Lugdunum (also spelled Lugudunum, ; modern Lyon, France) was an important Roman city in Gaul, established on the current site of Lyon. The Roman city was founded in 43 BC by Lucius Munatius Plancus, but continued an existing Gallic settlement with a likely population of several thousands. It served as the capital of the Roman province of Gallia Lugdunensis and was an important city in the western half of the Roman Empire for centuries. Two emperors, Claudius and Caracalla, were born in Lugdunum. In the period 69–192 AD, the city's population may have numbered 50,000 to 100,000, and possibly up to 200,000 inhabitants.
The original Roman city was situated west of the confluence of the Rhône and Saône, on the Fourvière heights. By the late centuries of the empire much of the population was located in the Saône River valley at the foot of Fourvière.
Name
The Roman city was founded as Colonia Copia Felix Munatia, a name invoking prosperity and the blessing of the gods. The city became increasingly referred to as Lugdunum (and occasionally Lugudunum) by the end of the 1st century AD. During the Middle Ages, Lugdunum was transformed to Lyon by natural sound change.
Lugdunum is a latinization of the Gaulish *Lugudunon, meaning "Fortress (or hill) of (the god) Lugus" or, alternately, "Fortress of the champion" (if *lugus is a common noun cognate with Old Irish lug "warrior, hero, fighter").
The Celtic god Lugus was apparently popular in Ireland and Britain as is found in medieval Irish literature as Lug(h) and in medieval Welsh literature as Lleu (also spelled Llew).
According to Pseudo-Plutarch, Lugdunum takes its name from an otherwise unattested Gaulish word lugos, that he says means "raven" (κόρακα), and the Gaulish word for an eminence or high ground (τόπον ἐξέχοντα), dunon.
An early interpretation of Gaulish Lugduno as meaning "Desired Mountain" is recorded in a gloss in the 9th-century Endlicher's Glossary, but this may in fact reflect a native Frankish speaker's folk-etymological attempt at linking the first element of the name, Lugu- (which, by the time this gloss was composed, would have been pronounced lu'u, the -g- having become silent) with the similar-sounding Germanic word for "love", *luβ.
Another early medieval folk-etymology of the name, found in gloss on the Latin poet Juvenal, connects the element Lugu- to the Latin word for "light", lux (luci- in compounds) and translates the name as "Shining Hill" (lucidus mons).
Pre-Roman settlements and the area before the founding of the city
Archeological evidence shows Lugdunum was a pre-Gallic settlement as far back as the neolithic era, and a Gallic settlement with continuous occupation from the 4th century BC, during the La Tène period. It was situated on the Fourvière heights above the Saône river. There was trade with Campania for ceramics and wine, and use of some Italic-style home furnishings before the Roman conquest.
The Romans controlled the southern portion of Gaul by the 2nd century BC, founding the province of Gallia Transalpina in 121 BC. Gaul was conquered for the Romans by Julius Caesar between 58 and 53 BC. His description of the country in his De Bello Gallico is our principal written source of knowledge for pre-Roman Gaul, but there is no specific mention of the area in or around Lugdunum.
Founding of the Roman city
Roman colonization of Lugdunum began during the War of Mutina, one of the conflicts that followed the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. According to the historian Cassius Dio, in 43 BC the Roman Senate ordered Munatius Plancus and Lepidus, governors of central and Transalpine Gaul respectively, to found a city for a group of Roman refugees who had been expelled from Vienne (a town about to the south) by the Allobroges and were encamped at the confluence of the Saône and Rhône rivers. Dio Cassius says this was to keep them from joining Mark Antony and bringing their armies into the developing conflict. Epigraphic evidence suggests Munatius Plancus was the principal founder of Lugdunum.
Lugdunum seems to have had a population of several thousand at the time of the Roman foundation. The citizens were administratively assigned to the Galerian tribe. The aqueduct of the Monts d'Or, completed around 20 BC, was the first of at least four aqueducts supplying water to the city.