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The Ruin at Thésée

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

R. M. Butler
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Extract

The aim of this note is to bring to the attention of English readers a Roman building of large size, whose impressive ruins are well preserved, but whose purpose is uncertain and existence little known.

The Roman road from Tours to Bourges ran along the north bank of the river Cher and for much of its length is followed by the modern N76. Two settlements or posting-stations lying on this road and marked on the Peutinger map under the names Gabris and Tasciaca can be located at the villages of Giévres and Thésée respectively. At this latter place, otherwise called Thézée or Tézée, 31 miles east of Tours, the main road, following the course of the Roman route, runs close beside the river, with the railway line separating them and low, bare hills rising immediately to the north. The towns of Montrichard to the west and St. Aignan on the east are respectively 4 and 5 miles away, and the village lies in the Loir-et-Cher département.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 29 , Issue 114 , June 1955 , pp. 102 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1955

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References

1 The first publication was by A. de Caumont in Cours d’Archéologie monumentale, III, 1838, 134 ff. and Atlas du Cours, PI. XXXVIII. There are accounts based on De Caumont in L. Saussaye. Mémoire sur les autiquités de la Sologne blesoise. Blois, 1844, 21, and in Bulletin Monumental, 1864, 165 ff. C. Roach Smith’s description in Collectanea Antiqua, IV, London, 1857, I ff., appears to be independent, and is illustrated by the best of the early drawings of the site. When compared with photographs, however, these are seen to be inexact in details. Grenier’s account in Manuel d’Archéologie gallo-romaine, 11, Paris, 1934, 205 ff., is based on De Caumont, strangely ignoring the best publication of all, that by Lesueur in Bulletin Monumental, LXXXVI, 1927, 129 ff. The plan illustrating the present article follows Lesueur’s for the main block, but the dimensions of the vanished courtyard walls, taken from De Caumont, may not be completely accurate. The photographs were taken by the writer, who examined the ruins in September, 1953.

2 See Grenier. Manuel, II, 814 and figs. 275-9 and 291-3 where plans are given of a type of villa with a central hall, wings, and a portico, showing some resemblances in plan and restored elevation to the Thésée building, though on a much smaller scale.

3 For Martigny see F. Staehelin, Die Schweiz in Römischer Zeit, 3rd ed., Basle, 1948, 159 ff. and 618 ff.; for Alesia see J. Toutain, Pro Alesia, v, 49 ff.

4 K. Kenyon, Excavations at the Jewry Wall Site. Leicester. Oxford, 1948,19 ff.

5 H. Biévelet, Gallia 1, 1943, 159 ff.; v, 1948, 301 ff.