Autun, France

With its Gothic spire rising against a backdrop of Morvan hills, AUTUN, even today, is scarcely bigger than the circumference of its medieval walls, which follow the line of earlier Roman fortifications. The emperor Augustus founded the town in about 10 BC as part of a massive and, in the long term, highly successful campaign to pacify and Romanize the brooding Celts of defeated Vercingétorix. Augustodunum, as it was called, was designed to eclipse by its splendour the memory of Bibracte, the neighbouring capital of the powerful tribe of the Aedui. And it did indeed become one of the leading cities of Roman Gaul. More