Nerac
Situated in the SW of the département on the Baïse, this territory in Celtic Gaul was included in the civitas of the Nitiobrigi. In the Roman period, there was probably no city there, or at most a Gaulish vicus.
Excavations carried out after 1832 brought to light a large ensemble of buildings grouped at the SE exit of the present agglomeration. The archaeological study was then disrupted and subsequently the site was reburied. Soundings and excavations in 1963, 1967, and 1970 have made rediscovery possible.
The ensemble is divided into two series of buildings. The first, running along the right bank of the Baïse, extends ca. 200 m into the public gardens of the Garenne and includes several blocks of buildings with various orientations: the first to the N consists of several rich chambers with mosaic pavements and marble revetments, niches, fountain, and reservoir pool; the second, behind it, is composed mainly of a 75 m long gallery running along the riverbank, provided with fountains and preceded by rectangular or octagonal rooms, equally richly decorated. These two blocks are themselves superimposed upon earlier buildings.
The second series is situated around the Nazareth road which crosses the slope overhanging the Garenne. It consists of an insula with facade ca. 80 m long. Its mosaics, found in 1970, fit a circular room with a great rosette formed by concentric wreaths of realistic vegetal motifs, and one of the great rectangular chambers with semicircular apse that frame it (the latter with half-rosette in the apse and squares with geometric motifs). To the W of these buildings the foundations continue, making a right-angled turn to the NE.
This complex seems to be the reconstruction on a larger area (which the excavations of 1967 have extended even farther NE) of an earlier edifice, itself already fairly luxurious, which may date from the 2d half of the 1st c. After having undergone numerous restorations, the whole building, in its most recent and luxurious state, seems to date from the end of the 3d and beginning of the 4th c., and was destroyed during the invasions of the 5th c.
The ensemble constituted a very rich Gallo-Roman villa, with the living areas in the upper section and the outbuildings running along the riverbank (private bath or nymphaeum, porticos, etc.).
At present only a few fragments of this important site are visible: a part of the mosaics under a niche, in the Garenne; another in the courtyard of a tavern on the Nazareth road, and numerous sculptural fragments and mosaics in the museum of Nérac.
BIBLIOGRAPHYF. Jouannet, Rapport fait à l'Académie Royale de Bordeaux sur Nérac et ses antiquités (1834) P; Y. Marcadal, “Les origines de Nérac,” Rev. de Nerac (1964) 2P; J. Coupry, “Informations arch. (Lot-et-Garonne),” Gallia 25 (1967) 2I.
M. KLEFSTAD-SILLONVILLE