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The Horreum of Narbonne
About
Five meters below Narbonne's streets, these vaulted stone galleries once stored the grain, oil, and goods that moved through Rome's first colony outside Italy. It's the only Roman-era structure still visible above ground level in the city, walkable today exactly as ancient dockworkers left it. By 117 CE it had already been in continuous use as a warehouse for roughly a century and a half.
What happened here
Rows of identical rooms off a central courtyard, with a wide gate, a weighing station and a guard. Floors are raised on low walls so air passes underneath and grain does not sweat. Space is rented by the room or the amphora, and the operator takes a fee for storage and another for security; valuables go into strongrooms with iron doors. Everything is inventoried by clerks who are usually slaves and who are very good at it. Grain, oil, wine, marble, salt fish, timber — most of it in transit rather than stored long. Rats, damp and fire are the constant enemies and there are contracts covering all three. Around the entrance, porters wait for work by the day.
In ancient writing
- Strabo, Geography 4.1.6
Calls Narbo (Narbonne) the emporium of all Gaul, surpassed by no other port in the volume of traffic it received.
Sources
Nearby
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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 →