Cabillonum
- a considerable town of the Aedui in Gallia Lugdunensis, now Chalons sur Saône, Caes. B. G. 7, 42; 7, 90.
- —Hence, Căbillōnen-sis, e, adj., of or belonging to Cabillonum: portus, Eum. Pan. Const. 18.
CABILLO´NUM or CABALLINUM, with other varieties. Coins of this place, with the epigraph Caballo, are mentioned. Strabo (p. 192) has Καβυλλῖνον (Eth. Cabellinensis : Châlon-sur-Saône), a town of the Aedui, on the west bank of the Arar (Saône), which in Caesar's time (B. G. 7.42) was a place which Roman negotiators visited or resided at. At the close of the campaign against Vercingetorix (B.C. 52), Q. Cicero, the brother of the orator, wintered here. The Antonine Itin. places it 33 M. P. or 22 Gallic leagues from Autun. Ammianus (15.11) mentions this place, under the name Cabillonus, as one of the chief places of Lugdunensis Prima; and from the Notitia Imp, it appears that the Romans kept a fleet of some description here.
[G.L]The modern Châlon-sur-Saône; a town of the Aedui on the Arar (Saône) in Gallia Lugdunensis.
On the left bank of the Saône, 140 km N of Lugdunum (Lyon) and the Rhone-Saône confluence. The chief port of the civitas of the Aedui before the Roman Conquest, it had economic importance: 24,000 amphorae found on the site of the Roman port, a large number of bronze and silver bowls, lead ingots from Britain. In the 6th c. A.D. it was one of the principal cities of the Burgundian kingdom and minted its own coins.
The mediaeval and modern city retains the plan of the Roman one, which has never been excavated to any significant degree. The existence of an amphitheater, attested in the 18th c., is still hypothetical. Some oak posts with iron tips, from the foundations of the Roman bridge, were discovered in the Saône in 1950. Only a few traces remain of the castrum, which was built at the beginning of the 4th c. A.D. The city wall, backed by the Saône, is semicircular in shape and 1300 m long, enclosing an area of ca. 15 ha. It was defended by 18 towers and had three gates. Interspersed in the courses of masonry, which are 3.5 m thick and made of large blocks, are many remains, for example, the dedication offered to the goddess Sauconna (the Saône) by the inhabitants of the city.
BIBLIOGRAPHYJ. Dechelette, La collection Millon (1913) MPI; L. Armand-Calliat, Le Chalonnais gallo-romain (1937) MPI; id., Musée de Chalon, catalogue des collections archéologiques (1950) I; id., “Le pont romain de Chalon,” Soc. Hist. et Archéologie 33 (1952) I.
L. BONNAMOUR