Les résultats des fouilles de ces trente dernières années et les programmes de recherches en cours permettent aujourd’hui de restituer les grandes étapes de l’évolution de Reims/Durocortorum (Marne) et les grandes lignes du tissu urbain, aussi bien dans le cœur historique de la ville que dans les quartiers excentrés ayant alimenté les dernières grandes avancées archéologiques notables. La ville du Haut-Empire conserve le centre hérité de l’oppidum et s’étend de manière concentrique jusqu’à atteindre une superficie de 600 ha à l’intérieur d’un grand fossé d’enceinte creusé sous Auguste. La nouvelle organisation urbaine se développe rapidement sous les règnes d’Auguste, Tibère et Claude, et ne changera quasiment pas jusqu’à la construction de l’enceinte tardive, confirmant ainsi la pérennité et la cohérence de ce vaste plan d’urbanisme. La démarche adoptée dans cet article consiste à faire un bilan des connaissances acquises sur l’organisation spatiale de l’agglomération, avec les hypothèses en vigueur et en les enrichissant des pistes de recherche les plus récentes.
The results of the last thirty years of excavations, as well as the research programs currently underway, allow us to reconstruct the major evolutionary phases of Reims/Durocortorum (Marne), including the overarching structure of the urban fabric, both in the historical heart of the city and in the outlying districts, which have provided the most recent and major archaeological advances. This article adopts an approach designed to assess the current state of acquired knowledge and developed hypotheses relative to the spatial organization of the city, enriching both with the most recent research developments. In the 1st c. BC, Reims occupied a nearly central position within the territory controlled by the Remi. Though initially open, the city was transformed around 80-70 BC into an oppidum of 80 ha. At the end of the Gallic War, following the Remi decision to opt for Roman rule, placing themselves under its protection and power, Caesar promoted Reims to the status of a federated city. Only a little while later, during the Augustan era, it was chosen as the capital of Belgian Gaul. Subsequently, and despite having preserved the center inherited from the oppidum, the city was entirely redesigned, its plan restructured according to a vast orthonormal system, its streets dividing different sectors into island like concentrations of various sizes. Due to demographic pressure, economic growth, as well as to increase its prestige, Reims reached the impressive size of 600 hectares, making it the largest city in Roman Gaul and one of the most important in the Roman Empire. City officials undertook the construction of attributes worthy of a Roman provincial capital: a powerful city wall, remarkable monumental decorations, large public spaces devoted to civic and economic life, circulation routes, water supply and drainage networks, etc. The new urban organization would not change significantly until the later construction of the fortified wall, which served to confirm the durability and coherence of this vast city plan. An initial urban grid was established towards the end of the 1st c. BC, first inside the oppidum, which continued to exert a determining influence on the city’s structure. At the end of the reign of Augustus and especially during the reign of Tiberius, the urban grid would begin to be structured around, and then secured durably, within the essential part of the great enclosure’s urbanized space. The original urban center, which corresponds to the ancient oppidum, appears to have been transferred to the domus, while the other two types of occupations, residential and modest, were located outside, intermingled, to a greater or lesser extent, with spaces dedicated to craft or commercial activities. Construction of the important ensembles of monumental decoration can be dated between the 1st c. AD and the beginning of the 3rd c. AD. Their evolution varies according to their topographical situation within the ancient city, as well as their distance from the center. Some portions of large ancient buildings are still visible within the landscape today (the Mars Gate, cryptoporticus, and bathhouses). The existence of others was revealed thanks to ancient documentation, as well as through the results of recent excavations (e.g.: the amphitheater). The latter, however, are generally poorly understood and only located in an imprecise manner. The existence or whereabouts of many monuments remains speculative. The northern periphery of the city during the Early Empire occupies a very particular place in this case, as it contained at least two temples, as well as the amphitheater. The reorganization of the Empire begun under Diocletian resulted in the transfer of the provincial capital of Gaul-Belgium to Trier. It continued under the reign of Constantine with a new division of the provinces: Reims became the capital of Belgica Secunda and subsequently became a dependent of Trier, the imperial prefecture and seat of the diocese of Gaul. The construction of a new wall in the 4th c. was accompanied by a tightening of the urban base, drawing toward the center of the city, reducing the latter to 55 ha, thus representing only 10% of the totality of the Augustan city. Although most of the urbanized area between the two ancient enclosures was gradually abandoned in the second half of the 3rd c., at the end of Antiquity a few extra-mural sites were still being renovated, and even housed new activities. These activities were unrelated to demolition, the recovery of building materials, or new constructions, similarly to the excavations of the boulevard Dr. Henri-Henrot and the tramway, the two emblematic urban operations of the last fifteen years in Reims.
