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Cryptoporticus of Reims
About
Workers cut a U-shaped underground gallery beneath Durocortorum's forum around the turn of the 2nd century CE, its two long arms each running 60 meters and its northern arm 100 meters, all vaulted and once covered in painted plaster. Recent archaeomagnetic testing of the brickwork dates construction to roughly 90-100 CE, so it had already been supporting the forum square above for close to two decades when Trajan died in 117 CE. It survived intact because later residents repurposed it for storage instead of tearing it apart for stone.
What happened here
Business starts at first light. The magistrates' tribunal opens, cases are called, and the crowd that gathers to listen is half the point of coming. Money-changers work from tables under the porticoes, weighing coin from a dozen mints against the local rate. Notices are painted on the walls and whitewashed over when they go stale: elections, gladiator shows, a lost slave, a house to let. By the sixth hour the heat empties the open square and the arcades fill instead. Statues of the town's benefactors stand between the columns, and the men who paid for them expect to be greeted by name. Public slaves sweep at dusk. The forum is where a Roman town keeps its records, its gossip and its self-regard in the same place.
Sources
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Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →