraeum, an underground temple to the soldiers' god Mithras, lord over a mystery cult. Over the next several centuries, Londinium became the most prominent city in Roman Britain. Interestingly, archaeologists have found burned layers of the city dating to that time, corroborating the supposition that London was burned to a crisp in that era. Before her rebellion was quashed, Boudicca reportedly killed "about seventy thousand citizens and allies," he claims. Upon hearing this, the provincial governor, Suetonius, "marched amidst a hostile population to Londinium, which, though undistinguished by the name of a colony, was much frequented by a number of merchants and trading vessels," says Tacitus in his Annals. But, only a decade or so later, the British warrior queen Boudicca rose up against her Roman overlords in 60-61 A.D. The famed city, once known as Londinium, was founded after Claudius invaded the island in the 40s A.D. Franz Cumont/Wikimedia Commons Public Domain But, by the time Emperor Julian visited Lutetia in the fourth century A.D., it wasn't a bustling metropolis like the one we know today.Ī marble bas relief of Mithras found in London. The Romans ended up adding typically Roman features, like bathhouses, to the city. Ammianus Marcellinus says, "The Marne and the Seine, rivers of identical size they flow through the district of Lyons, and after encircling in the manner of an island a stronghold of the Parisii called Lutetia, they unite in one channel, and flowing on together pour into the sea…"īefore the advent of Rome, the Parisii traded with other neighboring groups and dominated the Seine River in the process they even mapped the area and minted coins. Under the command of Julius Caesar in the 50s B.C., the Romans swept into Gaul and took Parisii land, including Lutetia, which would become Paris. Caesar even writes in his Gallic Warsthat he used Lutetia as the site for a council of Gallic tribes. Caesar's second-in-command, Labienus, once took on some Belgian tribes near Lutetia, where he subdued them. Writes Strabo in his " Geography," "The Parisii dwell along the river Seine, and inhabit an island formed by the river their city is Lucotocia," or Lutetia. Jbribeiro1/Wikimedia Commons Public Domainīeneath Paris lie the remains of a city originally built by a Celtic tribe, the Parisii, who lived there by the time the Romans swept through Gaul and brutally conquered its peoples.